Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Irish, also gripper) a bailiff.

1737		W. Wilkes ‘Humours of the Black Dog’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 260: Ye Gods! When first the grippers brought me here / How were my sinking Spirits seiz’d with fear!
1800		M. Edgeworth Castle Rackrent (1804) 130: The execution came down, and every thing at Castle Rackrent was seized by the gripers, and my son Jason, to his shame be it spoken, among them .
1948		P. Kavanagh Tarry Flynn (1965) 68: They tell me the grippers were up at Carlins’ again.

2. (UK Und.) a fingernail.

1845

J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 110: My boy, the next time you have an observation to make, do so without using your gripers; by all that’s good you have stuck your nails into my arms.