THE word yewk, to itch, is one that hasn't, as far as I know, travelled further south than Cavan and Monaghan. It seems to be a Scots import; in that language it has a long pedigree. The word is also found as a noun, meaning the itch, and hence we get yewkiness. An old Scots proverb says Love is a yewkiness of the heart that the hand canna claw. The word was recorded by Patterson, Hume and others in Antrim and Down a hundred years ago. It is of Germanic origin. You'll find flicker in Middle High German, joken in Middle Low German; and the Dutch have jeuken, to itch. I thank Mary MacGowan for sending the word my way from Monaghan.
Sean O Donnagain, a man of Offaly stock who now lives in Dublin, sent me a story about a group of Tyrone labourers who called a young fellow who was employed to run errands and make tea the gype. The English ganger one day asked the senior workman what a gype was, and the answer he got was, It's halfway between a lig and a shloother, Most enlightening.
Well now, gype is found in the north of this country and in Scotland. As a verb it means to stare foolishly; to act as a fool. As a noun it means a fool, a lout; an awkward, stupid fellow. These definitions are the EDD's. I can't even guess as to its origin.
What about a lig? This is Scots, too. It is doublet of lag. A lig, sometimes ligger, is one who stays in bed all day; a useless lazy person; one who is habitually late. Both lig and lag are of unknown origin; lig was used in Scots when Shakespeare referred to the lag end of my life.
As for shloother I would ask you to compare the Irish sluaiste, layabout, and the Scots Gaelic shiaisteach, of shuffling gait.
In the Cooley peninsula people once used the expression he'd charm the larks out of the lift. It was often applied to young men more successful than most in the art of seduction, so a bashful Ruth from Dundalk tells me. No shloothers, these Cooleymen.
This lift is Scandinavian in origin, related to Old Norse lypta, and Old English lyft, sky. Interestingly, the EDD gives to suck the laverocks (larks) out of the lift from Scotland. Compare the Modern German Luft air, the Irish lochta, loft, and indeed the Modern English loft, aloft and lofty.