Thank you. 
Because iOS 14.6 has also blocked me from downloading any books not on an iOS device, I couldn’t open the ebook to find the spelling. But your link gave me this,
“known as Teachta Dála (plural Teachtaí Dála , commonly abbreviated as TDs).”
I don’t know if that’s the spelling used in the book, but that’s got to be it! My misspelling from flawed memory is obviously faulty…
Followed Adam Sharp on Twitter immediately following seeing Adam’s post link to alternatives to “when pigs fly”. Russian version particularly abstruse.
And I even linked relevant another iOS 14.6 issue (Books fails to download books) in the thread, Adam…
Don’t worry about mishearing or misspelling Gaelic (irish or scots)–it’s very weird compared to english. Beautiful to listen to, but the sounds are difficult and the spellings often not anything like what you’d expect (e.g. ‘bh’ is mostly pronounced like english ‘v’). I tried to learn how to pronounce it once because there’s so much irish music that I can’t find recordings of, but gave up because life is short and I’m not much of a singer anyway.
As an example, one of the great versions of Casadh an tSugain (Twisting the Rope) from Michael O’Domhnaill with the Bothy Band, and the lyrics:
Casadh an TSugain by The Bothy Band on Apple Music
or
Casadh an tSugain - Micheal 0'Domhnaill and Bothy Band 1979 - YouTube
Bothy Band - Casadh An tSúgáin
I can’t find the lyrics in the link, but would very much like to find (a translation of) them. “The Twisting of the Rope” is the title of one of Yeats’s Stories of Red Hanrahan (1897, rewritten w/ Lady Gregory in 1907), "And whether it was that time or another time [Hanrahan] made the song that is called to this day ‘The Twisting of the Rope’, and that begins, “What was the dead cat that put me in this place,’ is not known.”
Here is a version with lyrics and translation, sung by the fantastic sean nôs singer, Iarla Ó Lionáird.
Ó Lionáird also sings it in a scene in the movie Brooklyn.
Sorry, I forget to say that the first link should work if you have an apple music subscription (I got it via the ‘share’ button for the track), which will show the lyrics, and the other two links should just work for anyone. The celtic lyrics corner link does include a translation.
Thanks for the Yeats recommendation, I found it online. Now I have to go find the rest of the stories.
https://americanliterature.com/author/william-butler-yeats/short-story/the-twisting-of-the-rope
Here is a version with lyrics and translation, sung by the fantastic
sean nôs singer, Iarla Ó Lionáird.
Nice. I also like the lyrics being synced, makes it much easier to keep up and see how many of those syllables and words get elided. But I do miss Kevin Burke’s fiddle part…
Teachta Dalá is the name of a member of our lower house, what would be called a representative in the US. It’s an Irish name, ‘teach’ meaning house, and ‘dalá’ delegate. Someone may have spelt it (somewhat) phonetically for you.
Actually not British idioms, what with being a different country and all. Perhaps “British and Irish idioms”, @ace?
Good point: I’d forgotten about lavatory, I suppose because I’ve not heard it used for many, many years. Reminds me of an exchange from (I think) Round The Horne (a 1950s radio comedy), greeting new employees at a research establishment:
“Would you like to visit the laboratory?” (must pronounce the last word in American style)
“No thanks, we went before we came.”
Cockney rhyming slang iPhone covers are available for sale at Amazon:
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/cockney+rhyming+slang+iphone-cases
All of Yeat’s Hanrahan stories are on Gutenberg.
Hanrahan reappears in Yeats’s poem “The Tower,” II.
Thanks to both, it’s a loose end in something I wrote forty years ago.
Don’t even think TD is an idiom, it’s a job title! This thread long ago became ‘the language thread’, not British idioms. I’ll see if I can retitle it…
Edit: done. @ace can revert or adjust if he disagrees 
Lovely. Here’s WBY:
Old lecher with a love on every wind,
Bring up out of that deep considering mind
All that you have discovered in the grave,
For it is certain that you have
Reckoned up every unforeknown, unseeing
Plunge, lured by a softening eye,
Or by a touch or a sigh,
Into the labyrinth of another’s being;
Does the imagination dwell the most
Upon a woman won or woman lost?
If on the lost, admit you turned aside
From a great labyrinth out of pride,
Cowardice, some silly over-subtle thought
Or anything called conscience once;
And that if memory recur, the sun’s
Under eclipse and the day blotted out.
We live in Yeats Country, he wrote most of his poetry around Sligo, our local town. There’s a plethora of Yeatsian locations all around us. Y’all may enjoy a local band who were big at one point, the Waterboys, their album ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ which features some of Yeat’s poetry.
This reminds me of the euphemism used (apparently) in Shakespeare’s time. In Florio’s translation of Montaigne’s Essays which was published in 1603, it says:
Both Kings and Philosophers obey nature, and goe to the stoole, and so doe Ladies.
A plethora, I’ll bet. And, best of all, the Spike Milligan connection. Thanks for the music!
Yes, Spike’s dad was born in Sligo Town, there’s a wee plaque up on the wall. Always glad of growing up when Spike was a force and frequently on television, I read all his books, I must check out Puckoon again.
You mean that’s the way the biscuit crumbles.
At the time, we referred to them as “Barbie’s make-up case”. I still miss the handle. I had a green one and an orange one.