How to Speak Widda Dubbelin Accident

As forwarded to the Father Ted Mailing List by Fr. Peter Fitzpatrick; author unknown.
 

Introductory notes

Here follow some pointers to Dublin life for you culture vultures out there who wish to "get to know" Ireland a bit better. This is a highly personalised guide to the verbal life of de cappitel city of Ireland. It is divided into conveniently packaged parts for use on specific occasions and will be an invaluable asset for brits, merkins, foreigners in general, sundry culchies and posh people who wish to mingle. The lessons are nothing like complete guides and are mere tasters.

 

1) Surviving

Dublin is a tough city on the face of it. Most of the aggression is ritualistic and it is essential to know how to deal with basic street encounters. The streets are full of:

bowsies
hard chaws
hard men
hardos
gougers

and other miscellaneous tough types. These characters roam the streets looking for excitement and

throwing shapes.

It is essential not to stare at these gentlemen, especially if you have a non-Dubbelin accent. You must cultivate a vacant intense stare (looking straight ahead or at the ground) and a lumbering slouch and must respond

whah?
hoh?
nggggguh?

or any meaningless grunts that might imply mild intoxication and a mean/non-educated disposition if they say ANYTHING to you. NEVER LOOK THESE PEOPLE DIRECTLY IN THE EYE!!! (Unless you are a 7th dan hard man or greater). If you do, you will be assumed to want to challenge said individuals. They will be forced to confront you with:

- You lookin at me pal?

The answer to this is ALWAYS:

- Sorry.

followed by a hasty exit. If you respond:

- No

the gouger will be forced to respond

- You callin me a liar?

And you are then in deep shite (see later lesson for excretions and secretions). The only way out then is to pretend to be Danish. That will leave them baffled long enough for you to run like the jayzis.

 

2) School (pronounced Skyoowel and usually followed by a spit to the pavement)

Traditionally every male (female contributors may wish to add their own experiences) in the country went to one of two types of school:

a) comprehensives and fee paying schools (where you do things like art and learn languages and do exams and learn to be a better individual)

b) de brudders (also know as those ignorant fuckers or that crowd of bastards or The Christian Brothers). Here you learned about Irish history, Irish culture and how to avoid getting the shit kicked out of you by big men (usually not from Dublin) in dresses.

Here are some important phrases:

Mala scoile (pronounced mawlah skullya)	school bag
Sambos	sandwiches
Ekker or ekkers	homework
Mitching	going on the hop, playing truant
Snared	caught smoking cigarettes behind the bicycle shed
Snared rapid	caught shooting heroin
Grush	throwing sweets (or later, packets of heroin) into the air to see the mayhem as 30 kids dive on them all at once.
Beemer	a fast German car
Bleedin beemer	a very fast German car
De Hedder	school principal
Mill	a fight
Loosies	loose cigarettes (most kids could not afford entire packets so we would buy them loose from certain shops).

That is enough for now. I am too old to remember much more.

 

3) The pub

Dubliners are suspicious (of foreigners and culchies (see later) especially) and are constantly on the look out for being set up in conversation in the pub. They will constantly question the veracity of suspect statements with a contemptuous negation such as in the following scene:

Person1: Manchester United are tremendous.
Person2: They are in me arse.

The ARSE above can be replaced by any of the following, more or less freely:

bollix
granny
brown
hole

e.g. they are in me granny etc.

This can be abbreviated to just

me arse
or
me granny
or
me bollix
or
me brown

It must be said/spat out with the correct degree of contempt and disbelief.

Sobriety is a pityful affliction which will be remedied by copious quantities of miscellaneous stouts and lagers. There are numerous names for this, most of which are also used elsewhere in Ireland and even further afield but it is important to be fluent in all of them:

Flutered
Langers
Langered
Pissed
Stocious
Mouldy (pronounced mowl-dey)
Bollixed

 

4a) People

The use of nouns for different categories of people is very regular and simple.

Males are fellahs and wimmin are wans

Boys are then youngfellas and girls are youngwans

Older males become	oulfellas
Your father is	THE oulfella
older wimmin are	oulwans
and your mother is	THE oulwan

It is essential to master the use of the 1st person post-indicative whereby you can refer to a person without using their name as

yer man or
yer wan

being the person in question e.g

Did you see yer man the other day?

(did you see the person in question on that day that I will not repeat?).

Similarly,

The other

can be used to refer to the matter in question (perhaps of a sensitive nature)

e.g. did you see yer man about the other?

 

4b) Bold parts of the body

Arse, hole	botty
Shite	see under botty above
Willy, micky, lad	male naughty bit
Bollix	attached to above
Gee	female naughty bit
Jars	more female bold parts

The rest of the body is named as per normal (e.g. elbows and fingers).

 

4c) People from different exotic places

Dublin has now expanded enormously but in olden days it was divided into two parts by the River Liffey: The Nortside (where all true Dubbeliners live) and De Soutside (full of homosexuals, foreigners, protestants, academics, teetotallers and WORST OF ALL culchies (see below)).

This classification is no longer valid as half of Donegal and Limerick now reside in Phibsboro and The Soutside has some very respectable places like Tallaght, Ballyfermot and Clondalkin where real people live.

Traditionally it was not sufficient to live North of the Liffey to be a real Dub; it was said that anyone born beyond The Five Lamps was a culchie or from Northern Ireland. The 5 lamps is a famous landmark situated about 500 yards North of the Liffey.

Brendan Behan, famously referred to one of the lots of people above (I cannot remember which lot) as:

They ate their young out there.

Everyone else is foreign (i.e. Danish, British or American) or a CULCHIE. Culchies are anyone from any part of the globe who is not foreign (see above) and who does not speak with a pronounced Dubbelin Accident. They work in the civil service and police, listen to Daniel O Donnell or Big Tom and are also known as:

bog men
boggers
muckers
muck savages
culchies
mulchies
munchies

It is the worst possible insult to be called one of these names if you are from Dublin. You must respond with immediate violence or emigrate.

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