# Music by Genre > Celtic, U.K., Nordic, Quebecois, European Folk >  craic and crunk (krunk)

## Loretta Callahan

Hope this isn't too far out there, but I've just learned about this word "craic".  There seems to be a covert meaning ~ but sounds like it's about having a good time and really getting involved with whatever is going on with music, dance or partying. Can one get their "craic" on in church, for example?  As with most terms Irish that I see spelled, I usually mis pronounce them.  Any pronunciation hints would be great.  

I am very familiar with the American  term "crunk", which is about seriously being into a groove of having a good time.  One doesn't mess with another's crunk/krunk ... especially while they're getting their "crunk on".  There are consequences to crunk destroying. I can use crunk in a sentence, which I sometimes do, and nobody throws anything at me if I haven't disrupted their crunk.

Do people use "craic" in sentences in real life?  Just wondering. :Chicken:

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## Jill McAuley

Folk use "craic" in sentences regularly back home - If you are having a night out with pals afterwards you might tell someone that it was "great craic altogether..." Or if you have a pal who's loads of fun to hang out with you might say "He's great craic..." It's pronounced "crack". I have to be careful when I use it in a sentence in the States as I've always lived in urban areas here and folk tend to give me funny looks when they hear that word, and then I have to translate meself to them... 

Cheers,
Jill

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## Dave Hanson

The craic was good in Cricklewood,
They wouldn't leave the Crown,
With glasses flying and biddies crying, 
Sure paddy was going to town, 

[  Dominic Behan ]

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## Bertram Henze

You always get me with etymological conundrums - "craic" I knew, but crunk is new to me. Can it possibly stem from the German word "krank" (pronounced exactly like crunk, but meaning "sick")? Reminds me very much of "kluge".

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## Jock

Used extensively through out Ireland and the rural British Isles in vernacular speech in both gaelic & english. In parts of Canada the word gets a fair airing also, predominantly on the northeastern costal fringes (where the bulk of the population have an accent that sound like a scots dialect thats spent to long in ireland). The etymology of the word is a hard one to pin down but if I had to hazard a guess I'd say that as it seems strongest on the atlantic fringes (but not exclusively so) it's roots should be sought on the gaelic west. The neighbour has already asked me "my craic" this morning, which is fair to middling at the moment. 

>>>>Get the craic with craic here>>>>

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## Jock

Announcing that I was "off out to get the craic with the guys and smoke a few fags" made me realise early on the difference between english in common usage both sides of the pond. I had some difficulty explaining that to my concerned hosts; that I was off out to engage in banter and to smoke a cigarette, rather than to infringe the local drug laws and commit a multiple homophobic inspired homicide.

I had similar trouble with; "my piece". Which in my case is an eastern atlantic colloquialism for ones sandwich (or packed lunch) rather than handgun. He says tomato, you say tomAto, but there are many who say "tomattie". On distant shores one has to be careful with word usage, but only until one has wised up and learned the craic!

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## Bertram Henze

> Can it possibly stem from the German word "krank" (pronounced exactly like crunk


I was wrong. Found it. But the meaning is not too far away.

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## Tim2723

I'd always translated craic as 'a joyously good time', but I've never heard the word crunk in my life.

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## Jim Bevan

A whistle-playing friend of mine who lived in Galway for a few years often uses "craic" in the context of "deal" or "story", as in "I'll find out what the craic is."

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## JEStanek

I always knew krunk from the hip hop genre to mean Crazy Drunk.  Little Jon would be a prime example.

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## Jill McAuley

> A whistle-playing friend of mine who lived in Galway for a few years often uses "craic" in the context of "deal" or "story", as in "I'll find out what the craic is."


Aye, that'd be another way we'd use it - if I wanted to ask someone what's happening I'd say "What's the craic?"

Cheers,
Jill

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## Jill McAuley

> Announcing that I was "off out to get the craic with the guys and smoke a few fags" made me realise early on the difference between english in common usage both sides of the pond. I had some difficulty explaining that to my concerned hosts; that I was off out to engage in banter and to smoke a cigarette, rather than to infringe the local drug laws and commit a multiple homophobic inspired homicide.
> 
> I had similar trouble with; "my piece". Which in my case is an eastern atlantic colloquialism for ones sandwich (or packed lunch) rather than handgun. He says tomato, you say tomAto, but there are many who say "tomattie". On distant shores one has to be careful with word usage, but only until one has wised up and learned the craic!


Similar thing happened to a guy I knew from Newcastle who's band was playing in Dublin years ago - at the time raves and drug use at them were all over the tabloids, particularly stories about acid. So my pal John is waiting outside the post office (one of his bandmates is inside sending postcards home to his ma...) and he tries to cadge a smoke of someone by asking if they've "got a tab...(what the Newcastle lads called a cigarette)" Well the person he asked went into the post office and got them to call the gardai because of the young man out front "asking for drugs..." 

Cheers,
Jill

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## PseudoCelt

> The etymology of the word is a hard one to pin down...


As far as I'm aware, _craic_ is a relatively recent Hibernicized spelling of the English word _crack_, much like _session_/_seisiun_ or _television_/_telebhisin_.  Not sure where it originated though.

Patrick

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## Dan Hulse

Never before had heard the word Crunk/krunk, but far be it from me to pass up any opportunity for shameless self promotion. See definition 2: http://www.bernieworld.net/cb.htm

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## Loretta Callahan

Okey dokey!  Think I may have it here.  I won't use craic in East Oakland or NEast Portland.  Won't ask to smoke a fag in the Castro.  Think it's safe to say I'm gettin' my krunk on at my local pub.  Reckon I'll be able to use craic when the spirit so determines.

That's cool about the German word "krank" Bertram.  As a resident and frequent visitor in hoods in both Oaktown and Puddletown, I've managed to get my krunk on  :Grin:  without too many problems.

Thanks all!  My last name demands that I learn many things Irish, lol.  The more I learn, the more delighted I am.




> Folk use "craic" in sentences regularly back home - If you are having a night out with pals afterwards you might tell someone that it was "great craic altogether..." Or if you have a pal who's loads of fun to hang out with you might say "He's great craic..." It's pronounced "crack". I have to be careful when I use it in a sentence in the States as I've always lived in urban areas here and folk tend to give me funny looks when they hear that word, and then I have to translate meself to them... 
> 
> Cheers,
> Jill

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## Randi Gormley

Couple of guys in our group have 'Craic Addict' T-shirts, which kind of is an in-joke at sessions I've been to. I also found it in a book where the character (visiting Ireland) heard it as "crack" but when asked about it, was told it was spelled 'craic' -- crunk I'd never heard either. The definition reminded me of the Disney movie 'The Emperor's New Groove,' where the emperor was doing some fancy dancing and singing and someone interrupted him and was tossed out a window for interfering with the emperor's groove. ah, pop culture!

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## JeffD

> Folk use "craic" in sentences regularly back home - If you are having a night out with pals afterwards you might tell someone that it was "great craic altogether..." Or if you have a pal who's loads of fun to hang out with you might say "He's great craic..." It's pronounced "crack".


Jill you energized me. I traveled to Scotland on several occations back in the day, to hang out with the music and learn to play it. And I do remember the phrase "good craic <crack as I heard it>" in reference to some really memorable sessions and nights out. And as I was thinking about those times I remembered a tunebook I had purchased in Edinburgh that added significantly to my tune repertoire at the time. 

So your posting motivated me to dig around last night in my stacks and stacks, and I found that tune book, the cover of which I reproduce here. Way cool. Thanks for the memories!

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## Eddie Sheehy

Never heard of crunk.  
Craic means Fun, pure and simple.
There are three degrees of Craic
Great Craic
Mighty Craic
The Craic was Ninety.

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## Rodney Riley

> He says tomato, you say tomAto, but there are many who say "tomattie".


Then there's "Towmater".  :Laughing: 

http://www.pixar.com/featurefilms/cars/

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## Eddie Sheehy

Way before it became popular an impromptu jam session in a pub used to be referred to as "Craic agus Ceol" - Music and Great Sport...  I've never heard it associated with an English word "crack".

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## michaelpthompson

Craic is Gaelic for good times, good conversation, good company. Nothing to do with the English word "crack" except they sound the same.

When a seisún gets going well, they say the craic is mighty, or even the craic is ninety. Check out the song, "The Craic Was Ninety in the Isle of Man."

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## Bertram Henze

> So your posting motivated me to dig around last night in my stacks and stacks, and I found that tune book, the cover of which I reproduce here. Way cool. Thanks for the memories!


Where's the crack? After too much craic, you might find it in the top of your mandolin...

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## Loretta Callahan

To clarify ~ krunk is an African American, kind of ghetto term.  If you aren't familiar with a black ghetto or hip hop, you probably haven't heard of it.

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## Clement Barrera-Ng

> Check out the song, "The Craic Was Ninety in the Isle of Man."


I first learned of the term 'craic' when I heard Christy Moore did his version of the song. It still remains one of my favorites. I believe both Andy Irvine and Donal Lunny played on this song:




Now I have got to go and get me a 'craic addict' t-shirt  :Smile:

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## foldedpath

There is a great book by Ciaran Carson called "Last Night's Fun: A Book About Irish Traditional Music." He seems to be saying in the passage quoted below, that it is (or was) more commonly written as "crack", and that the Gaelicized "craic" is something of a recent affectation. Or maybe it's just his curmudgeonly take on it:




> Which brings us to the famous "crack", popularly and recently Gaelicised as craic and advertised in countless retro-renovated bars throughout the land, as in "Live Ceol, Sandwiches and Craic". Non-Irish speakers in particular will insist on its ancient Gaelic lineage and will laboriously enunciate this shibboleth to foreigners who take it for a pharmacological rather than a social high. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary dates crack, "chat, talk of the news", to 1450. "Cracker" is "one who or that which cracks, sep. a boaster, a liar", reminding me of the Fermanagh use of "lie", meaning an impressively convincing tall stoy, or wind-up. As the late Eddie Duffy, flute-player and cracker would say, "The trouble with the young ones nowadays, they can play none, they can sing none, they can dance none, and they can tell no lies." In Belfast dialect, a cracker is a thing which is the best of its kind, a superlative. A good-looking woman is a "real cracker." The Belfast comedian Frank Carson (no relation), in the middle of whatever routine applause, would come out with his catch-phrase, "It's a cracker!".
> 
> It seems to me that "crack" was, until fairly recently, confined to the North of Ireland, for I remember Southerners would look somewhat nonplussed at our coming out with, "The crack was ninety" about an especially good session, or simply, "It was great crack".

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## Avi Ziv

Wallace: "Cracking toast, Gromit!"

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## JeffD

> There is a great book by Ciaran Carson called "Last Night's Fun: A Book About Irish Traditional Music." He seems to be saying in the passage quoted below, that it is (or was) more commonly written as "crack", and that the Gaelicized "craic" is something of a recent affectation. Or maybe it's just his curmudgeonly take on it:


That sounds so heart breakingly likely it has to be true.  :Smile:

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## Avi Ziv

Last Night's Fun is my favourite book about Irish music

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## Bren

I heard "crack" a lot when I first came to Scotland in 1979. "What's the crack?" "It was great crack" and so on.
It was also common where I worked offshore, among people from Northern Ireland and Liverpool especialy.
I never saw it written "craic" until the Great Plastic Paddy Pub Propagation of the late 80s/early90s or thereabouts, and I am suspicious of any "Gaelic" etymology.
A quick Google of crack/craic will find many complaints about its presumptions of Irishness, but perhaps the best explanation is here:
Mind Your Language

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## Tracey

While we're at it....   it's PecAN,   not PeCAN

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## lordcaradoc

Wow, this being the first full post I've read since joining the list.  It puts a whole new spin on being a Craicer. (cracker = redneck = good 'ol boy) :D

Best regards,
Tim

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## Loretta Callahan

Hahaha.  I can totally relate, as I resemble that remark ~ in its feminine incarnation that is.




> Wow, this being the first full post I've read since joining the list.  It puts a whole new spin on being a Craicer. (cracker = redneck = good 'ol boy) :D


Just ordered Last Night's Fun, foldedpath!  Looks like a good story. Well, it makes sense that some Oxford person would refer to a good storyteller as a liar and boaster.  That's what makes a good story ~ I think somebody mixed up embellishment (a few added ornaments) with lying.  Silly.

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## michaelpthompson

> There is a great book by Ciaran Carson called "Last Night's Fun: A Book About Irish Traditional Music." He seems to be saying in the passage quoted below, that it is (or was) more commonly written as "crack", and that the Gaelicized "craic" is something of a recent affectation. Or maybe it's just his curmudgeonly take on it:


I so had that book once, but I lost it before I had a chance to read it. Won it in a contest. Guess I'll have to pay for a new one now. ;-)

I did look at the various links on this subject, including quotes from Carson, and they make an interesting case for the "Hibernicized" spelling theory. However, I do not yet find it compelling. One guy quotes a bunch of etymological sources to the end that "craic" does not appear in the Irish language before 1977, then one of the commenters quotes two instances from 1963. It may indeed, not be ancient Irish but the case for Anglicization is far from airtight. It may have been a provincial word from a Belfast dialect that did not spread until recently.

Most often, when I've seen it printed (as on the back of a restaurant menu this past weekend), the writers have difficulty expressing the thought in English. They often refer to it as untranslatable, or difficult to translate. If it were originally an English word, this would not be so, so it's hard to imagine it as a repatriated English loan word, despite the lofty proclamations to that effect.

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## foldedpath

> Wow, this being the first full post I've read since joining the list.  It puts a whole new spin on being a Craicer. (cracker = redneck = good 'ol boy) :D
> 
> Best regards,
> Tim


Hi Tim, welcome to the forum. I'm a full-blooded "Florida Cracker" (2nd generation Miami Florida native), which I think is a regional subdivision of the southern Cracker thing. So we have yet another way this term is used here, in the USA. 

Egad! I just saw there's a Wikipedia page on Florida crackers. On that page it says "_Spaniards in Florida called them Quáqueros, a corruption of the English word Quaker, which the Spanish used to contemptuously refer to any Protestant._" So maybe the southern Cracker thing is a case of parallel evolution? Or something....

Now I'm up on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, not that far from Bainbridge. Or Portland, for that matter. How do us Southern crackers end up in this cold, wet climate anyway?

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## SincereCorgi

> If it were originally an English word, this would not be so, so it's hard to imagine it as a repatriated English loan word, despite the lofty proclamations to that effect.


They don't strike me as lofty proclamations, just the usual sort of thing you see when people try to establish the etymology of a word. English isn't homogenous, there's no reason people that aren't locals would understand all the shades and nuances of a northern dialect expression- for example, I have only have a hazy version of what people from Boston mean when they describe something as 'mint', but I don't claim that makes it an ancient Wampanoag word that has remarkably survived to the modern day.

For what it's worth, here's a Gaelic etymology dictionary from 1877 (although I don't know how 'Gaelic' it is) that suggests it meant something like 'gossip' or 'boasting' at the time:

http://books.google.com/books?id=wbg...mology&f=false

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## Bertram Henze

mheall, thead mhud na baoigh theagh phoirst mhord thead as s'pealt daoiphareannedlaogh toudh louc aeraois...  :Wink:

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## Bren

It seems if people +want+ to believe "craic" is original Irish Gaelic, nothing will dissuade them. I don't believe it is either Irish or Gaelic and even it it was, there is no good reason for spelling it "craic" in English except for disambiguation with crack cocaine .

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## Eddie Sheehy

I think Bertram hit the nail squarely on the head there... Zum Wohl, Bertram.

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## lordcaradoc

> Hi Tim, welcome to the forum. I'm a full-blooded "Florida Cracker" (2nd generation Miami Florida native), which I think is a regional subdivision of the southern Cracker thing. So we have yet another way this term is used here, in the USA. 
> 
> Egad! I just saw there's a Wikipedia page on Florida crackers. On that page it says "_Spaniards in Florida called them Quáqueros, a corruption of the English word Quaker, which the Spanish used to contemptuously refer to any Protestant._" So maybe the southern Cracker thing is a case of parallel evolution? Or something....
> 
> Now I'm up on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, not that far from Bainbridge. Or Portland, for that matter. How do us Southern crackers end up in this cold, wet climate anyway?


Foldedpath, Thanks for the welcome.

Actually, while I was born in Phoenix, I grew up in Portland and moved back to the Pacific NW last summer from Ohio.  Never should have left. :D




> They don't strike me as lofty proclamations, just the usual sort of thing you see when people try to establish the etymology of a word. English isn't homogenous, there's no reason people that aren't locals would understand all the shades and nuances of a northern dialect expression- for example, I have only have a hazy version of what people from Boston mean when they describe something as 'mint', but I don't claim that makes it an ancient Wampanoag word that has remarkably survived to the modern day.
> 
> For what it's worth, here's a Gaelic etymology dictionary from 1877 (although I don't know how 'Gaelic' it is) that suggests it meant something like 'gossip' or 'boasting' at the time:


I have only to offer a quote a friend of mine uses in his E-mail:

"English doesn't borrow from other languages.  English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over the head and rifles through their pockets for loose grammar"  by James Nicoll (paraphrased)
 :Laughing:   :Cool:

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## michaelpthompson

> "English doesn't borrow from other languages.  English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over the head and rifles through their pockets for loose grammar"  by James Nicoll (paraphrased)


I so love that quote. It's perfect.

What I meant by "lofty proclamations" is all the righteous huffing and offense that our sacred tradition is profaned by a fake loan word that's not traditional Gaelic. It may be so, it may not, but from the discussions I've seen, the debunkers have just as much of an emotional stake in the discussion as those they deride for inadvertently debasing the language.

SincereCorgi, I especially enjoyed your link to the old Gaelic reference. I've often heard craic defined with a base in conversation, and this would seem to reinforce that. It also casts doubt on the idea that the word came into Irish from American English in the 1970s. Your rational discussion of the pros and cons is refreshing and encouraging.

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## ampyjoe

I agree with Bren on this. Wikipedia has a pretty good explanation (I know wikipedia isn't a absolute guarantee of correctness but it's often pretty good and in this case I agree). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craic

And a big reason why the spelling had to change - "Ceol agus Crack" just doesn't look right does it?

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## Eddie Sheehy

Except I remember it being used in the 60's... Dominic Behan wrote McAlpines Fusliliers for the Dubliners who prefaced the song with "poetry" from Dominic:
'Twas in the year of '39 when the sky was full of lead
When Hitler was headin' for Poland and Paddy for Hollyhead
Come all you pincher laddies and you long-distance men
Don't ever work for MacAlpine, for Wimpey or John Laing
For you'll stand behind a mixer still your skin has turned to tan
And they'll say "Good on you, Paddy" with your boat fare in your hand
The crack/craic (spell it however you want) was good in Cricklewood but they wouldn't leave the crown
There was glasses flyin' and Biddy's cryin' sure Paddy was goin' to town
Oh mother dear I'm over here and I never will come back
What keeps me here is the rake of beer, the women and the crack/craic (spell it however you want)
For I come from the County Kerry the land of eggs and bacon
And if you think I'll eat your fish and chips by Jaysus you're mistakin'

I believe that it is from this poem that CRACK/CRAIC and RAKE (quantity of beer) entered everyday use in Ireland...
But regardless of how it was introduced, it is now part and parcel of Irish Culture and like most other parts of Irish Culture will be included in sean-nos stories for years to come as if the phrase had been uttered by Conchubar MacNessa or Fionn Mac Cumhall...

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## michaelpthompson

That sounds more like it! After Fionn mac Cumhaill defeated the Scottish giant, he said, "That was good craic!" and I'm sure Conchobar said the same thing after the party at Cullen's house. In fact, Cuchullain probably played the mandolin at that party, didn't he?

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## Loretta Callahan

> 'Twas in the year of '39 when the sky was full of lead
> When Hitler was headin' for Poland and Paddy for Hollyhead
> Come all you pincher laddies and you long-distance men
> Don't ever work for MacAlpine, for Wimpey or John Laing
> For you'll stand behind a mixer still your skin has turned to tan
> And they'll say "Good on you, Paddy" with your boat fare in your hand
> The crack/craic (spell it however you want) was good in Cricklewood but they wouldn't leave the crown
> There was glasses flyin' and Biddy's cryin' sure Paddy was goin' to town
> Oh mother dear I'm over here and I never will come back
> ...


 :Grin:

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## Bertram Henze

> 'Twas in the year of '39 when the sky was full of lead
> When Hitler was headin' for Poland and Paddy for Hollyhead
> Come all you pincher laddies and you long-distance men
> Don't ever work for MacAlpine, for Wimpey or John Laing
> For you'll stand behind a mixer still your skin has turned to tan
> And they'll say "Good on you, Paddy" with your boat fare in your hand
> The crack/craic (spell it however you want) was good in Cricklewood but they wouldn't leave the crown
> There was glasses flyin' and Biddy's cryin' sure Paddy was goin' to town
> Oh mother dear I'm over here and I never will come back
> ...


This is best consumed when served by unforgettable Ronnie Drew:

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## Loretta Callahan

Ok, Mr. H.  ..... that was just too good.  Couldn't almost not handle the craic!!

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## John Kelly

In Scotland, at least in the west and highland areas, the word is used quite regularly and I would write it as "crack" rather than the Irish "craic".  We use it in more than one way, as in enjoying someone's conversation and stories would be "enjoying the crack" and often in impromptu sessions we end up doing more talking than playing and might say that the crack was good.

Loretta, with a name like Callahan you are not far from your Celtic roots.  I am from the west coast of Scotland and my birthplace was in Campbeltown, a small fishing and farming town on the Kintyre peninsula which is only about 20 miles from Rathlin Island and the Northern Irish (County Antrim) coast - it makes my surname, Kelly, interesting as is suggests Irish roots and the cross-migration between Antrim and the south-west of Scotland was much greater than history seems to chronicle.

I have really enjoyed all the craic this thread has generated.  :Wink:   :Mandosmiley:

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## Bren

Perhaps John, you're related to Kelly From the Isle of Man where apparently The Crack Was 90, according to Paddy Reilly  - or Christy Moore if you prefer.

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## Eddie Sheehy

...or Kelly, the Boy from Killane...

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## Jim MacDaniel

This is by far the most enlightening and entertaining thread I've read for a while, ripe with memorable lines and phrases. Given the new (to me) meaning of the word _tab_ that I've learned here, I now can say that I've been tab-free for 30 years and counting -- and a _craic_ habit isn't necessarily a bad thing.

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## trebleclef528

Craic pronounced "Crack" (at least in the west of Scotland) is a very common word and as many previous postings have said relates to thinks like a good conversation, or a funny story. So it's not unusual to hear one person saying to another "give us some of your crack" in other words tell us a funny joke or story. Or you might say " we had a great night out... the crack was really good"... again meaning the conversations was good (usually funny)... so basically its used in terms of good times, good company good conversation.

But you might also say "his mandolins a cracker" meaning "it's really good" or "she's a cracker" meaning shes a good looking woman.
Not to be confused with terms like "He's a crack pot, totally aff e's heid!"... which means he's a really stupid person does and says stupid things (aff e's heid - "off his head"... gone nuts, crazy, lost it)

Anyway this has been a cracking thread and the crack has been crackin!
Cheers

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## trebleclef528

Oh! Just thought I'd add this. It had been suggested in a previous comment that Craic might come from the German word Krank (which means sick or ill, for example the German word for hospital is "krankenhause - house for sick/ill people). There is no connection between the two words.... but, in my previous post I referred to the term "he's a crack pot"....... and if we look far enough back to the "lowland Scots" language the word is "Krank pot"... in other words, ill nuts gone crazy... a sick head.

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## Bertram Henze

> It had been suggested in a previous comment that Craic might come from the German word Krank


Actually, suggested was a connection of crunk and krank, but that has been proved wrong, too - at least etymologically. 
Sometimes I suspect that the sounds of words and the shadows of meaning they instinctively trigger in our brains are common on a deeper level, at least in related cultures. Since there is hardly any European ethnic group that has not paid a visit to the British isles during the millenia, the many forms of English-ish languages contain the debris of so many European languages. A special case that keeps baffling me is Lowland Scots vs. German; just a few examples:

dochter - Tochter (daughter)
nicht - Nacht (night)
licht - Licht (light)
ken - kennen (know)

 :Confused:

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## Eddie Sheehy

The early English kings (Edward et al.) used German mercenaries to fight the Scots.  Probably left a bit of their language behind...

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## SincereCorgi

Also, Old English/Anglo-Saxon is quite similar to German- when I studied Old English everybody was always telling me what a shame it was that I didn't speak German already. Then, when I studied some German, it took me a while to get past my extremely weird-sounding and archaic Beowulf pronunciations. (As a side note, stuff like 'Beowulf' sounds _fantastic_ in the original.)

Tochter = dohtor
Nacht = neaht
Licht = lihtan
Ken = kennan

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## John Kelly

Further to this Scots/Germanic link as highlighted with the word similarities given by the above posters, Scots missed the shift from the hard "k" consonant to the softer "ch" which happened in Middle English, so we have retained the words such as "kirk" rather than the modern English "church", and we call a small boat a "skiff" rather than a "ship".  We also have that Germanic "ch" consonant as in our pronunciation of words such as "loch", which the average non-Scottish speaker of modern English modifies to "lock".  we often get requests to play or sing "LocK Lomond" when entertaining tourists locally.  The beautiful little silver or horn drinking cup so closely associated with Scotland is called a "quaich".

No one in Scotland, however, ever says the apocryphal "It's a braw, bricht, moonlicht nicht the nicht" unless we are performing linguistic acrobatics for our non-Scots neighbours - here's a sound we can make that you lot cannot!

Meanwhile, back in the world of the mandolin and Celtic music.......

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## Bertram Henze

> Then, when I studied some German, it took me a while to get past my extremely weird-sounding and archaic Beowulf pronunciations. (As a side note, stuff like 'Beowulf' sounds _fantastic_ in the original.)


Had to look up Beowulf in YouTube, actually, and the sound immediately reminded me of a dialect called Plattdütsch spoken until today in norther parts of Germany, where the old Saxons originated.
Set in the right verse rhythm, it's not too far away from Tam o Shanter  :Wink:

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## journeybear

There are the (American) English terms "wisecracks" and "cracking wise," which may or may not be related, but do refer to good jokes and the telling of them. That is, they bespeak the combination of conversation and fun at the core of craic - as I have come to understand it, thanks to all you eloquent posters. Enjoying all this craic tremendously!  :Grin: 

I'm a little surprised no one has mentioned "crunk" as a musical term, which is how I have heard it used. I believe it is a variant of hip hop, though I am not sufficiently familiar with the genre to distinguish among its various forms. I am reasonably sure mandolin usage in it is extremely rare, though.

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## Loretta Callahan

Indeed, John ~ I'm not far by name, but pretty new to these roots, our family is just discovering them. There does indeed seem to be a strong Scots/Northern Ireland influence with Callahan; didn't know that about Kelly (one of my favorite names).   The parents just didn't discuss our roots. 

  I'm 16th generation from the South (Malcolm/McCullum) on me Mum's very Scots side and 7th generation on my father's Callahan Irish side ~ from West Virginia.  Both parent's roots seem to have some beginnings in Northern Ireland.  I'm quite the American, obviously,  but when I first heard ITM/Celtic music 25 years ago, it instantly connected me to the islands of my ancestors.

Yup, this has been a fun thread.  I was kinds of nervous about posting the question; for fear of seeming out there.  Then I remembered where I was, lol.




> Loretta, with a name like Callahan you are not far from your Celtic roots.  I am from the west coast of Scotland and my birthplace was in Campbeltown, a small fishing and farming town on the Kintyre peninsula which is only about 20 miles from Rathlin Island and the Northern Irish (County Antrim) coast - it makes my surname, Kelly, interesting as is suggests Irish roots and the cross-migration between Antrim and the south-west of Scotland was much greater than history seems to chronicle.
> 
> I have really enjoyed all the craic this thread has generated.


I didn't know "crunk" was a kind of hip hop.  I just thought I was getting my "krunk" on when I rocked out to Mary J,  Mos Def, Three Mile Stone, De Dannan and Mary Jane Lamond!  :Grin: 




> I'm a little surprised no one has mentioned "crunk" as a musical term, which is how I have heard it used. I believe it is a variant of hip hop, though I am not sufficiently familiar with the genre to distinguish among its various forms. I am reasonably sure mandolin usage in it is extremely rare, though.

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## Jim MacDaniel

> ...But you might also say "his mandolins a cracker" meaning "it's really good" or "she's a cracker" meaning shes a good looking woman...


Just received an example of this usage in an email from Foot Stompin' Music today -- and were it not for this thread, I wouldn't have picked up on an etymological connection with craic...




> The special CD offer today is "The Missing Gift" from the Anna Massie Band. This is a  cracker of a CD featuring award-winning multi-instrumentalist Anna Massie, accordionist & piper Mairearad Green and guitarist vocalist Jenn Butterworth...

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