Transcript

Bhí Néillí na mBlístí[1] am amháin agus bhí sé ar lóiste aige[2] Séamas Ó Ceallaigh. Agus bhí Séamas ag goil ar shiúl lá amháin agus ar seisean le Néillí, "Téan(a)[3] an suipéar."

Agus chuir Néillí pota mór ar an tinidh agus chuir sé... rinn sé an suipéar. Agus nigh sé tobán mór agus chuir sé leath an bhrocháin a bhí insa phota insa tobán mór. Agus nuair a tháinig Niall[4] 'na mbaile[5] ar seisean leis, "Caidé a thug ort an oiread sin brocháin a dhéanamh?"

Agus arsa Néillí leis, "Mura bhfuil do sháith ansin tá a thuilleadh insa tobán!"

Translation

Neily of the Trousers was lodging once with James Kelly. And James Kelly was going off one day and he said to Neily, "Make the supper."

And Neily put a large pot on the fire and he put... he made the supper. And he washed a large tub and put half the porridge that was in the pot into the large tub. And when [James] came home he said to him, "What possessed you to make so much porridge?"

And Neily said to him, "If you don't have enough there, there's plenty more in the tub!"

Footnotes

Commentary

This simple story appears to be told for the sake of humour; it does not appear to be of any particular folkloric significance.

It is transcribed also in Heinrich Wagner and Colm Ó Baoill, Linguistic atlas and survey of Irish dialects (4 vols, Dublin, 1958-69), vol. 4, 285, and in Róise Ní Bhaoill, Ulster Gaelic voices: bailiúchán Doegen 1931 (Belfast, 2010), 340-1.