Bulkies

See also: bulkies

English

Etymology

Perhaps from their bulky figures.

Noun

Bulkies pl (plural only)

1. (Ireland, slang, obsolete) The police.
   • 1891, Irish Builder and Engineer, volume 33, page 122:

     […] the newly-elected constables, who were popularly known, down to the year 1837, as the "Bulkies."

   • 2023, Sean Farrell, Thomas Drew and the Making of Victorian Belfast, page 253:

     In his study of the Belfast Town Police (nicknamed "the Bulkies"), Brian Griffin has argued that the force's sectarian reputation was more a matter of appearance […] than behavior.

References

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary