Anyone any good at traditional Irish English?

[Slo-mo]

A couple of phrases from a song I'd like translating, so to speak. Can someone help a dumb Englishman?

The song is 'Dublin in the rare auld times' which has been sung by a few folks, but I'm most familiar with the Dubliners version.

The narrator of the song says he was "born hard and late in Pimlico". Googling tells me there is a Pimlico in Dublin. It doesn't tell me what "hard and late" means? Does it just mean a tough upbringing?

His first girlfriend, he says, was a "A rogue & a child of Mary" Does this just mean being a Catholic? Or an orphan raised by the church? Or something else?

 

[Pickman's model]

Born hard and late means difficult and tardy birth. Obviously.

 

[Pickman's model]

A child of Mary likely a child of Mary magdalene

 

[Celyn]

Haha. . "Children of Mary" is some sort of RC youth thing. I remember my mother mentioning it.

 

[Slo-mo]

A child of Mary likely a child of Mary magdalene

What, as in from a Magdalene asylum?

 

[Pickman's model]

The Catholicism

Haha. . "Children of Mary" is some sort of RC youth thing. I remember my mother mentioning it.

Sodality of our lady not Mary mags

 

[Pickman's model]

What, as in from a Magdalene asylum?

Google reveals the Sodality of our lady.

I didn't have the benefit of a Catholic education, which I have occasionally lamented

 

[Baronage-Phase]

Hard and late....I take to mean tough childhood..had to grow up fast
The Child of Mary is a reference to
The Congregation of the Children of Mary. The group was first opened to girls who were students or orphans in the care of the The Sisters of Charity but it reached most Catholic secondary schools and eventually was part of growing up in a Catholic Ireland up to the 90s.... It basically was just being a devout catholic...saying prayers and doing charitable works. You got a silver medal when you joined. It was gone from girls schools when I was at school but my mum had the medal.

The Catholic Collector: Congregation of the Children of Mary Medal

 

[Slo-mo]

Thanks Pippin