Irish Proverb 315 - Seanfhocail Ghaeilge 315

"Live horse" doesn't make sense. Is it "live like a horse"?

I must say, I agree, it does seem strange. However, if you Google "Live horse and you'll eat grass", "Live horse and you'll get grass", "Live horse, get grass" you'll find that the expression is very much alive in Irish English. It would be hard to do a literal translation of the Irish because a chapaill is "oh horse" - it's a vocative addressing the horse! It is basically saying to someone, if you don't insist on your rights you won't get them, if you're happy to live like a horse, people will feed you grass. Hope this makes it a bit clearer.

Aha, so the "a chapaill" is a bit strange to non-Irish ears indeed. Well, nothing surprises me any more in this amazing language.

Yes, I agree with your interpretation.

Thanks, your comment helped a lot!

I was just talking about this with my great Grandmother, and she said it was more of a promise (or something like that ahah). According to her, it's sort of like a farmer going out to his starving horse and saying 'live horse! ... And you'll eat grass.'

I've heard it more used in a cynical fashion of a promise that is not intended to be fulfilled at all. I.e. The farmer knows the horse will starve anyway!

That's how I tend to use it anyway, especially in reference to people who promise and promise but never actually deliver. ;)

My father used this sometimes.

"Live horse" as in "Stay alive, oh horse". And you'll get grass--the grass you need to live. So it's a slightly dark way of saying 'do the impossible'. Dark because failure means the horse dies.

As least that's how he used it on me.

I had understood this idiom in the context of some future reward based upon quicksand expectations . So foolishness!

My mam, PBUH, who was born in 1912, used the phrase just as Seano stated it above, which is to say, "If you are willing to live like a horse (that is, expect nothing better) you will get grass (and nothing more)". I suppose that would be written, "Mair a chapaill is gheobhaidh tú féar".  

I've seen it with commas that makes a difference:"Mair, a chapaill, is gheobhaidh tú féar".  

I prefer my mam's admonition to expect better over the latter false-sounding promise.

'Live horse and you'll get grass.'  My mother and grandmother said it too.

It meant to us 'Prove that you're worth the investment, then I'll invest.'  In other words, you're on your own.  I think that it was a meditation on the dilemma of poverty, which was the order of the day for an Irish farmer.  

Anytime I've heard this phrase in usage, it has been used with the meaning "if you can just hold out, things will get better". As Hesk said above, its literally being addressed to a starving horse who is told if it can survive for a little longer it will get grass e.g. towards the end of a hard winter with spring on the horizon.

I've never heard it used cynically i.e. a warning of false promises. But that's really up to interpretation and usage!

I don't think the interpretation of "if you live like a horse you'll be treated like a horse" is the original intention of the phrase, however, as it is the horse that is being directly addressed. The commas around "a chapaill" are generally included to emphasise that.