Jackeen what does it mean and where did it originate?

Dazzer

Jackeen what does it mean and where did it originate? Anyone know?

amp

I think it's what the culchies called us when English royality paid visits to Dublin back before independence. Some Dublin people apparently waved the Union Jack as the royality passed, much to a lot of the countries annoyance. So the jack part evolved into jackeen.

Of course this was only a minority of Dublin people and their decendents are the very same people who vote Progressive Democrats and think Britney Spears has artistic merit.

Hobnail Monkey

I always thought that we (the culchies) called ye 'the jacks' because ye used to throw toilet paper onto the pitch in Croaic Pairc

Dazzer

Great start, any more info would be great tho

Hobnail Monkey

Okay.....erm....it was kittensoft toilet paper

lynchie

I had laways believed that what amp had said was how the word jackeen originated. But I've found a few different definitions

Taken from this site

jackeen - a Dubliner. Dublin was always seen as the most "English" city in Ireland by provincials and this was coined as a term of derision stemming from the English flag, the Union Jack, by adding the diminuitive, -een. Literally, "Little Jack". Derived from "shoneen", a sort of "working-class West Brit".

Found this definition also

There is a definition of the true Dubliner - a Jackeen - which requires that you, yur parents and all four grandparents must have been born and bred 'between the canals' to qualify as a Jackeen.

sceptre

Possibly:

From Oxford English dictionary second edition:

jackeen (________). Anglo-Irish.
[Irish dim. of Jack n.1]
A contemptuous designation for a self-assertive worthless fellow.
1840 Fraser's Mag. XXII. 320 A buckeen, a jackeen, a squireen, or any of the intermediate classes.
1892 Q. Rev. July 138 _Jackeens' loitering about the Dublin Theatres.
1897 Sir C. G. Duffy ibid. Sept. 451 In manner and bearing he is a superb Jackeen.

If so it comes from

2. _ a. (As a common noun.) A man of the common people; a lad, fellow, chap; esp. a low-bred or ill-mannered fellow, a _knave'. Obs.
1548 Udall Erasm. Par. Luke vi. 65 A common poyncte of pleasure doyng, that euery iacke vseth.
1596 Shakes. Tam. Shr. ii. i. 290 A mad-cap ruffian and a swearing Iacke.
1600 Surflet Countrie Farme i. xvi. 108 They send them [geese] to the medowes_vnder the custodie of some little small Iacke, who may keepe them from going_into any forbidden places.
_1640 Day Parl. Bees v. (1881) 33 A halter stretch thee: such ill-tutord jacks Poyson the fame of Patrons.
1682 Bunyan Holy War (Cassell) 354 But Mr. Unbelief was a nimble Jack; him they never could lay hold of.
1746 Brit. Mag. 75 Familiar both with peers and Jacks.
_ b. Phr. to play the jack: to play the knave, to do a mean trick. Obs.
1610 Shakes. Temp. iv. i. 198 Your Fairy_Has done little better then plaid the Iacke with vs.
1611 Beaum. & Fl. Knt. Burn. Pestle Induct., If you were not resolved to play the Jacks, what need you study for new subjects, purposely to abuse your betters?
1668 Pepys Diary 23 Feb., Sir R. Brookes overtook us coming to town; who played the jacke with us all, and is a fellow that I must trust no more.

which in one sense would make sense with the use of the suffix -in in Irish to mean little (in other words "jackeen" would have been the equivalent of "little jack", jack having the same usage as in English since the late 14th century.

Funnily enough, one use of the word "jack" (when applied to flags) refers itself to "small" (it's properly a small flag, smaller than an ensign, used at sea as a signal or mark of distinction, flown at the bow of a vessel (formerly at the spirit-sail topmast head) - so in other words, the application of the word "jack" to refer to the Union flag would have been wrong, at least originally) - so if it does refer to the Union Jack, the "-een" in jackeen may be a redundancy.


The Union Jack explanation seems as good though. Believe whichever one you like. Either way, as a put-down reference, both suggested origins appear to have an equal ability to explain the term. The term certainly did not originally apply to anything that happened during Queen Victoria's visit, though, given that the term dates from at least 1840, though it may have taken on that meaning later on (or from lynchie's definition, before).

Turnip

Where does the term 'Sham' come from? As in Dublin slang for 'lad' or 'guy'.

eg 'Look at de state o' de head on dat sham!'

Jaden

"Sham" is actually a Galwegian term. It is the name given to a resident of Tuam, and also the name of the langauge that Tuam people speak.

This may have something to do with the fact that the place is rife with knackers. Easily the worst town in Ireland.

Sifo

Jackeen - dubs who supported the brits back in the day...

bogger - everyone outside dublin

OFDM

Sifo wrote:

Jackeen - dubs who supported the brits back in the day...

bogger - everyone outside dublin

Great, a three year old thread. Lovely.

Fnz

What are you doing!?! You're breathing new life back into a dead thread. I understand that you may want to further discuss it's contents, but you can't... it's dead... it won't come back RIGHT! Sure, it may look human... but it's nowt but a soulless doll; something created in the shape of a human. Have you learned nothing from Fullmetal Alchemist?... from Pet Cemetery?.... from that episode of South Park that takes the piss out of Pet Cemetery?

So, yeah, I heard a theory on News Talk 106 a while back - on The Origin Of Words slot with Prof. Terry Dolan. It goes something like: John Bull is a national personification of England created by Dr. John Arbuthnot in 1712 - portly, well-intentioned, frustrated and full of common sense. People outside the Pale thought Dublin wanted to become like England, so 'Jack Bull' became the personification of Dublin. Then from that to Jackeen.

However Prof. Terry Dolan went on to say that he had spoken to some elderly lady who saw the queen when she visited Ireland in 1900. She was but a wee child but remembers referring to the miniature Union Jack flags they were given at the time as 'Jackeens'.

beat root

Great, my chance to restart a 4 year old thread.

Correction, the Easter rising too place in Dublin if you didn't know. The majority of the signatories of the Easter proclamation where Jackeens as were most of the fighters. The only boggers to do any fighting were a few culchies in Cork. The rest of you were too busy giving out about Jackeens causing trouble

The Hill Billy

beat root - Zombie threads are not appreciated. Please do not dig up 4 year old threads & slag off country folk.

Thread closed.

HB