Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Irish) a child.

2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 219: ‘I don’t understand people who drag their kids into this shit [...] You think you wouldn’t expose your smallies to your failings’.
2017		L. McInerney Blood Miracles 119: ‘I’ve been playing [the piano] since I was a smallie.’.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 78: ‘See? There’s not much you can tell me about smallies’.