A FUNERAL, A FARMER, AND FILTHY LUCRE:

[Daniel Cassidy]

A FUNERAL, A FARMER, AND FILTHY LUCRE: 
The Sanas of "Flog Ground Sweat," Rhino, Booley Dogs, graft, moolah, 
samollions, dough, sponduliks, and garnish


Banished Children of Eve, Peter Quinn. ( NY, 1994,  p. 7)

  "Our guide spoke first: ‘Now listen here, I'm not out to flog old man 
Dunne's ground sweat, let him and all the ‘faithfully departed,' as they sez, rest 
in peace, but to listen to all the talk you'd think it was some saint that 
died instead of a kiddie who stuffed the rhino and set hisself up in business 
before the booly dogs could lay a hand on him." 

  "The confusion must have been evident on our face, because our 
barman-Rosetta stone started interpreting before we even asked.  No one really knew about 
Mr. Dunne's past. Some said he had set himself up as a taverner with the 
proceeds of a criminal career (‘stuffed the rhino') that he had landed before the 
police (‘booly dogs')  could apprehend him. But those theorists were merely 
maligning the dead (‘flogging old man Dunne's ground sweat') Nobody knew for 
sure.  

  
Flog ground sweat (see below).
Rhino: rionu/, rionnadh, 
An Engraving on paper or metal. 

"Touching the rhino...

In jails like London's Newgate and NYC's The Tombs, Rhino was used for... 

Garnish
Garranna ais, 
Garrana ar ais 

Favors back...
favors for favors. (rhino)


Ground sweat
A grave.
Griansuite
A sunny-spot. 

Flog his Ground Sweat
Talk ill of the dead
Fliuch ghriansuite
Rain on his sunny-spot. 


In the "slang" of crossroads and back saol lom (slum) of the 18th and 19th 
centuries, "Ground Sweat" meant "a grave." 

It comes from the compound of two Irish words "grian," meaning sunny, and 
"suite," meaning place, spot, location: therefore, griansuite in an Irish gob 
becomes ground sweat -- to an ear that hears in English. 


The phrase "I don't want to flog his ground sweat..." means in Irish: "I 
don't want to rain on his grave," or literally, "I don't want to rain on his sunny 
spot or location." 

Fliuch can also mean "to wet," so at least in Brooklyn, a better translation 
might have been, 

"I don't wanna piss on his grave..." 


Rhino
Money
Rionu/, Rionnadh
Engravings, markings, cuttings -

On paper or precious metals or a Lincoln penny, money is always engraved.

Then there was the political aspect to "ground sweat"

The "farmer" or local Alderman usually showed up at the grave site, as well. 

Farmer
An alderman  (Grose, Egan, Matsell) 
Fear Mor
Big Man

(p. 48, Matsell) 

What a "Farmer" harvested by grafadh te (zealous grubbing, graft). 

Filthy luchre
Luchre
Luach Oir
Payment of Gold

Dough
Money
Tobh
Levy, exaction, collection. 

Samollions
Money
Sa moll i n'eineacht
A huge amount, all at once. 
A windfall.

Moolah
Money
Moll Oir
A pile of gold.

or...

Sponduliks
Sparain tuillmheach
Money Bags, profitable purses.

(See WC Fields, Gene O'Neill, Doc Maurer and Huck Finn)

Let's not forget the 80,000 American Irish Travellers...and their language of 
Irish-Shelta still spoken today all over the US. 

Gored
Money
Airgead, 
Silver, money
back slanged 
(G)airead = Gored.


Slan,
Daniel Cassidy    

Becuase ADS list's computer seems to be non-Irish friendly the Irish words 
have been stripped of  their key diacritical marks, to at least give the gestalt 
if not the correct orthography.