It's "striking a match" , Áine, I think, and Manuel Labour is taken to be a Portuguese Agitator.

But it's great exercise getting your head round Myles na Gopaleen's Gaelish. And the sneaky thing is every now and again he'll do things like having a conversation between one fella speaking Gaelish, and another speaking proper Gaelic.

But I still think we're only getting half the joke, and that there is some kind of tortured alternative meaning to be teased out if the passage if you treat the words as if they really were Irish.

And the thread which started all this, and explains about Ladle rats and "Mots d'heures" and all that, is the one aboutSpoonerisms