Hi Papeya,"Would you be imitating anyone's accent there?" she shouted in his ear.
"Divil a bit!"
What does it mean? Is it an idiomatic expression or a quotation from some famous texts?
Papeya
Thanks Danc. I found an internet site saying it was a "Dublinism".(correction La Reine.. it's not a Dublin expression, much more Cork / Kerry)
To take it a bit further. I would have imagined it to have been derived from something along the lines of "T(o t)he devil (with you if) a bit of it (is true)".Up in this part of The Island, Divil a bit of it means, more or less, "I am of the opinion that what you have just said is incorrect." Divil a bit would be enough.
In other words, it is a generalised contradiction that, because it is rather archaic and somewhat stage-Irish, is meant to be interpreted as light-hearted and somewhat frivolous.