Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an Irishman, esp. when large and brawny; thus Paddy Whackery n.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
c.1790		‘The Wee Wee Bag of Potatoes’ in Luke Caffrey’s Gost 5: My curse upon you Paddy Whack, you have ruin’d the ladies.
1793		J. O’Keeffe Sprigs of Laurel 31: 3. I’m Natty Jack. 4. I’m Paddy Whack.
1815		H.H. Brackenridge Modern Chivalry (1937) Pt II Vol. IV 729: God love your shoul, said the Paddy-whack, it is not you I am attacking.
1820		W. Combe Doctor Syntax, Consolation (1868) 182/2: Whene’er you meet a Paddy Whack, / Think whose strength laid you on your back.
1831		Berks. Chron. 28 May 3/3: Whenever a bull is made by any person, he is set down immediately for a Paddy-whack.
1832		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 15 n.p.: Paddy O’Whack [must not] boil his potatoes over a furnace in the street.
1841		A.M. Maxwell Run Through the United States I 121: The rail-road, which will be completed from Boston to this place [...] thanks to Paddy Whack.
1857		London Standard 22 Oct. 3/3: An old song makes mention of a certain — ‘Paddywhack just come from Cork’.
1862		Reading Mercury 22 Mar. 5/5: The Irish, or poor Paddy-whack, he might rap well.
1870		Clarksville Chron. (TN) 18 June 1/6: Downing [...] boasted [...] that he had Irish blood in his veins. This was too much for Paddy-whack [who] roared out ‘An’ was yer mother scared by a nayger?’.
1876		Worcs. Chron. 18 Mar. 5/2: There would be a great danger of its being transformed by [...] Malapropian tongues in the sister isle into ‘Paddy-whack’.
1889		Event (Cork) n.p.: About thirty-five years ago there lived [...] a few miles out of Carrigaline, a celebrated character, nicknamed Paddy Whack. He earned the alias by frequent rows he got into [BS].
1889		Pittsburgh Dispatch 27 Jan. 10/5: The millionaire’s son rubbing shoulders with the paddywhack from the tenements.
1909		G.D. Chase ‘Cape Cod Dialect – Addenda’ in DN III:v 421: paddywhacker, n. An Irish ragamuffin.
1914		Wash. Times (DC) 20 Oct. 5/2: What would she be doin’ [...] but fall [...] in love with Paddywhack himself, the same as what used to paddywhack her proper when she was a naughty little girl.
1961		(con. 1890–1910) ‘Flann O’Brien’ Hard Life (1962) 40: But by gob it wasn’t like that when we had the Penal Laws, with Paddy Whack keeping a lookout for the soldiery from the top of the ditch on a Sunday morning.

2. in attrib. use of sense 1.

1833		Satirist (London) 12 May 5/3: ‘I wish very much to know who this cove is [...] go down to the House of Commons, and ask some of the Paddy-whack Members for his name’.
1867		Lancaster Gaz. (OH) 18 July 1/5: My friend george [...] would be justle astonished were the ragged paddy-whack voters [...] to invade his lawn.
1909		Kentucky Irish Amer. (Louisville, KY) 27 Mar. 2/2: The Boston Citizen says: ‘If a check is not soon put on the Irish Romanists this whole country will soon resemble a vast Paddy-whack burying ground’.

3. (also paddywhacking) a severe beating.

1864		Wilmington Jrnl (NC) 1 Dec. 2/2: WEe do not want [the enemy] to slide away with impunity [...] to lose his paddy-whack.
1896		Dly Public Ledger (Maysville, KY) 29 Feb. 1/3: Paddy Whack! What a Pair of Toughs Got in the Police Court [...] Judge Wadsworth [...] directed Officers Stockdale and Purnell to give each of the lads a sound thrashing.
1903		Richmond Dispatch (VA) 25 Jan. 22/5: ‘Do you want another paddywhacking?’ demanded the boy.
1924		G.H. Lawson Dict. of Aus. Words And Terms 🌐 PADDYWHACK—A beating.
1928		Framlingham Wkly News 29 Oct. 3/7: Up with your shick-shack or down comes a paddy-whack.
1979		Maledicta III:2 163: paddywhack n Thrashing, severe beating.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 279: The Irish Paddy has been elaborated in various ways, e.g., [...] paddywhack, a stout Irishman, a rage or passion, and a thrashing or firm blow—the kind of smack or whack an angry Paddy might give you.

4. a rage, a passionate outburst of temper.

1898

Kipling ‘In Ambush’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 46: Well, hold on, till King loses his temper [...] He’s a libelous old rip, an’ he’ll be in a ravin’ paddy-wack.

5. (Irish) stage or ‘professional’ Irishism, e.g. much use of ‘Sure an’ beggorrah, sorr...’.

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.
1996		Sun. Trib. (Dublin) 4 Feb. n.p.: The story of an alcoholic who despite drinking 30 pints a day still holds down a job on the railways, is a ludicrous wallow in some never-never land of pub Paddy-whackery [BS].