For the shorter version, try it as Gaeilge

EDWARD HORGAN (Irish Examiner letters, March 19) notes a Spanish socialist’s unflattering description of Tony Blair as a ‘gilipollas,’ or dickhead, and he wonders if there is an Irish language equivalent. Indeed there is, and very precisely so.

For the shorter version, try it as Gaeilge

‘Breall’ (to rhyme with growl) is explained in both the Dinneen and Ó Dónaill dictionaries as ‘the glans penis’ and is used colloquially to mean an ‘idiot’ or ‘blunderer’. It is, or at least used to be, a common abusive term in Cork parlance. It is interesting that ‘langer’, another disparaging Cork description, has a similar dual meaning (see Seán Beecher’s ‘A Dictionary of Cork Slang’).

And that’s my scholarly contribution to Seachtain na Gaeilge!

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