The crack with ‘craic’ – An Irishman’s Diary about the nation’s favourite word

I used to lament the Gaelicisation of that fine old Anglo-Scottish word “crack”. Seeing it spelt as “craic” would set my teeth on edge, as it did the teeth of this paper’s late, great lexicographer Diarmaid Ó Muirithe. But, well, it must be the mellowing of age, or something. In any case, I find myself growing increasingly tolerant on the matter.

There’s no denying that, even if the word led a worthwhile existence during its many years in Britain, it has found this island a vastly more congenial place to live. The “craic” regularly reaches 90 in Ireland, as we know. Whereas the all-time high in England and Scotland is about 65, and mid-50s is closer to the weekday average.

So central is the phenomenon to Irish life that it’s only a matter of time before some defence barrister gets a client off by persuading a jury that the alleged crime was perpetrated “for the craic”. After that, it’ll be a small step to inserting a protective clause in the Constitution guaranteeing each citizen’s right to “have the craic”, alongside other fundamentals such as life and liberty.

Reparations

There’s also the argument that, even if you don’t like it, the Hiberno-English spelling is a very small downpayment on the reparations due for centuries of Anglicisation of Irish words and names – a point I made when the DUP’s Nelson McCausland, then a Stormont minister, complained about crack’s kidnapping by Gaelic fundamentalists a few years back

On the one hand, I felt his pain. After all, the original term was so well established that in the southern US, poor white people are still known as “crackers” – a nickname dating back to its earliest settlers, described by one social commentator as “wild, oral, whiskey-loving, unfastidious, tribal, horse-racing, government-hating, Wasp-scorned Irish and Welsh and pre-Presbyterian Scots”.

They were called Crackers for their delight in verbal braggadocio (“pointed boastful joshing” as the same commentator put it), which is not at all dissimilar from the sort of craic to be experienced in many Irish pubs today.

Even so, and overcoming my sympathy with him, I suggested Minister McCausland should consider “craic” a price worth paying for Cullybackey and Killkeel, and hundreds of other old Irish place-names that had “k”s forced into them without their consent.

Anyway, all other arguments aside, purist opposition to the Gaelicised spelling is undermined by the fact that, increasingly, the English themselves prefer it. Yes, so successfully have we stolen their word that they will now happily buy the rebrand back from us, at a mark-up, to describe situations for which they consider the original inadequate.

You see craic these days even in the Spectator magazine, that bastion of British conservatism, whose columns include one called "Mind Your Language". Another of its regular features is on horse-racing. And in the latest issue, for example, this reviews a book about jockeys, Warriors on Horseback by John Carter. Which, in the words of the columnist, "has a good stab at portraying the craic and camaraderie of the changing room".

It's true that, even in Britain, jockeys' changing rooms have a high Irish population. But that's just a coincidence in this case, I think. The Spectator is unselfconsciously using the Gaelicised craic as the new normal.

And I guarantee you will also see English journalists deploying it of this weekend’s Six Nations rugby matches, even the ones in London and Edinburgh.

By the way, the same Spectator column also mentions a part of the book about AP McCoy, the Antrim jockey who will retire at the end of this season having broken every major record in his sport. He has also broken most of his bones. And in the process, he became so expert on the human anatomy that he was often able to diagnose his injuries before the medics did, and sometimes more accurately.

Middle name

I read McCoy’s autobiography a few years ago, in which he spoke with brutal honesty about the price those around him paid for his drive to win. He is a very intense man, clearly. So I wouldn’t associate the Gaelicised “craic” with him that much. But as for the word’s other spelling, it could be his middle name. In fact, when they do the final tally of McCoy’s injuries – arms, legs, ribs, vertebrae, cheekbones, and the rest – I won’t be at all surprised if we hear that his cracks were 90.

@FrankmcnallyIT