Irish cockney

English

Noun

Irish cockney (plural Irish cockneys)

1. (UK, slang, archaic) A person born of Irish parents in any part of the southern counties of England.

References

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary:

  It is a singular fact that Irishmen born profess great abhorrence of Irish Cockneys, while the latter despise all Irish, and use the word as one of reproach. Irish Cockneys were originally only Cockneys born of an Irish strain, but the term has proved very elastic, and threatens soon to mean any English-born person whose descent is Hibernian. Liverpool will, however, always prove an exception to the rule, as the name Liverpool Irishmen is given to those who would in any southern part be called Cockneys.