Heather Bell lives in Santry, but her youth was spent in Co Antrim. From there she remembers some interesting usages of the word hurry.
First of all there was the compound hurry-burry, confusion entailing a lot of noise and commotion. She also remembers the phrases take your hurry and take your hurry in your hand. Both of these mean take your time.
A hurry could also mean a pressure of work. Heather's mother used to say: "Don't bother me now. Don't you see I have a hurry?". This too was a Scots import. The English Dialect Dictionary quotes a Dumbarton source for the following: "I lend a hand when the smith has a hurry".
A hurry also means a row, a fight, in Antrim, not necessarily a violent affair, however. A good scolding would be classed as a hurry in Antrim; in Scotland blood was invariably drawn. In Lintoun Green, written in 1695 you'll find the couplet: "Tween stick and war they kept their feet, The hurry heats their blood."
I looked up various dialect dictionaries to see if I could add to the various Northern hurries. In W.H. Patterson's Glossary of Words Used in the Counties Antrim and Down (1880) we are told that hurry "is a name given to the Irish Rebellion of 1798". How interesting.
In Lancashire a hurry is a spasm, a fit; a fright; an outburst of temper, and in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex a hurry is a small load of corn or hay brought into the barn or haggard for fear of a downpour of rain. In the Dedham (Essex) Records of 1654 there is warning given to carters: "No inhabitant of this towne shall cut any grasse in any of the comon meadows vpon the penaltie of forfeiting ten shillings for every loade or hurry of hay so cutt."
This word hurry is probably of Scandinavian origin. Compare the Swedish hurra, to whirl.
Down in St Mullins, Co Carlow, recently, an old friend bought me a drink and instead of saying cheers! or slainte! said fonogue! - fan og, of course, stay young. I note that Seamus Moylan has this too in The Language of Kilkenny, attributed to a man from Kil moganny. Remember that now if you are tempted to try coharrying or cubuckling, throwing your arms around a woman; or even pickeering, making romantic overtures to her. These too are from Dr Moylan's 300-page treasury of Kilkenny words. Their origins are obscure.