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ENGLISH AS WE SPEAK IT IN IRELAND.
[CH. XIII.
Boolanthroor; three men threshing together, instead of the usual two: striking always in time. Irish buail-an-triúr, 'the striking of three.'
Booley as a noun; a temporary settlement in the grassy uplands where the people of the adjacent lowland village lived during the summer with their cattle, and milked them and made butter, returning in autumn—cattle and all—to their lowland farms to take up the crops. Used as a verb also: to booley. See my 'Smaller Soc. Hist. of Anc. Ireland,' p. 431; or 'Irish Names of Places,' I. 239.
Boolthaun, boulhaun, booltheen, boolshin: the striking part of a flail: from Irish buail [bool], to strike, with the diminutive.
Boon in Ulster, same as Mihul elsewhere; which see.
Boreen or bohereen, a narrow road. Irish bóthar [boher], a road, with the diminutive.
Borick; a small wooden ball used by boys in hurling or goaling, when the proper leather-covered ball is not to hand. Called in Ulster a nag and also a golley. (Knowles.)
Borreen-brack, 'speckled cake,' speckled with currants and raisins, from Irish bairghin [borreen], a cake, and breac [brack], speckled: specially baked for Hallow-eve. Sometimes corruptly called barm-brack or barn-brack.
Bosthoon: a flexible rod or whip made of a number of green rushes laid together and bound up with single rushes wound round and round. Made by boys in play—as I often made them. Hence ’bosthoon is applied contemptuously to a soft
