Green’s Dictionary of Slang

gulpin n.

a fool.

1818		‘A. Burton’ Adventures of Johnny Newcome I 46: Midst comrades’ jeers he hasted, Foiled, shamed, and by a Gulpin basted.
1821		‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 49: Her employer, who would be sure to send her supperless to roost if she went home without a gulpin.
1836		‘Charley The Buzzman and Mot!’ in Flash Casket 67: Where are you paddling on tip toe light, / An old Bulk ax’d, a mot one night; / Nosing for gulpins, who want a bed, / Charley said she I am hither led.
1844		New Sprees of London 24: There are some very pretty shicksters to be met with here [...] though, of course, if they can lay hold of a gulpin they will not fail to shake him.
1866		Letters by an Odd Boy 162: Why should I call an individual obese of ’person and weak of intellect ‘-a gummy gulpin ?
1873		Sl. Dict.
1886		W. Besant World Went Very Well Then Ch. xxix: [...] Go then! [...] Go then, for a brace of gulpins [F&H].
1910		P.W. Joyce Eng. As We Speak It In Ireland.
1924		H.L. Wilson Professor How Could You! 333: The poor gulps can’t touch your lines.
1927		P. O’Donnell Islanders (1933) 144: Dirty gulpins of ducks, that I didn’t get an egg out of since I don’t know when.
1948		P. Kavanagh Tarry Flynn (1965) 34: ‘I’m the two ends of a gulpin,’ he said aloud to himself. And all through that day he kept cursing himself for his cowardice.
1969		P. Boyle All Looks Yellow to the Jaundiced Eye 50: Oh, a shower of ignorant gulpins. They’ve made a hames of the joint already.
1977		(con. 1930s) S. McAughtry Sinking of the Kenbane Head 61: Ye ignorant-lookin’ gulpin.
1986		(con. 1930s) P. O’Farrell Tell me, Sean O’Farrell 54: ‘Why in the name of Jaysus would he want to be buried with his gateposts?’ was the remark of a ‘gulpin’ during the lunch-break.