There goes McGullicuddy, always an ass or an elbow.
When you want to describe a particular type of person, McGullicuddy is the word.
The Irish language, and its Irish-American descendant, is worthy of studying and saving.
There are more Irish people in the rest of the world than there are in Ireland. None of the those who left Ireland actually wanted to leave. They were either starved out or forced out, and their language was treated equally as poorly. When English of the crown began its domination, Irish became the “shanty” language of tenant farmers and the poor, even though Irish has been its own unique and poetic language much longer than any form of English.
Ireland was the most unique area in Europe for thousands of years because it was never overrun by the Romans or other civilizations. If you have done an ancestry search, you will see that your Irish DNA, which can be pinpointed to a particular county, is unique and completely separate from any other European or British nationality. Yes, the Danes came and established cities on the eastern coast—Dublin, Waterford, Wexford are best known—and the Normans came over when they overtook the English, leaving such Norman-Irish surnames names as Savage and Fitzgerald. But neither group ever dominated the Irish language because it had been so deeply established on the island for thousands of years. Rather, it was the Irish that absorbed and dominated them. The medieval Irish monks, after the establishment of monasteries throughout Ireland, protected the Irish language, their native tongue, while preserving the great Latin writings of the Roman empire and early Church. Thomas Cahill’s worthy book, How the Irish Saved Civilization, details the herculean efforts of these scribes who invented a written Irish (which had primarily been an oral language) and Latin cursive (adopted by others) while documenting their own poetry and glosses about the Bible. Equally important is How the Irish Invented Slang by Daniel Cassidy, which details the enormous, yet often hidden, impact of Irish on the American vernacular.
Truly, the language and worldview of the Irish is unlike that of any other. As my grandmother used to say, there are only two kinds of people in the world, the Irish and those who wish they were. It is because of her, and her unique Irish-American way of communicating, that Slua was created.
Grandma made lots of very funny and eloquent observations, and felt that everyone deserved to hear them. One of her most common was “there goes McGillicuddy, always an ass or an elbow.” This was typically stated when discussing a whiny or obnoxious person who always had a complaint about this ache, or that pain, or those particular problems that no one else had. McGillicuddy is an actual Irish surname, but because of its uniquely Irish sound, it has has been used to represent every Irishman who is humorously a bit of a pain in the arse. Jimmy Cagney was the stubborn “Thaddeus McGillicuddy” in his delightful musical film “Something to Sing About” (1937), and in TV’s I Love Lucy, Lucy Ricardo’s maiden name was Lucille McGillicuddy. Her mother, played by actress Kathryn Sheehan Card, was portrayed as an equally “bird-brained” and hilarious antagonist of Ricky Ricardo.
McGillicuddy was commonly used when you wished to emphasize a particular characteristic of a person. “Well, aren’t you a smarty McGillicuddy.” “You are a sneezy McGillicuddy today.” “He has been such a crabby McGillicuddy lately.”
It can be argued that there are Irish words that are hinted at in the name. For example, the word golan means wailing or a plaintive cry, and codai means an idler or indolent person. Mc or Mac means son of. More than likely, the name was one which is uniquely Irish and humorous to say, so it came to represent any Irish person who is a bit difficult, silly, or obnoxious, and always has a complaint about an ass or an elbow.
Until next time, thank you Grandma.