Glossary: T

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Taoiseach: Roughly pronounced "tea shock". The Irish Prime Minister.
TD: A member of the Irish Parliament.
Throwing shapes: The strutting, the sizing-up, and all the other movements people go through prepartory to starting a fight.
Tinker: Originally meant an itinerant tinsmith, the word has lost all descriptive meaning and is now used as an entirely derogatory term for Our Friends In The Travelling Community. See also knacker.
Tiocfaidh Ár Lá: Irish for "our day will come"; the motto of the Republican movement. The motto also of ignorant Republican fellow-travellers who think that writing it on toilet walls is striking some sort of blow for national unity. Roughly pronounced "Chuckie Or Law" and often spelt that way too, literacy in Irish (or indeed, any language) not being a strong point with toilet-wall Republicans.
Troubles, the: Mild euphemism for the ongoing murder, terror, mutilation, and intimidation taking place in Northern Ireland. The Irish seem to have a good line in such understatement-- World War II was "the Emergency" to us.
Twelfth, the: The Twelfth of July, official start of the marching season.