English Words From Irish: 27 Examples and the Famous Fakes

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Plot twist: you might be speaking more Irish than you realise. That’s how my short video on this opens. Smash a plate to smithereens, pour a whiskey or come up with a slogan, and you’re borrowing from the Gaelic world.

The video covers five words. This is the longer list of English words from Irish: the Irish source, its meaning, how to say it and when it reached English.

Plenty of “Irish” words online are guesses dressed up as facts, so there’s a section on the famous fakes too.

Irish or Gaelic? A quick word first

In Ireland the language is called Irish, or Gaeilge (say it GWAYL-geh). Scottish Gaelic, Gàidhlig, is its sister language. Irish and Scottish poets wrote in a shared literary Gaelic for centuries, so many words belong to both.

That’s why dictionaries often just say “Gaelic”. They also disagree on dates, sometimes by decades. So I name the source: MW for Merriam-Webster’s “first known use”, and etymonline for the Online Etymology Dictionary.

5 English words that came from Irish (from my video)

The video picks out bother, galore, slew, whiskey and hooligan. Galore and whiskey are solid. Slew is very likely. Bother and hooligan need a footnote.

1. Bother (possibly from bodhraigh)

Bother first shows up in print in 1718, according to etymonline. Its earliest users were Irish-born writers: Thomas Sheridan, Jonathan Swift and Laurence Sterne. MW says early uses “strongly associate the word with Ireland”.

So an Irish link is a natural guess. Ó Dónaill’s Irish-English dictionary gives the verb bodhraigh (BOW-ree) three meanings: deafen; bother, annoy; and deaden. The related adjective bodhar means deaf.

The video says bother is “commonly linked” to bodhraigh, which is fair. But the Oxford English Dictionary calls the origin unknown. It notes that the spoken Irish forms don’t sound like “bodder”.

Merriam-Webster calls bother “of obscure origin”. It also calls the bodhar link improbable, because that middle consonant had gone silent in Irish by 1300. Anatoly Liberman, who writes OUP’s Oxford Etymologist blog, calls the puzzle “half-solved at best”.

So the Irish link is a strong hunch, not a proven fact. One smaller point: “disturb” isn’t among Ó Dónaill’s meanings for bodhraigh.

2. Galore (from go leor)

Galore is the clearest case. It comes from go leor (guh LYORE), “enough” or “plenty”. In Irish, go turns an adjective into an adverb, and leor means sufficient. Scottish Gaelic has the same phrase, gu leòr.

MW dates galore to 1628, and etymonline to the 1670s. It always comes after its noun, as in food galore, never galore food. That’s Irish word order, still sitting in plain English.

3. Slew (probably from slua)

A “whole slew of” anything is American English. Etymonline first records it in 1839 and, following the OED, traces it to Irish sluagh, now slua (SLOO-uh): a host, an army or a crowd.

MW is more careful and says “perhaps” from slua.

4. Whiskey (from uisce beatha)

Uisce beatha (ISH-ka BAH-ha) means “water of life”. Uisce on its own is just water, so beatha does the heavy lifting. The earliest English spelling, “iskie bae”, turns up in the 1580s, then usquebaugh, and “whiskie” arrives in 1715, says etymonline.

One correction: the video says the word “ultimately comes from Irish”. It’s really Gaelic, shared with Scottish Gaelic uisge beatha, and MW lists both. Etymonline, citing Barnhart, adds that the phrase probably translates the Latin aqua vitae.

5. Hooligan (probably from an Irish surname)

Hooligan appears in London police-court reports in the summer of 1898, says etymonline, though MW has 1894. Etymonline says it’s “almost certainly” from a variant of Houlihan, a stock comic Irish name in 1880s and 1890s music-hall songs.

MW prefers “perhaps” a Patrick Hooligan, said to be an Irish hoodlum in Southwark. So the video is right to call it debated.

One small fix: in Irish the surname is Ó hUallacháin (oh HOO-la-hawn), and the caption dropped its fadas, the accent marks.

Here’s my 80-second video on all five, if you’d rather watch than read.

Words from the land

Ireland is wet, green and lumpy, and English needed words for all three.

Bog

Irish bog (bug) means “soft”, and bogach (BUG-ukh) is soft, boggy ground. MW traces bog to 14th-century Scots, and etymonline has it in English around 1500. Bog meaning a toilet is a separate bit of English slang, short for boghouse.

Esker

An esker is a long, winding gravel ridge left by a melting glacier. It comes from Irish eiscir (ESH-kir), a ridge, and MW dates it to 1848.

Drumlin

A drumlin is a smooth, egg-shaped hill moulded by ice. It comes from Irish droim or druim (drim), “back” or “ridge”, plus an English diminutive ending. MW dates it to 1812.

Shamrock

Shamrock is seamróg (SHAM-rohg), “little clover”, from seamair, clover. MW has it in English by 1577. Etymonline notes nobody can say for sure which plant was meant, which is a very Irish state of affairs.

Irish words for death and fairies

Banshee

The banshee is the bean sí (ban SHEE), the “woman of the fairy mound”. Both dictionaries date it to 1771. According to tradition, her cry foretells a death in certain old families. Here’s the full story of the banshee, her cry and her comb.

Keen

To keen is to wail over the dead, from Irish caoin (KWEEN), “lament”. Etymonline first records it in English in 1811, and Ó Dónaill even lists a bean chaointe, a keening woman. The everyday keen, meaning eager, is Old English. Same spelling, no relation.

Leprechaun

Leprechaun comes from leipreachán (LEP-ra-khawn), earlier luchorpán, and MW dates it to 1604. The traditional explanation is “small body”, from lú and corpán. A newer theory from the scholars Rodway, Clarke and Bisagni links it to the Luperci, priests of an ancient Roman festival.

For the folklore itself, see my guide to leprechauns in Irish folklore.

Irish drinking words in English

Shebeen

A shebeen is an unlicensed drinking house, from síbín (SHEE-been), which Ó Dónaill glosses as illicit whiskey. MW dates shebeen to about 1787, etymonline to 1781. It’s still used in South African English.

Poteen

Poteen is poitín (puh-CHEEN), illicit home-distilled whiskey, literally “little pot”. Both dictionaries date it to 1812. The twist: the Irish word is English “pot” plus the Irish diminutive -ín. English lent Irish a pot and got the moonshine back.

Clabber

This one is for readers in the American South. Clabber, thick soured milk, is short for bonnyclabber. That comes from Irish bainne clabair (BAN-yeh KLAW-bir, modern spelling clábair), literally “milk of clabber”. MW explains clabair as the genitive of clabar, thick sour milk, and dates bonnyclabber to 1605.

Words for people and faces

Colleen

Cailín (KAL-een) is simply “girl” in Irish. English picked it up as colleen, and MW dates it to 1828.

Spalpeen

A spailpín (SPAL-peen) was a seasonal hired labourer. Ó Dónaill adds a second meaning, “scamp”. English has had spalpeen since 1767, says MW, mostly as a mild insult.

Brogue

Brogue, the shoe, is bróg (brohg), “shoe”, in English by 1584 according to MW. Brogue, the accent, is less certain. Etymonline suggests the speech of brogue-wearers, while MW prefers Irish barróg, a wrestling grip or speech impediment.

Gob

Gob, the mouth, is Irish gob (gub), “beak” or “mouth”, dated by etymonline to the 1540s. MW is a touch more cautious: “probably” from Scottish Gaelic and Irish, from 1568. If you’ve ever been gobsmacked, you’ve used it. For more, try my guide to Irish insults.

Puss

A sourpuss has a sour face, and that puss is Irish pus (said like “puss”), a pout or sulky mouth. MW dates it to 1844, etymonline to 1890. It has nothing to do with the cat.

Words for trouble and noise

Tory

Tory began as an insult. Irish tóraí (TOE-ree) means a pursuer, and in English state papers of 1566 it meant an Irish outlaw, says etymonline. By about 1680 it was thrown at supporters of the Catholic Duke of York, the future James II.

The insult stuck and became the name of a British party. MW also records it for Americans who backed the Crown in the Revolution. Not bad going for a word that meant bandit.

Smithereens

Smithereens is smidiríní (SMID-ir-ee-nee), little fragments, built on smiodar, “fragment”. MW dates it to 1795 and says “perhaps from Irish”. Etymonline has 1810, spelled “smiddereens”.

Hubbub

Hubbub dates to 1555 in MW, which says “perhaps of Irish origin”. Etymonline links it to a Gaelic cry, possibly ub!, a cry of contempt, or the Old Irish battle cry abú, while MW compares Scottish Gaelic ub ub. So a word for noise may have started as noise.

Gaelic words that came via Scotland

Some words get credited to Irish when they really came into English through Scots and Scottish Gaelic. The Gaelic root is shared. The road was mostly Scottish.

Slogan

Slogan is slew’s older sibling. Both go back to sluagh, a host, and sluagh-ghairm was the “host-cry”, a battle cry. The Scottish poet Gavin Douglas wrote “slogorne” in the 1510s, and MW gives Scottish Gaelic and 1513. Every advertising slogan is, at heart, a war cry.

Clan

Clan comes from Gaelic clann, “children, offspring”, and has been in English since the early 1400s. Clann was itself borrowed from Latin planta, a shoot. Early Gaelic had no p at the start of words, so p became c.

Trousers

Trousers is the odd one out. It started as “trouse” in the 1570s, from Gaelic triubhas, modern Irish triús (trooss). Etymonline quotes a 1630 mention of an “Irish trouze”, while MW gives Scottish Gaelic. Either way, they were Celtic before they were everywhere.

Round trip words: craic and slob

Craic (crack) looks like the most Irish word there is. It isn’t, quite. Scots and northern English had crack, meaning lively talk or news. Irish borrowed it as craic, and English borrowed the Irish spelling back, from 1972 according to MW.

So when a pub abroad promises “great craic”, it’s selling an English word in an Irish jersey. For more of the real thing, see my Irish slang words.

Slob did the same. It turned up in 1780 meaning mud, from Irish slab or slaba, “mud, ooze”, and by 1887 it meant an untidy person. Etymonline thinks Irish probably borrowed slab from English first. So the word went out, got muddy and came home.

Famous but disputed: the ones that probably aren’t Irish

Many viral claims trace back to one book, Daniel Cassidy’s How the Irish Invented Slang (2007). It matches sound-alike words without dated written evidence. The lexicographer Grant Barrett and the linguist Mark Liberman reject it.

Phoney

Phoney might come from fawney, a gilt brass ring used in a con called the fawney rig. Fawney is recorded from 1781 and comes from Irish fáinne (FAWN-yeh), “ring”. Both MW and etymonline say “perhaps”.

So long

The story that “so long” comes from Irish slán (slawn), goodbye, has no documentary support. Etymonline dates the phrase to 1860, calls the origin unknown and says the sources lean towards a German idiom. Dymphna Lonergan, formerly of Flinders University, looked again in 2024 and concluded it can’t yet be proposed with confidence.

Dig

Dig, as in “you dig?”, is recorded by 1934 in African-American vernacular. The claim that it comes from Irish tuig (tig), “understand”, comes mainly from Cassidy, and dictionaries link it to ordinary English dig.

Oddly, MW does allow that twig, as in “I finally twigged”, is “perhaps” from Gaelic tuig-. So the idea isn’t mad. It’s just pinned on the wrong word.

Kibosh, shenanigans and shanty

MW records kibosh by 1834, and Dickens used it in 1836. Irish caidhp bháis, “cap of death”, is one candidate among several, and both dictionaries call the origin unknown or obscure.

Shenanigans (California, 1854) has Irish, Spanish and German guesses, and MW says origin unknown. Shanty is often linked to sean tí, “old house”. But etymonline says it is said to come from Canadian French chantier, a lumberjacks’ headquarters.

Boycott, buddy and swanky

Boycott is an Irish story, not an Irish word. In 1880 the Land League shunned Captain Charles Boycott, a land agent at Lough Mask in Co. Mayo. His surname was English, and he would not have enjoyed his immortality.

Buddy is usually traced to brother or butty, not Irish bodach. Swanky comes from swank, “to strut”, whatever the internet says.

Irish words used in English: the summary table

Dates are first records in English, with the source named. “Solid” means the big dictionaries agree. “Probable” means at least one says “perhaps” or “probably”. “Debated” means nobody has proved it either way.

FAQ: English words from Irish

What English words come from Irish?

Galore, shamrock, banshee, bog, brogue, leprechaun, keen, shebeen, poteen, colleen and Tory all have Irish roots. Smithereens, slew and gob probably do too. Whiskey comes from Gaelic shared by Ireland and Scotland.

What English words come from Gaelic?

Whiskey, banshee, slogan, clan and trousers all come from Gaelic, and the last three mostly came in through Scotland. In Ireland the language is called Irish, or Gaeilge. Scottish Gaelic, Gàidhlig, is a separate sister language.

Does whiskey come from Irish or Scottish Gaelic?

Both. Irish uisce beatha and Scottish Gaelic uisge beatha both mean “water of life”, and Merriam-Webster names both. Neither side can claim it outright, though both will.

Does bother come from Irish?

Possibly, but it isn’t proven. Its earliest known users were Irish writers, and Irish bodhraigh means to deafen or annoy. But the OED calls the origin unknown.

Is craic an Irish word?

It’s a round trip. Irish borrowed it from English and Scots crack, and English took the Irish spelling back in the 1970s.

Does “so long” come from the Irish slán?

There’s no good evidence for it. Etymonline calls the origin unknown and says the sources lean towards a German idiom.

More Irish language reading

• Top 10 Irish Phrases Most Regular People Don’t Understand
• 25 Easy Irish Greetings (With Pronunciation)
• Why the Shamrock Is a Symbol of St Patrick’s Day and Ireland
• Happy Halloween in Irish: Oíche Shamhna Shona and 35 Spooky Irish Words
• Irish Mythological Creatures: 23 Fairies, Monsters and Death Omens
• How the Irish Invented Halloween
• 17 Things That Irish People Say Vs What They Really Mean

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