The Poor Mouth

― Where are you? he said.

― In the Irish pub, I replied.

― What like O’Neills or something?

― No, by Irish pub I mean pub full of old Irish men, not a pub decorated in a kind of faux-Irish style.

― Oh right.

It was shortly after this conversation ensued that myself and a friend devised the term Moirish.  This is a kind of variation on mockney, although of course referring to mock Irish rather than mock Cockney. For some reason, I always want to say “Moirish” with a kind of, well, moirish chuckle, but the word serves its purpose. In the example above I could have differentiated between the two “Irish” pubs by referring to one as “Moirish”. Of course not of them were actually Irish being as they were in West London.

I was thinking about this recently, as I am currently in the middle of reading The Poor Mouth. Apparently the title  in Irish derives from the expression “an béal bocht a chur ort” which means to exaggerate the direness of one’s situation in order to invoke sympathy from creditors, landlords etc.

I’m quite a fan of pinching words and phrases that I like so the next time someone starts on about the hardness of their life I might just accuse them of “poormouthing”. Of course it would be better if I could say it in Irish.

…mar ná beidh ár leithéidí arís ann.