bog Irish

noun

People of low-class Irish ancestry.

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Meanings

nounbog Irish pl (plural only)
  1. derogatorypluralplural onlyPeople of low-class Irish ancestry.

    My friends dismissed him as a Kerry sheep thief and a bog Irish gombeen man.

    2010, Andrew M. Greeley, Irish Crystal: A Nuala Anne McGrail Novel, →ISBN, page 165
    2 more examples

    “Ye stupid, stupid, bloody woman,” he said. “I'd forgive ye if it was the first time and put it down to pure, unadulterated, bog Irish buck ignorance, but it's not bloody well the first time, and ye knew exactly what ye were up to. Didn't ye? Didn't ye?"

    2013, Patrick Taylor, Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor: An Irish Country Novel, →ISBN, page 42

    'Your fucking Jocky ancestors were forming a football team in Glasgow around that time,' he said. 'God bless them. They were bog Irish like my own, with hardly a kilo of potatoes between the lot of them.'.

    2015, Andrew O'Hagan, The Illuminations, →ISBN, page 35

Origin

From bog + Irish.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

bog Irish. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bog%20Irish

MLA

“bog Irish.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bog%20Irish. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bog Irish,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bog%20Irish.

Source: bog Irish on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.