23 February 2017
shebeen
[shuh-been]
noun, Scot., Irish English, South African.
1. a tavern or house where liquor is sold illegally.
Origin of shebeen
Irish, English
1780-1790; Irish síbín illicit whiskey, place where such whiskey is sold (ellipsis from teach síbín shebeen house), orig., a unit of measure < English chopin1
Dictionary.com
Examples from the Web for shebeen
Historical Examples
shebeen, an unlicensed place where spirituous liquors are illegally sold.
The Slang Dictionary
John Camden Hotten
“‘Twas at Micky’s shebeen that they had the first encounther wid the inimy,” said old Martin.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 148, January 20th 1915
Various
shebeen or sheebeen; an unlicensed public-house or alehouse where spirits are sold on the sly.
English As We Speak It in Ireland
P. W. Joyce
A reconciliation took place, and in due time it was determined that Peter, as he understood poteen, should open a shebeen house.
Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee
William Carleton
The gabble and laugh were again heard loud and hearty, and the public and shebeen houses once more became crowded.
The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh
William Carleton
There was a bitter taste in his mouth, and a pain in his ear where somebody’d hit him during a shebeen brawl the night before.
The Buttoned Sky
Geoff St. Reynard
Schele de Vere derives it from the French cabane, but it seems rather more likely that it is from the Irish shebeen.
The American Language
Henry L. Mencken
On reaching St. John’s he would go to a shebeen that he knew, in a narrow and secluded back street, and there rent a room.
The Harbor Master
Theodore Goodridge Roberts
In this lane at the time to which we allude the widow Mulready kept the shebeen shop, of which mention has before been made.
The Macdermots of Ballycloran
Anthony Trollope
Anagram
bee hens
she been
Today’s quote
I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I think, and out of all that I try to form an idea into which I put as much common sense as I can.
– Marquis de Lafayette
On this day
23 February 1836 – the Battle of the Alamo commences. It was a 13 day siege and a pivotal point in the Texas Revolution, in which Mexican forces attacked Texan forces stationed at the Alamo Mission. All 100 Texans were killed. Several months earlier, all Mexicans had been driven out of Mexican Texas.
23 February 1896 – the Tootsie Roll is invented.
23 February 1915 – death of Robert Smalls, African American who was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina. When he was a teenager, his master sent him to Charleston to work. Smalls ended up working on boats and became adept at all manner of work around wharves and boats, including stevedore, rigger, sail maker and wheelman (essentially a pilot, although slaves were not granted that title). During the Civil War, he was asked to steer a lightly armed Confederate vessel, the CSS Planter. One evening, after the white crew members disembarked, Smalls dressed in the captain’s uniform and commandeered the vessel with the help of seven other slaves, sailing towards Union ships. On the way, he picked up his wife and child, as well as the families of the other slave crewman. As they neared the Union ships, Smalls flew a white bed-sheet from the mast as a symbol of surrender. Smalls was treated as a hero by the Union. He later successfully petitioned President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, to allow black men to fight for the Union. Stanton signed an order allowing 5,000 black men to enlist with Union forces. Smalls was made pilot of the USS Keokuk. After the Civil War, Smalls returned to Beaufort and bought his former master’s house. Smalls became a businessman, operating a store for freed men. He also became politically active, joining the Republican Party. In 1868 Smalls was elected to the State House of Representatives. He worked on passing the Civil Rights Bill and in 1868, the Republican government enacte the Civil Rights Act, which gave citizenship to all Americans, regardless of race. Smalls was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1874, and served two terms.In 1912, Smalls famously described the Republican Party as, ‘the party of Lincoln … which unshackled the necks of four million human beings‘. In 1913, Smalls stopped a lynch mob from lynching two black men, after he warned their mayor that blacks he’d sent through the city would burn the town down if the mob wasn’t stopped. The mayor and sheriff stopped the mob. Smalls inspirational life went from slave, to hijacker, to defector, to politician and civil rights campaigner. Born 5 April 1839.
23 February 1944 – the Soviet Union begins the forced deportation of Chechen and Ingush people from the North Caucasus to Central Asia.
23 February 1954 – Polio vaccines first become available.
23 February 1958 – Five time Formula 1 racing car driver, Juan Manuel Fangio, is kidnapped by Cuban rebels led by Fidel Castro. The Batista Dictatorship had established a non-Formula 1 race (the Cuban Grand Prix) in 1957, so the rebels were hoping to embarrass Batista by forcing him to cancel the race. The race went ahead and the captors let Fangio listen to it on the radio. Fangio was released unharmed. Castro’s forces overthrew Batista in January 1959 and cancelled the race that year.
23 February 1987 – the light from Supernova 1987A reaches Earth, 170,000 years after it exploded. The supernova was 1 million trillion miles away.
23 February 2010 – death of Cuban plumber and activist, Orlando Zapata. Zapata was arrested in 2002 by Cuban police for contempt. In 2003 he was arrested during a crackdown on dissidents, for undertaking a hunger strike aimed at securing the release of prisoners. He was sentenced to 36 years imprisonment. Amnesty International recognised him as a ‘prisoner of conscience’. In December 2009 he began a hunger strike which ultimately led to his death. Born 15 May 1967.
