Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a wheelbarrow.

1860		Dly Delta (N.O.) 13 July 13/3: He re-appeared dressed in character of a Brazilian Ape, trunding [sic] an ‘Irishman’s buggy’.
1887		Monroeville Breeze (IN) 14 Apr. 3/3: He used the Irishman’s buggy considerable, in wheeling in and grading up the yard around his residence.
1891		Iowa City Press (Iowa City, IA) 17 Apr. 16/2: Baskets [...] and the Irishman’s buggy, the wheelbarrow, very largely take the place of wagons.
1905		Alton Eve. Teleg. (IL) 25 Oct. 2/4: The marshal [was] wheeling a colored man in an ‘Irishman’s buggy’ a wheelbarrow.
1913		News-Jrnl (Mansfield, OH) 19 May 6/1: Officer Baxter converted his wheelbarrow, which is usually known as the Irishman’s buggy, into a water wagon.
1921		Jasper Wkly Teleg. (IN) 1 July 5/4: Senator Mike A. Sweeney, who used to push an Irishman’s buggy, has never got over being a friend of the Man who labors.
1937		Des Moines Trib. (IA) 10 Nov. 6/5: ‘[A] man who knows just about enough to run an Irishman’s buggy always could tell you how to run [...] the government’.
1953		Lansing State Jrnl (MI) 28 Aug. 28/2: Anybody who has pushed an Irishman’s buggy will have an appreciation for a race involving them.
1966		K. Porter ‘Still More Ethnic and Place names as Derisive Adjectives’ Western Folklore XXV:1 38: Irishman’s buggy. A wheelbarrow. Central Kansas, ca. 1926.

a black eye and a bloody nose.

1806		in DSUE.
1807		J.R. Shaw Life and Travels 37: I soon gave Mr. Airton an Irishman’s coat of arms, i.e., two black eyes and a bloody nose.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 211: Irish coat of arms. A black eye.

a fast.

1873		Sl. Dict. 304: ‘An Irishman’s dinner’ is a low East-end term, and means a smoke and a visit to the urinal.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1979		Maledicta III:2 164: Irishman’s dinner n A fast; from the stereotype of Irish poverty and hunger which was reinforced by the Irish famine of 1845–46.
1997		Share Slanguage.

the orange season.

1861

(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 79/1: The orange season is called by the costermongers the ‘Irishman’s harvest’.

(US) a pocket that is both large and empty.

1979		Maledicta III:2 164: Irishman’s pocket n One large and empty.
1997		Share Slanguage.

mounting a ladder carrying a hod of bricks.

1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.
1997		Share Slanguage.

see Irish rise under Irish adj.

(US) the street.

1884		River Press (Fort Benton, MT) 20 Aug. 5/1: A person to reach his home in safety must take the Irishman’s sidewalk, getting on and off some of the plank walks being attended with some danger.
1907		J.W. Carr ‘Word-List from Hampstead, N.H.’ in DN III iii 191: Irishman’s sidewalk, n. The street ‘I am going to take the Irishman’s sidewalk‘.
1931–33		LANE Worksheets n.p.: Irishman’s sidewalk – center of the street [DARE].
1993		I.L. Allen City in Sl. (1995) 46: A slang term for a city street [...] was once Irishman’s sidewalk, perhaps an assertion that the street, or more exactly the roadway, rather than on the sidewalk, was a more suitable place for the hated Irish to walk, or that perhaps they were too dumb to know the difference.

(UK und.) a prison.

1929

Eve. Star (Otago) 31 Dec. 10: The newspaper has no scheme to ensure its readers against being put in the ‘Irishman’s Theatre’ (prison).

(US) corned beef and cabbage.

1966		Western Folklore XXV:3 38: Irishman’s turkey. Corned beef and cabbage.
1994		in DARE.