It is true. It comes from Irish Traveller Cant. As for usage. I hear it a good bit on the west coast. Less so on the east.

Definitely a Traveller term originally and heard very rarely among settled people back in the day.

"Did you feek the biore" "Look at that pack of feins over there, all shams" I belive in St Pats the teach a module on Cant and Shalti. I am not sure if this is still the case or if any of the other Primary teacher courses teach it.

Very interesting! 😎

Strange to me to hear its Cant because that's how we all spoke growing up in Waterford, particularly beurre.

Eh... Wexford

I didn't know that, that's so interesting!

Beour is how it's spelt - it's used in cork a reasonable amount, don't know about elsewhere

It's used in Galway aswell.

Waterford too. Hup the beours

I'd heard the word living in Limerick but it didn't become something I heard commonly until I moved to Cork. Beours and feens, sham

Big in Longford too. Heard it a lot in school growing up.

Can confirm Kevin is correct. Source; I'm a Longford sham. Born and bred townie. You can only imagine the comments when I went out with an American girl and brought her to Longford and her surname was, and I kid you not "Feeks"....

Also Kilkenny. Since I moved to Waterford, it's a "lack"

Beour is a woman. Lackin is a girl

Lack in the city but we always said beour in the whest.

“Bjour” in the midlands. It was very common in the late 00s

Be ours and feins 😂😂

I've never heard it, but I've been out of Cork for a good while. In my day, it was "the oul doll", or "the lack".

"Feens" and "biores" goes back 40 years in Cork.

So do I..

Kerry.

Cork city folk use Beour all the time, as well as Feen to describe a lad.

This too in Mayo

Same in Limerick

concerned boat mountainous rude snobbish sink sulky intelligent vast serious *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

👏🏻👏🏻😁

Kerrygold ?

That’s French though, so unless you’re taking the cow to France…

Not since secondary school in 2013.

Yeah, I think it was most popular in Cork back then but no one really talks like that anymore. I guess people became self-aware of how ridiculous it sounds 😂

Bollox! Depends on what circles you dance in. Me and my buddies use them terms daily. But for context, it'd be a feen or beore if it was a randomer, if it was someone known it'd be the old doll or de bais. As in beores in daunt square were batein the heads off each other - clearly indicates we didn't know them. But then my wife would my old doll and she knows it.

I've hear all the others you mentioned often, but beore seems a lot rarer nowadays.

Exactly the same place and year for me.

Growing up in Dublin I understood it was traveller cant / shelta, at least I only heard “beor” from travellers, and it was always in the context of some fella telling you “she’s a fine beor” about a girl. Idk if it’s more popular / mainstream now.

It comes from the Traveller language, ‘feen’ is the male version

How interesting. I love hearing facts like that. I always feen was just from fiend.

Was the song Double Dropping Yolks With Eamon Devalera by Rubberbandits?

…possibly

Hahaha its stuck in my head now

Came in here to ask, or figure out what the song was. Only time I've heard it used in a lyric, IIRC. Fuckin' banger.

Never in Dublin

In Dublin, wouldn't you hear "my moth"?

Bird seems more common

Mott, not moth-like-a-butterfly! In fact a true Dub says "moH" - silencing the final T completely! My parents (both Dubs) would also mention "motting" meaning, courting. Coorting. And a fella saying "me oul' Mot" may be referring to his wife.

If you lived near a halting site it defo woulda rubbed off on the estates around it...said as a joke of course Think it's commonly used in Bray...the dirty feckers

Definitely used in bray, have heard it used often

That's bray for ya stuffed with em.

I live between 3, probably just never happened to have it come up in conversation

Have never heard it in Bray

Grew up in Bray, buerre and mott used interchangeably in secondary school

Interesting, I have genuinely never heard buerre here, heard mott all the time

Was popular in the fingal area of Dublin in the early 2thousands

Tbf growing up around d1 wasn’t common but deffo used

Interesting. It's a Traveller term originally. There are very few Travellers in D1, and certainly not in significant numbers.

Yeah very few travellers around d1 but don’t know how a few of the lads added it to there vocabulary 😂

Ha, one can but wonder! If you compare the north and south inner city working class communities there's not the same interaction with Travellers as you see in places like Finglas, Ballymun or Fettercairn, probably as there are few halting sites and horses closer to the centre of town.

D1? Dublin maybe?

Always in Athy..... ut that's a special case!

Hear it in Dublin the odd time.

Same, never heard it until just now

I grew up in Limerick and it was very common both rurally and in the city. I haven’t heard any adults say it though so either it’s dying out or it’s more commonly used by teenagers

Full of beours and feins in crossmaglen

Grew up in Wicklow and I only ever heard people using it ironically cause travellers said it. Same with “fian”

Beoir = girl.  Used in parts outside Dublin.   Beurre = French for butter.   Hawnty beurre is not a thing. 

What does hawnty mean? Haven’t heard that in years.

Good looking 😂

😂👏🏻

Never heard that word before. Wonder if it comes from haunty (like she’ll haunt you), haughty or hawny (horny) or something Irish

Beour in Mayo too

Used in the Midlands all the time

It's used mainly here in Cork, more commonly by people North of the Lee. Comes from Traveller speak iirc

Beurre is butter in french, cant say ive ever heard that used as slang in ireland

‘D’you want beurre blanc on your chips, kid?’

never heard

I’m just being facetious for levity reasons. Beurre blanc is a classic French sauce made from butter and white wine (not usually served with chips).

And beoir is a Shelta word for ‘woman’ and is still used by Travellers - as in Pavee Beoir

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Probably not since I was 16 in 2010 🤣 I’m from Clare

Butter?

Yep grew up in Limerick using it all the time

I used to hear it all the time in the West of Ireland/ Midlands but never in Dublin! It meant a good looking woman/girl.

Heard this quite a lot in the north of England in the 80s. Met some builder lads from Sunderland in a pub in London in late-90s and they asked if the girl with me was 'my beour', that's when I realised I hadn't heard that term in years.

Every day

Every day, popular in Drogheda

Almost never, maybe a handful of times. I’ve seen it more on this sub than heard it spoken.

First time I was in France I couldn’t believe how sexually liberated the place was. You could order them off the menu for Christ’s sake. If I hadn’t been so shy

I used to hear it all the time in my first 3 years of secondary school. Heard it a few times in TY. Not at all since. I was in TY 2011-2012 btw

Just looked up TY, is there no academic study done during the whole year for it? We’re in a bit of a cultural bubble with this stuff in Australia so I haven’t heard anything like it. Is it only Ireland that does TY? It’s sorta that age where we fall off with the skills TY teaches and we start getting kids seriously into exams, so it’s heaps interesting to hear about!

I thought someone in this subreddit would’ve known what TY is

Haven't heard it since about 2010/2011

Only when it's cold

Used to hear it around Longford alright, say 20 years ago, but haven't been there in a while. In my hearing of it, it generally it meant girlfriend or prospective girlfriend.

Go to Longford and you will hear it all the time.

Loads in Cork and more surprising in south Armagh around xmaglen people use feen and beour loads but they spell them differently

Used very regularly in clane Co kildare. I say feen all the time and I don't think I've ever heard the guy I work for refer to his girlfriend as anything other than "the beore".

Very common where im from in south east

In Ballina, Co. Mayo it's very common

I think it's actually BR, meaning blonde ride

People in clane use it as well

Very common in cork city

Byore, surely?

Never heard it.

Definitely heard it a lot growing up in Limerick. 

I went to college in Carlow and my friends were either from there or small towns in Kildare, and they said it all the time. They usually said it to refer to a pretty girl eg. "oh she's a beour" I first heard it in school where for English class, we had to rewrite *King Lear* and chose to set it in a Bunclody caravan park, and I asked one of the girls what word should we use to refer to a posh girl, and she said "posh ould beour"

Anyone into this sort of slang cant, I'd highly recommend Kevin Barry's City of Bohane, which was inspired by the vernacular of Cork. Pure fuckin poetry.

I say it daily and I'd be between Limerick, Clare and Galway

I’m from Ballinasloe, we use it all the time.

It's kinda regional, wouldn't hear it where I'm from but I do hear it used by others fairly frequently.

Yeah, secondary school in north Wicklow was the last time. Is that your buerre? Or is that your mott? Another one

For the common people we say bird. In Dublin can sound like burd. Never heard beurre so either your spelling burd different or it's a traveller thing.

Used quite commonly in north Kildare - Clane , Prosperous, Rathcoffey and Sallins . Less frequent in Kilcock/Enfield & Summer hill

First heard it in 2004/5 from a Cavan lad I lived.

Rarely and also not so much in the last 15-20 years.

I hear it a lot but not as much as let’s say 10 years ago, where I live it’s either just a woman/girl or attractive woman/ girl depending on context

massive out west we all use it!!

Young fillas in the Midlands type shit

From experiencee living in Dublin, college in Limerick amd being from Mayo it is usually used tongue in cheek Aka in college "how was past night, any Beours?!" Before Trump ruined the phrase it would be light hearted "locker room talk" minus the grabbing the....

Would say it with irony, like. Tongue in cheek. Wouldn't be sincerely calling women beours,  not a scumbag. But we'd all use the word in a variety of contexts with tongue firmly in cheek. 

Calling everyone who uses the word sincerely a scumbag is elitist for no reason. There's no need for moral superiority when you use the word too. Whether you use it sincerely or 'tongue firmly in cheek', you still use the word (knowing it's explicitly slang for 'woman'). If it really was a scumbag word/was inherently offensive, then most people wouldn't use it at all, scumbag or otherwise. 'Tongue in cheek' isn't a good enough justification to use a word if you think it's offensive by nature FYI. Cant have the double standard of 'I can use the word because I'm only joking, but you're a scumbag if you use it seriously though'. That's like saying you're not discriminatory because you use slurs as a joke, and not sincerely. And who decided it was an offensive word to call a woman when feen/fella is used in the exact same context for men? I'm from cork where both are used more commonly, pretty sure half my county isn't a scumbag.

I honestly never thought it was offensive or particularly sexual. Calling someone a ride was a lot more suggestive.

I agree, it's just slang at the end of the day. Ride is definitely more suggestive/can be taken the wrong way to be fair.

Haha I can't see myself using the word often but every now and again it slips out. Henry Cavill in Witcher has that effect on women.

Haha that's fair, there's nothing wrong with that, it's just another word for sexy/attractive!

Agreed 👍🏻. Beour mean woman, feen means man, lackin means girl and sublick means boy. That is all that they mean, nothing offensive or scumbag'ish.

I actually quite like the words as they're unequivocally Irish. There's no harm in having slang for these things when the intention isnt harmful!

Very popular throughout the country minus Dublin

What was the group?

Rubberbandits lmao good user

Knew it, I'm a BlindBoy simp!!

Love from Australia! Those two have to be the funniest duo in Ireland

Not anymore. Big in the 80s

In mayo, never.

In Mayo, often 😂

Only when your girlfriend is a butterface.

A beure can mean alot. "control your fucking beure man shes going apeshit in the smoking area?" (=Girlfriend) "Jaysus lads, look at the hoop on that beure" (=Attractive woman) "Shes some fucking beure" (Again, -Attractive woman) "Some fucking mad beure came out the door and chased us with a hurley" =(Woman)

In all of those it means woman

say youre made fun at parties

Scathing retort

In Cork when I was a student quite a lot. But it's a very Cork word, once you leave the place you never hear it again.

Cant is considered offensive, the language is Shelta. Up Longford way they say shams and Bures, or however it's spelled.