spalpeen

English

Etymology

A late 18th-century term, from Irish spailpín.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /spalˈpiːn/

Noun

spalpeen (plural spalpeens)

1. (Ireland, ethnic slur) A poor migratory farm worker in Ireland, often viewed as a rascal or mischievous and cunning person.
   • 1979, Thomas Flanagan, The Year of the French, New York, N.Y.: The New York Review of Books:

     "And they stood you before the magistrates, like a spalpeen or a tinker." / "Sure the French wouldn't bring with them barrels of coppers for the spalpeens of Connaught. It is murder and bloodshed they would bring."

   • 2002, Joseph O’Conner, Star of the Sea, Vintage, published 2003, page 25:

     The men were mainly evicted farmers from Connaught and West Cork, beggared spalpeens from Carlow and Waterford; a cooper, some farriers, a horse-knacker from Kerry; a couple of Galway fishermen who had managed to sell their nets.

2. (Ireland, sometimes endearing) A good-for-nothing person.
   • 1840 February, Edgar A[llan] Poe, “Peter Pendulum, the Business Man”, in William E[vans] Burton, Edgar Allan Poe, editors, Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and American Monthly Review, volume VI, number II, Philadelphia, Pa.: William E. Burton, […], →OCLC, page 87:

     [A] fortunate accident […] happened to me when I was a very little boy. A good-hearted old Irish nurse (whom I shall not forget in my will) took me up one day by the heels, when I was making more noise than was necessary, and, swinging me round two or three times, d——d my eyes for "a skreeking little spalpeen," and then knocked my head into a cocked hat against the bed-post. This, I say, decided my fate, and made my fortune.

See also

• culchie
• guttersnipe

References

• merriam-webster.com.
• [1].
• Spalpeen. The New Oxford American Dictionary. Second ed.