Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a blunder, an error; a self-contradictory proposition, esp. that which is made by an Irishman; thus bullery n.

1629		R. Brome Northern Lasse II vi: What a Bulfinch is this! sure ’tis his language they call Bull-speaking.
1642		Milton Apology for Smectymnuus in Works III (1851) 293: But that such a Poem should be toothlesse I still affirme it to be a bull, taking away the essence of that which it calls it selfe.
1689		J. Selden Table-Talk (1868) 96: We can make no notion of it, ’tis so full of intricacy, so full of contradiction: ’tis in good earnest, as we state it, half a dozen bulls one upon another.
1690		‘Teague’ Teagueland Jests II 158: Oh! bee mee Shoul, crys Teague, shee dere a Man riding a Horsheback upon a Cow. That’s a great bull replied the Gentleman. Po, po, po, po, dear Joy, says Teague, dou art mishtauken; for it ish no Bull, but a Cow, dou maysht shee hish Teats.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Bull, an absurd contradiction or incongruity.
1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus II:1 6: With Stale Quibbles, Puns, and bulls.
1731		C. Coffey Devil to Pay III iii: Ha, ha, ha! a Bull, a Bull.
1746		Irish Miscellany viii: In short, I do not mean the Bull For the Mouth, but the Bull Of the Mouth.
1756		Sham Beggar II v: An Irishman cannot help betraying what Countryman he is, by his ridiculous Bulls and Inconsistencies.
1761		Nancy Dawson’s Jests 18: A gentleman in Ireland, remarkable for what are called bulls.
c.1773		Macaroni Jester 4: For an Epitaph droll, or an Epigram queer, / Or a broad-faced Hibernian Bull.
c.1780		‘The Bucket of Water’ in Holloway & Black I (1975) 46: ’Tis a mighty fine thing to be sure / It is now, without e’er a bull or blunder.
1790		Banquet of Wit 68: The late Earl of Shaftesbury kept an Irish footman, who perhasps, was as expert in making bulls as the most learned of his countrymen.
1802		M. & R. Lovell Edgeworth Essays on Irish Bulls 232: I should say that an incongruity of ideas constitutes a bull.
1816		W.T. Moncrieff All at Coventry I i: Are you afraid of committing a bull, you dog?
1825		‘The Irishman in England’ Universal Songster I 32/2: I wasn’t a calf to be cowed by a bull; / For soon I parsaved it was nonsense and stuff.
1831		Berks. Chron. 28 May 3/3: Whenever a bull is made by any person, he is set down immediately for a Paddy-whack.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1838		‘Alfred Crowquill’ Seymour’s Humourous Sketches (1866) 155: Watty was so good-humoured a fellow, that he could laugh at an Irish bull.
1840		London Mag. Feb. 13/2: [I]f Davie was not a Scotchman, this might safely be pronounced an Irish bull; but the fact is, that bulls fatten in all climates.
1843		Bucks. Herald 4 Mar. 6/5: If this isn’t a practical bull / ‘Betty Martin,’ it is ‘and my eye’.
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 30 Sept. 2/5: Thomas Tracy, a rale Emeralder of the genus, [...] with the usual good fortune of his countrymen made a bull, or rather put his foot in it.
1848		Satirist & Blade (Boston, MA) 19 Feb. n.p.: It is your vocation to record all bulls, whether of Yankee or Irish origin.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Aug. 14/1: He has an Irishman’s capacity for ‘making bulls’.
1884		Sporting Times 12 Jan. 6/2: Contemptuous silence on your part will probably, to make an irish bull, be your answer.
1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 4 Dec. 7/4: Never can he [i.e. a faro dealer] afford to get rattled. If he does he Is liable to make lots of ‘bulls’ in paying and the house gets done up badly .
1888		Otago Witness (NZ) 20 Apr. 31/5: Irish wit is delightful [...] and there is a lurking twinkle in its seemingly most obtuse ‘bulls’ that the thorough Saxon mind often fails to grasp.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 8 July 4/7: How they [i.e. the police] watch the pubs and ‘pull’ / Fools who’re caught at Sunday-trading, / But they always make a bull, / When the burglars go a-raiding.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 July 13/1: ‘The Turner Govt. thought they had got the ear of the constituencies and could therefore throw dust in their eyes.’ – Small bull-calf from the speech of Kirton, M.P. for Ballarat, in the Victorian Parliament.
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 170: It was a great bull somebody wasn’t croaked for the killin’ o’ Patrolman Stimson two years ago.
1902		Paducah Sun (KY) 2 Sept. 7/2: The Irish member of Parliament is due the credit for the first ‘bull’ of the session. ‘Then when will the heliogram correspondence be published?’ demanded the persistent Irishman.
1904		Ade ‘The Fable of the Poor Woman’ in True Bills 7: Whenever he told a ripe old Scandinavian Wheeze or an Irish Bull she would let out a Whoop.
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 17 Mar. 1/1: [He] declines to allow a boy to laugh when ‘bull’ answers are given by other scholars.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 379: It was bull number one for him, bad way to start the evening off. Girls got sore when fellows pulled little boners like that.
c.1940–5		‘Myles na gCopaleen’ Best of Myles (1968) 278: Superimpose on all that the miasma of ironic usage [...] Irish bullery and Paddy Whackery.
1975		J. Ryan Remembering How We Stood 89: Kavanagh admitted to having perpetrated only one Irish ‘bull’ in his life.