John Hall lives in the Isle of Man, but he has, he tells me, been coming to Wicklow on holiday since he was a youngster. He wants to know the origin of the word pinjane, which on Man means curds and whey, and which also has the figurative meaning of, to quote him, "a milk-and-watery, bashful kind of a woman; the term is not used of a man".
This word is from Manx, a sister language of our own Irish. O'Reilly's dictionary has binidean, which means rennet, and rennet, in case you've forgotten, is a substance containing the enzyme rennin, prepared from the stomachs of calves, and used to curdle milk in making cheese. Rennet, by the way, comes from the old English gerinnan, to curdle. Dinneen has binid for rennet; there must be other words for it in the English of Ireland. I'd like to hear from Ireland's cheesemakers on this subject.
Mr Hall also sent me the word mollag, used in the expression, "as full as a mollag", meaning very drunk. The old-time fishermen knew a mollag as a dog's skin blown up as a bladder and used to float herring nets; hence the figurative meaning. The word is from Manx, mollag, a buoy.
A Cork teacher who, like myself, has a great fondness for Shakespeare, has difficulty with this little bit from Richard 111: "Much about cock-shut time, (they) from troop to troop went through the army."
Cock-shut was a passageway cut through a wood, through which woodcocks might shut (shoot), or dart, and in which they might be caught with nets. These nets were chiefly used in the twilight of the evening when the birds came out to feed. Hence the word became associated with nightfall or twilight, so that Ben Jonson, in the Masque of Satyrs has "Mistress, this is only spite; For you would not yesternight kiss him in the cock-shut light."
Reamonn O Ciarain from Armagh has sent me some very interesting words that have, amazingly, passed from the Travellers' secret cant, Sheldru, into the speech of the people who live near Crossmaglen. One of them is bure, a young girl. A variant of the more common blewr. He has heard keen for a house. It has variants - ken, kena among them. It is probably related to the Romany word ker.
Munya means great. I've heard muni, good, well, recently from Wicklow Travellers who also told me that some of Dublin's gardai (glocotes) have learned Sheldru. Bad news, they said.