Quote Originally Posted by MacMillan of Rathdown View Post
I love it! Thanks. And not wishing to start a debate, BUT "rags", as used here, may simply refer to clothes in the general sense. Rather like persons engaged in the fashon industry refer to it as "the rag trade". May have to rush to my OED and look up rags....
That's a very good point. I just assumed it was a jab at Irish clothing. It could well have been meant in the general sense. And what's wrong with friendly debate? I have plenty more to learn!

Quote Originally Posted by Pleater View Post
That explains why I use hosen as the plural of hose. My father's mother spole a rather archaic English having been brought up in the wilds of Derbyshire and never went to school. We lived with my fathers parents from my being two years old until I was seven.

Isn't brogue also used for an accent?
Yep it is. It can refer to a strongly marked accent, particularly that of Irish English. The OED (The Oxford English Dictionary, for those of you rushing to your own dictionaries in order to figure this out) mentions that some assume a connection between the shoes usage and the accent usage "as if ‘the speech of those who wear brogues’, or ‘who call their shoes brogues’;" However the OED notes "but of this there is no evidence."

P.S. I have total dialect jealousy now. That's a really old plural form (the -en) ending but it's so rare (used with "oxen" and um..."oxen")