or ground, subs. (old).—1. St. Giles’s; PALESTINE (q.v.).
1819. T. MOORE, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 7.
| For we are the boys of the HOLY GROUND, | |
| And we’ll dance upon nothing, and turn us round! |
1821. The Fancy, i., p. 550. The HOLY-LAND, as St. Giles’s has been termed, in compliment to the superior purity of its Irish population.
1821. P. EGAN, Tom and Jerry, ch. ii. At Mammy O’Shaughnessy’s in the back Settlements of the HOLY LAND.
1823. W. T. MONCRIEFF, Tom and Jerry, ii., 5. Let’s have a dive among the cadgers in the back slums, in the HOLY LAND.
1843. Punch’s Almanack, 1 Sept. St. Giles. The Marquis of Waterford makes a pilgrimage to his shrine in the HOLY LAND.
1859. G. A. SALA, Twice Round the Clock, 1 A.M., par. 28. Unfaithful topographers may have told you that the HOLY LAND being swept away and Buckeridge Street being pulled down, St. Giles’s exists no more.
1891. Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 3 April, p. 215, col. 1. It would be hard to say whether the Irishmen of the HOLY LAND or the Hebrew scum of Petticoat Lane showed the finest specimens of ‘looped and windowed raggedness.’
2. (common).—Generic for any neighbourhood affected by Jews; specifically, Bayswater, and Brighton. Cf., NEW JERUSALEM, and HOLY OF HOLIES.
