Droch áird chugat lá gaoithe – That you may be badly positioned on a windy day

Droch áird chugat lá gaoithe – That you may be badly positioned on a windy day
*except not really!!
It's Mallacht Monday | Monday Curse. This is one of my favourites as I’ve definitely been caught in a sharp wind or two and it is torture. Me clinging to a bag of chips on holidays on the west coast of Ireland comes to mind!
🤔That gives me an idea, we need a modern day Irish curse that includes herring gulls and losing a bag of chips on O'Connell street at 10pm!
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In a 1768 Irish dictionary recorded by Bishop John O’Brien there were over 10 nouns in Irish for ‘a curse’. Cursing was serious business in Ireland and despite (or more likely in spite of) ‘The Oath Acts’ of 1635 and 1695 that outlawed the use of ‘Profane swearing and cursing’ it remained. In fairness it’s not hard to see why taking a look back through Irish history between colonization, famine, mass emigration and war, there were a fair few things to curse about.
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The Priest’s Curse
I found church clergy to be on either side of things, either 100% against cursing and going as far as destroying “cursing stones” or any “unusual rocks” ( which is very unfortunate as many of these could have been neolithic sites). Or 100% in favour of cursing! There were accounts in 1823 of Priests making use of curses in their sermons, with some people fearing being cursed due to voting for certain candidates.
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Irish Cursing and the Art of Magic, 1750–2018 by Thomas Waters -