Folklore: What is a lacheko/Latchyco (lyr add)

Subject: RE: Folklore: What is a lacheko
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 May 10 - 03:39 PM

From A Dictionary of Hiberno-English.
Jim Carroll

Latchiko (colloq., pejor.), an unpleasant, disagreeable person (origin obscure; it has been suggested that the 'latch' suggests children who have to let themselves in by the latch and thus become delinquent as time goes on). 'Who are you calling a latchiko? Watch yourself!'; 'Those latchiko organisations' (Down). Healy, Nineteen Acres, 62: "You looked a bit of a latchiko going to school in Lowpark in hand-me-down American knickerbockers." See FIT-UP; GURRIER.

Subject: Folklore: Lacheko ?
From: mayomick
Date: 21 May 10 - 03:24 PM

A lacheko -I'm not sure of the spelling- is some sort of a ne'er do well . I heard a man using the word yesterday in Dublin and was wondering if anybody knows anything about its origins. Is it known outside of Ireland? You don't hear the word used very often nowadays .

Somebody once told me that he had heard a song called the Lacheko with a chorus that started with :

"And they called him The Lacheko "

I've never come acroos this song myself ,has anybody else? .He said he thought it might have been by the Dubliners .