I have never heard the word dwaum, occasionally dwam, south of Co Down, but for all I know it may be known to Cavan and Monaghan people. It means a swoon or a fit of weakness, and you might fall in a dwaum from working too hard. You might also experience a dwaum from having taken a drop too much. Jane McGinley sent me the word. She lives in Sutton but I'd bet she has Donegal blood in her veins.
The old glossaries, such as Simmons's from south Donegal and W.H. Patterson's from Down and Antrim, and some new ones too, have the word. It has a Teutonic origin. Old Saxon, for example, has Dwalm for delusion, and Old English has dwolma for chaos. The Scottish poet Dunbar has "Sic deidlie dwalmes" in a poem of his from c. 1510.
Peadar O Casaide, who died recently, may God look to him, used to send me lists of words and phrases from the Border counties. His last list contained friend, which he explained meant not a pal, but a relative by blood or marriage in the Monaghan of his youth. The English Dialect Dictionary has "We are near friends but we don't speak", from Co Cavan.
Patterson, mentioned above, has the word from Down and Antrim. He recorded the sentence "They are far-out friends of mine but I niver seen 'em," in Antrim.
This usage is also found in Scotland and in Northumberland. Common Teutonic, the Old English is freond, the Old Icelandic fraend, the Old High German friunt. The northern Irish sense is the only sense of the word found in the Scandinavian languages, where the sense "pal" is expressed by the Old Norse vinr; the modern Danish is ven. In many High German dialects, too, freund means kinsman. Compare also the Old Icelandic fraend-kona, a kinswoman and fraendlauss, kinless. Shakespeare used friend in this sense in The Two Gentle- men of Verona: "She is promised by her friends unto a youthful gentleman of worth."
The homely word dresser is bothering Mary Gleeson, a Galway schoolgirl. Where does it, and the Irish drisiur, come from, she wonders. Cotgrave, author of a fine English-French dictionary in 1611, says that dresser is from the French dressoir, a cupboard. He could have gone back further, because the origin of dressoir is the Old French dreceur, which comes from dresser, to dress. The dreceur was "dressed" with glasses, vases etc. Dresser first appeared in English in a cookery book dated about 1400.