Culture

The mixed-up father of Irish bull was no bird

Celebrating when people make dog’s dinners out of metaphors and wind up wishing the cat had got their tongues

Imagine him in a Kerry jersey. Photograph: PA

Patsy McGarry's face
Patsy McGarry
Sat Nov 4 2023 - 00:30

I’ve always had a soft spot for mixed metaphors. As everyone who does a crossword (yes, you, dear reader) knows, a metaphor describes an object, idea or action in a way that isn’t literally true but helps explain it in more concrete terms.

An example would be “my bedroom is a pigsty” (not quite literally true in my case) or “David Clifford is not just a genius Kerry footballer, he’s a machine”. We know that, literally speaking, young Mr Clifford is not a machine.

That would be Thomas the Tank Engine.

A mixed metaphor, on the other hand, makes incongruous comparisons and is usually unintentional. Then metaphors are jumbled illogically, or mixed. Famous Irish examples frequently quoted go back to Grattan’s Parliament in Dublin of the later 18th century. Therein we find MP Sir Boyle Roche, he who first coined the phrase “Protestant Ascendancy” to describe his own class.

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He is also believed to be the father of “Irish bull”, referring to a ludicrous and absurd statement that is generally unrecognised by its author as such. Sir Boyle Roche himself provided the perfect example when he asked: “Why should we put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity, for what has posterity ever done for us?”

Another example was later provided by early 20th century Provost of Trinity College Dublin Sir John Mahaffy who once, intentionally however, declared “an Irish bull is always pregnant”. He, of course, was being clever, indicating said bull had foetal meaning.

Sir Boyle, on the other hand, was beyond clever, once telling Parliament House on College Green “I smell a rat; I see him forming in the air and darkening the sky; but I’ll nip him in the bud.”

What’s not to like!

A committed unionist, he once declared his love for England and Ireland as so great that he “would have the two sisters embrace like one brother”. And, once, explaining his absence from Parliament, he said “Mr Speaker, it is impossible I could have been in two places at once, unless I were a bird.”

It is easy to see why some believe Roche inspired contemporary playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s to create Mrs Malaprop in his 1775 play The Rivals.

Metaphor, from Latin metaphora, for “a transfer of the sense of one word to a different word”.

inaword@irishtimes.com

David Clifford