GLOSSARY / VOCABULARY LIST

ALLY DALY - Slang for "tops," the very best.

AMANA - Mountains in biblical Lebanon, mentioned in Old Testament Canticle of Canticles (Song of Solomon).

BAKE - "In a great bake" means "hot under the collar."

BALLOCKS - Slang word for testicles; also a clumsy oaf.

BECTIVE RANGERS - A leading Irish football team. (Irish football combines elements of soccer and rugby.)

BLACK AND TANS - Nickname for British (and Irish) soldiers used against Irish revolutionaries after World War I.

BLACK TWIST - Longleaf tobacco twisted into a thick cord for smoking.

BOWLING - Word used for "pitching" in cricket, a ball and bat game popular in the British Isles.

BYRON, LORD (1788-1824) - English romantic poet, famous as much for his turbulent personal life as for his writing.

CACHOU - Candy made from cashew nuts.

THE CASTLE - Main building complex at Clongowes where the rector's office was located.

CAVALCANTI, GUIDO - 13th-century Italian poet known for his lyrical poetry.

CHASUBLE - Sleeveless outer garment worn by a priest celebrating Mass.

CIBORIUM - Goblet-shaped vessel holding the wafers (bread) used in the Communion service.

COD - Slang for a Joke or prank.

"COME-ALL-YOUS" - Popular street ballad.

DAVITT, MICHAEL (1846-1906) - Leader, with Charles Stewart Parnell, of Irish land reform movement. Split with Parnell over reform theory and refused to support him after the O'Shea scandal.

DILECTUS - Collection of Latin quotations.

DRISHEEN - Stuffed intestine dish characteristic of County Cork.

ELEMENTS - Most elementary level of Clongowes school.

FECK - To fetch or to steal.

FENIANS - Members of Sinn Fein, a radical Irish nationalist movement. "Fianna!" was their rallying cry.

FIRBOLGS AND MILESIANS - Legendary early inhabitants of Ireland. Firbolgs were described as crude, short, and dark, Milesians as artistic, tall, and handsome.

GAELIC LEAGUE - Group founded in 1893 to revive the Irish language and Irish traditions.

HAUPTMANN, GERHART (1862-1946) - German dramatist, novelist, and poet, whose later work blended romanticism and realism.

HEALY, TIMOTHY MICHAEL (1855-1931) - Irish nationalist and Charles Stewart Parnell's right-hand man, who eventually broke with him in 1886 over Home Rule policy.

HURLING - Fast, rough Irish game like hockey and lacrosse. "Minding the cool" is guarding the goal. A "camaun" or "caman" is used (like a hockey stick) to advance the ball.

IRONING ROOM - Storage room for armor in a medieval castle.

IBSEN, HENRIK (1828-1906) - Norwegian playwright, called the father of modern drama. His plays use both realism and symbolism to probe conflicts.

JACKEEN - Lower-class Dubliner.

JINGLE - Two-wheeled, covered, horse-drawn cart.

KENTISH FIRE - Disapproval expressed by prolonged foot-stomping or hand-clapping.

L.D.S. - Acronym of Laus Deo Semper, Latin for praise to God Always; placed at end of written school work in Jesuit schools.

LOB - Money or something valuable.

LOFT - Place where punishments were meted out at Belvedere College.

MALLARME, STEPHANE (1842-1898) - Leader of the French Symbolist school of poetry, which used words as symbols to suggest nuances of meaning.

MANEENS - Dialect word for "little men."

MARDYKE - Once-fashionable promenade (walkway) in the city of Cork.

MARRYAT, CAPTAIN FREDERICK (1792-1848) - English Navy officer who wrote novels about sea life and other adventure books popular with boys.

MUFF - Slang for a novice, fool, or clumsy fellow.

PANDYBAT - Leather strap reinforced with whalebone; used at Clongowes to strike boys on their palms as a punishment.

PARNELL, CHARLES STEWART (1846-1891) - Popular Irish leader and member of the British Parliament where he championed Irish agrarian reform and Home Rule. He fell from power after his adulterous relationship with Mrs. Kitty O'Shea was made public.

PATEN - Plate used to hold the wafers (bread) in the Communion service.

PATER, WALTER (1839-1894) - British essayist who dominated literary criticism in the 1890s. He held that the role of the artist was to create personal artistic expressions rather than to provide moral or social uplift.

PEACH ON - Slang for inform against, tattle.

PLUCKED - Student slang for "flunked."

PREFECT - In English and Irish secondary schools, a student monitor. Less often, a teacher.

ROUNDERS - Game similar to baseball.

SERAPHIM - Highest of the nine orders of angels.

SINN FEIN - ("We Ourselves") Irish nationalist party, dating from 1902, which opposed English rule moderately at first, but became more radical after the Dublin Easter uprising in 1916.

SIX AND EIGHT - Total number of punishment strokes of the pandybat on each hand; three on each hand, followed by four.

SLIM JIM - Strip of candy.

SOUTANE - Long gown of a priest worn during services.

SQUARE - School urinal at Clongowes.

SUGAR OR SUGAN - A rope made of twisted straw; therefore, a term for a weak person.

SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES (1837-1909) - English poet whose verses were musical, sensuous, and often erotic.

SYMONS, ARTHUR (1865-1945) - British poet and critic who championed the French Symbolist movement, and followed the precepts of Walter Pater.

TANTILES - Loiterers.

TARA - Site in County Meath, Ireland, important in Irish legend and history as center of third-century kingdom; Camelot in British legend and history.

TENNYSON, ALFRED, LORD (1809-1892) - Poet laureate of England, whose immensely popular work expressed the predominant moral and social values of the Victorian era. He was later criticized for being overly sentimental and narrow-minded.

THURIBLE - Church vessel in which incense is burned.

TOLKA - Small river north of Dublin. Tolka cottages were mud huts.

TONE (THEOBALD) WOLFE (1763-1798) - Eighteenth-century Irish patriot and revolutionary who founded the Society of United Irishmen with Hamilton Rowan and James Napper Tandy. Their goal was to unite Protestant and Catholic Ireland into an independent and secular republic.

WAISTCOATEERS - Elizabethan English word for prostitutes.

YEATS, WILLIAM BUTLER (1865-1939) - Leading Irish modern poet and dramatist, and a leader of the Irish literary revival called the Irish Renaissance. He used Irish folklore and history in much of his work.

Table of Contents | Message Board | Printable Version | MonkeyNotes