Two authoritative sources on Cant are The Secret Languages of Ireland, by R.A.S. Macalister (1937), and Irish Tinkers or “Travellers”: Some Notes on Their Manners and Customs and Their Secret Language or “Cant,” by Pádraig Mac Gréine (Béaloideas, 1931).
Glossary of Cant words used in the text:
aras: soft in the head
cuinne: priest
gatrin: child
granen: pregnant
grit: sick
mugathawn: fool
mull: woman
nyaark: rascal
Palantus: England
shade: policeman
shako: sin
sharog: redhead
sramala: robber
sreentul: friend
sringan: drink (alcoholic)
spurk: fornicate
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks to Olivia O’Leary and, as ever, to Dr. Gregory Page, who knows everything there is to be known about injury, dying, and death.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BENJAMIN BLACK is the pen name of the Man Booker Prize — winning novelist John Banville. The author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed series of Quirke novels — including Christine Falls, A Death in Summer, and Vengeance — he lives in Dublin.