Runners
Trainers. Sneakers. Sports shoes worn outside actual sport. The standard southern Irish word for what Britain calls trainers, America calls sneakers, and Ulster calls gutties. Always plural; never 'a runner' in this sense.
Etymology
From the standard English 'runner' (= a person who runs) plus the agent-shoe shift: shoes for running. The Hiberno-English form generalised quickly to mean any soft-soled lace-up shoe worn casually, not just for actual running. Standard English uses 'running shoes' for the same item; the Hiberno-English shortening to 'runners' is the local form.
In a sentence
"Don't go out in your good shoes - put on a pair of runners."
Historical notes
Runners is the Republic-of-Ireland counterpart to Ulster's 'gutties'. Both name the same item; speakers from either tradition use their own word. Younger speakers in Dublin have started using 'trainers' (British) or 'sneakers' (American influence) but 'runners' remains the standard southern Hiberno-English word. The school PE context is where it survives most strongly: a Dublin school parent says 'pack your runners'; an Ulster school parent says 'pack your gutties'.
Sources
- Oxford English Dictionary, entry runner n. (Irish English shoe sense). · dictionary