Jackeen
A Dubliner - used by speakers from outside Dublin, almost always pejoratively. The country reciprocal of 'culchie': where Dublin sees the rest of the country as culchies, the rest of the country sees Dublin as jackeens.
Etymology
From English 'Jack' (a common-name stand-in for any man, including 'John Bull' the personification of England) plus the Irish diminutive '-een': 'little Johnny'. The historical sense was the same as 'shoneen' - an Irishman with English airs - but the modern use narrowed to apply specifically to Dubliners. First documented in Fraser's Magazine, 1840: 'A buckeen, a jackeen, a squireen, or any of the intermediate classes.' Joyce gave it weight in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916): 'he was only a Dublin jackeen.'
In a sentence
"A pair of jackeens up for the match - couldn't find the pitch without sat nav."
Historical notes
Jackeen sits in a fixed pair with 'culchie' - the two-word taxonomy of Irish urban-rural opposition. Each word is the other's mirror, neither is wholly polite, and the speaker's position determines which word does the work. The historical link to 'shoneen' (= imitator of English) is now mostly forgotten in common use; modern 'jackeen' just means 'Dubliner' in the country mouth, with the contempt implied rather than spelled out. Belfast and the wider North have their own equivalents but do not use 'jackeen' - the word belongs to the Republic.
Sources
- Oxford English Dictionary, entry jackeen n. · dictionary
- Fraser's Magazine (1840). · academic
- Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). · academic