Irish Words for Insects and Words/Customs from Point Lance, Newfoundland

Описание: Irish Words for Insects and Words/Customs relating to the Sowing and Digging Potatoes in Point Lance, Newfoundland

Here’s Wille Careen from Point Lance talking to me the other day about growing and sowing vegetables as well as sharing with me some lovely local words that he remembers.

The clip starts with a little local word for a ‘moth’ (or ‘mot’ as I’d say) which I've never heard before - pronounced 'smutty-pol/smutty-po'. I’m guessing it could be related to our Irish words smúitigh or smúitghealach, which refers to clouded, dim, light (See: www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/smúitigh)

It’s not surprising to find Gaelic words for insects in their vocabulary here. My grandmother in Wexford for example, who spoke English, would have called a snail a ‘shelleypookey’, a shield-bug, a ‘shit-puca’, an earwig, a ‘gailseog’, a bettle a ‘ciaróg’ etc.

The other word he has is ‘sk-u-lps’ for the piece of spud that was left over after the eyes had been split for planting. Have heard a variant of this in Wexford and it sounds more like ‘scallops’ which also would have used for thatching. A friend suggested it comes from the Irish word ‘scolb’ which in turn could have come from the old English word skɒləp which is an archaic pronunciation of ‘scallops’ as in ‘scalloped potatoes’. Either way, I’d be 99% certain that this came over here with the Irish who settled in Point Lance and has survived here for centuries and wasn’t picked up from English settlers.

In the clip, Willie also touches on the dates they have for planting and digging the potatoes. As their growing season is later, they 'set' their potatoes around the 25th of May and go ‘rooting’ for the first feed on Lady Day, the 15th of August. In Wexford we, including my own parents and grandparents, traditionally planted theirs on the 17th of March, St. Patrick's Day and dig the first new ones on the 29th of June, St. Peter and Paul’s Day. Same thinking again.

He also talks about their ‘pits’ for storing turnips, again built almost identical to ours at home. He also tells me that they have potato 'ridges' in Point Lance, while in Branch, they called them potato 'beds'. My father would have always called them ‘ridges’ in Wexford too, or ‘a rudge’ to say it properly.

The clip ends with another lovely surviving old Irish pronunciation for potatoes. Enjoy.