Irish bull

Template:Short description An Irish bull is a ludicrous, incongruent or logically absurd statement, generally unrecognized as such by its author. The inclusion of the epithet Irish is a late addition.<ref name="isbn0-19-861271-0">Template:Cite book</ref>

John Pentland Mahaffy, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, observed, "an Irish bull is always pregnant", i.e. with truthful meaning.<ref>Rabkin, Eric S. "Taking the bull (by the horns?)" The Michigan Alumnus, Volume 99 University of Michigan Libraries, 1992 p.18</ref> The "father" of the Irish bull is often said to be Sir Boyle Roche,<ref name="falkiner">Template:Cite book</ref> who once asked "Why should we put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity, for what has posterity ever done for us?".<ref name="geo">Template:Cite book</ref> Roche may have been Sheridan's model for Mrs Malaprop.<ref name="maye">Template:Cite news</ref>

Origin

The derivation of "bull" in this sense is unclear. It may be related to Old French boul "fraud, deceit, trickery", Icelandic bull "nonsense", Middle English bull "falsehood", or the verb bull "befool, mock, cheat".<ref>Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "bull, n. 4" [1] (subscription needed).</ref>

As the Oxford English Dictionary points out, the epithet "Irish" is a more recent addition, the original word bull for such nonsense having been traced back at least to the early 17th century.<ref name="isbn0-19-861271-0"/> By the late 19th century the expression Irish bull was well known, but writers were expressing reservations such as: "But it is a cruel injustice to poor Paddy to speak of the genuine 'bull' as something distinctly Irish, when countless examples of the same kind of blunder, not a whit less startling, are to be found elsewhere." The passage continues, presenting Scottish, English and French specimens in support.<ref name="Bull">Brown, Marshall (1894). Bulls and Blunders (2nd ed.). Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co.</ref>

Examples

• "He'll regret it till his dying day, if ever he lives that long." – "Red" Will Danaher, in The Quiet Man
• "If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive." – Samuel Goldwyn, movie producer (1882–1974)
• "Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours." – Misattributed to Yogi Berra, baseball player (1925–2015)
• "There'll be people dying in this town who've never f---ing Template:Sic died before" – Belfast taxi driver<ref name="belfast">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• "to make an Irish bull, I should expect the next stage in Evolution not to be a stage in Evolution at all" – C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity<ref>Lewis, C. S. 2012. Mere Christianity. C. S. Lewis Signature Classic. London, England: William Collins.</ref>

See also

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Footnotes

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Other references

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