Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Ulster/Scot.) unemployment office, Labour exchange; thus on the buroo, unemployed and collecting benefits.

1924		Fermanagh Herald 22 Mar. 6/7: Are our mills and factories to revert again to short time—with the workers experiencing the demoralising effects of the ‘buroo’—just because there is no flax?
1933		‘The Dirge of the Dole’ in M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 229: Oh, we wish we were dead! A curse on the head / Of the man who began the Buroo!
1935		(con. 1920s) McArthur & Long No Mean City 30: Mary’s family was ‘on the buroo’.
1949		Irish Press 10 Feb. 11/2: ‘What is Derry on?’ The Buroo (northern for bureau or employment exchange.) Derry is on the buroo all right. You can wonder around some parts of the city about midday and find hordes of young men on the streets.
1952		Irish Indep. (Dublin) 18 Sept. 5/5: Life - and Love - on the Dole. He interviewed the ‘New Zealand man’ at the ‘Buroo,’ but found it was ‘no go.’ He is in an unwanted category.
1993		(con. 1945) S. McAughtry Touch and Go 70: Men were queuing to sign on at the buroo.
1996		A. Close Official and Doubtful 307: The broo doesn’t give them enough to feed the kids.
2020		G. Armstrong Young Team 51: He’s git on [...] worky jeans even though he’s on the bru.

2. (Ulster/Scot.) an unemployed person.

1936

K. Mackenzie Living Rough 219: What a sucker I was [...] leaving Scotland and bumming around Canada! I’d have been better off, a buroo or parish stiff, than this.