cat melodeon

cat melodeon

English

Etymology

Compare cat "terrible"; cat's melody

Ciaran Carson suggests influence of cat marbh/cat mara (ga); literally "dead cat"/"sea cat", figuratively "calamity".[1]

Alternative spellings

• catmalogen, cat malogen, cat melodium

Adjective

cat melodeon

1. (Ireland, informal) terrible, appalling; of very poor quality
   • 1997 Michael Coady "The Longest Puck" All Souls (Gallery Press) →ISBN p. 65:

     We're fed up of

     festivals and funerals

     and Munster Finals

     with backs that were

     cat melodeon.

   • 2016 April 18, "Broadband service is ‘cat melodeon'" The Southern Star:

     Cllr Danny Collins (Ind) pointed out that half of West Cork doesn’t have phone coverage either, and that the situation with broadband was ‘cat melodeon’.

   • 2019 Conor Bowman, Hughie Mittman's Fear of Lawnmowers Chapter 11 →ISBN Hachette UK

     I'm going to do something cat-melodeon wrong and say you did it and everyone will believe me.

2. (Ireland, informal) cacophonous; raucous
   • 2021 Christy Moore and Wally Page, "Zozimus & Zimmerman"

     The lights went down and the crowd went cat melodeon

     We were all revved up and ready to engage

     Having hitch hiked all the way from Minnesota

     Zimmerman was there before us on the stage

References

1. Carson, Ciaran (1996) Last Night's Fun: A Book about Irish Traditional Music, Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 123