A slice of Irish life and vocabulary

Thursday 15 May 2013


I'm not starting a blog, I'm not starting a blog, I'm not starting a blog.
Dammit, I've just started one haven't I?


About me...

I'm a wife and mother and writer of "My Naughty Little Secret," a new spanking erotic romance.

I don't even know what to say or do on one of these things. My life is just an ordinary life here in Ireland. I live in the middle of nowhere, I can just see my nearest neighbour's house through a clearing in the trees. If their children are outside playing then I might hear shrieks of joy from them but generally it's so quiet you wouldn't even know I had neighbours unless I pass them on the road or they call up for some reason, or I call down.

And yet, in spite of this solitude I'm only two miles from the nearest town and all the conveniences that a town brings. So now as I sit at my desk working, I hear the sound of birds singing, cattle lowing and roosters crowing. I guess you could call it a little slice of heaven on earth. The children are at school, hubby is at work, and the house is blissfully silent. Of course that silence will only last until 3.00p.m. but I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

I have no intention of doing a daily blog of I got up, ate porridge blah blah blah, but I figure as most of my readers are the far side of the Atlantic, it might be helpful to give a slice of Irish life and also have a forum in which I can explain the weird and wonderful way the Irish express themselves and our very odd turn of phrase.

So the plan over the next few weeks is that I will go through the odd expressions I've used and explain them. If I do a good enough job, who knows, maybe lots of other nationalities may end up using them and they might eventually make it into the dictionary!

The first thing you should realise is that Irish people in general swear a lot and people don't get as offended by swearing here as they would in say the States or even the UK. It's normal everyday conversation here a lot of the time.

If you drop something on the floor you might say "F*ck it," very casually or if the kids are around you'll change it to "feck it"


That said I'm gonna start with an explanation for FECK.

Although very obviously a derivative of the much more offensive and obscene F*CK, feck is a very, very mild expletive. Even if my children use it I might not pull them up on it as it's considered that inoffensive.
Feck can be used in the following way

Feck off - go away!
Feck off - I don't believe you!
He really fecked me off - he annoyed me
He's a fecking eejit - he's a bit silly or maybe even if in anger it could be he's an assh*le
Feck it - a mild expletive
for feck's sake - for goodness sake.

So a general overview is that feck is a very useful little word and although an expletive, a mild inoffensive one.