GeoffLawes, just to clarify, I didn't refer to it as "an old Irish song" but only as "an Irish song." (In reference to the Scottish dialect words.) When I was doing the Ring of Kerry in 2001 I bought a set of 4 small books called "Folksongs and Ballads Popular in Ireland." Rocky Road to Dublin is in Vol. 3 with this notation: "The air is made out of a slip-jig (See R.M. Levey's "Collection of the Dance Music of Ireland"), also in O'Neill's "Dance Music of Ireland" (no. 411). The words appeared first on an anonymous broadsheet in the 19th century." For what that's worth.

McG of H, Yes, I was aware that the terms "rig" and "rick" are used almost interchangeably in regard to stacks of grain. I remember a long thread back in the fall of '03, I think, where there was a long discussion of these and similar short words -- but I can't recall the thread name.

Another similar word is "rickle"... as in the line in my favorite lullaby, Coulter's Candy where wee Huey is described as looking like "a rickle of banes". Which according to the Mudcat's Scottish Glossary is a "loose pile of bones or skeleton" if I remember correctly.

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