I’m not going to bore the backside off you with every detail of my day in the recycling depot, but it’s a fascinating place to work. You may have noticed that it has a number of different names, officially it is the Drumbarrel Waste Management Facility, in some quarters it’s called The Dump and those of us who work there call it the Recycling Depot or The Depot.

Names mean a lot, and the names given to places, people and things say quite a bit about them and how people see them. For instance, a certain regular at The Dripping Tap in Shronefodda, who enjoys his drink, refers to his local watering hole affectionately and appropriately as The Tap.

His wife on the other hand, who has every reason to dislike the establishment, refers to it as The Kip, while his teenage children, who only darken the door of the pub when there’s no lift going to Clonmel, refer to the place as The Drip.

The unofficial names given to GAA pitches often reflect the character of the home team so, for instance, you wouldn’t need to be a genius to know why the pitch in Bally is known as Flanders’ Field.

When it comes to names for farm implements and household utensils, they differ widely from area to area and from house to house.

In some places, a briar hook is known as a hedge knife and your ordinary pitchfork can also be referred to as a pike, while its four-pronged first cousin is sometimes called a grape.

These differing names can lead to significant communication problems. I know of a woman from Glengooley who married a man from Teerawadra and not long after they got married she was going to Clonmel to do the shopping. She asked him if he wanted anything from town and he said: “Yes, bring me a grape.”

When she returned from the shopping expedition and unloaded the messages he saw no sign of his utensil.

“Did you forget my grape?” he asked.

“On the contrary,” she said. “I brought you a big bunch of them, but don’t eat them all at once or you’ll get the runs.”

When she discovered that for him a grape was a four-pronged fork she said: “Father Reilly should include language classes in his pre-marriage course.”

Language and naming things is also an issue at the recycling depot, where one man’s rubbish can be another man’s treasure. While officially we have a no scavenging policy, we tolerate a few regulars who come to take or strip out what others have discarded. My supervisor Todd refers to them collectively as the Strippers.

One of the more regular strippers is a fella known as The Gobbler Moran. Bob is his real name, but Todd rechristened him The Gobbler in recognition of his insatiable appetite for junk and his habit of constantly rolling his false teeth around his mouth as if he was chewing half a bale of silage. To watch him mooching his way through the depot, with the teeth tumbling around in his head like a pair of shoes in a washing machine, you’d imagine he was going to eat the place.

Two days ago, he was leaving with a pair of children’s bikes in the back of the van.

“Begod Bob,” says Todd, “you won’t be doin’ the Tour De France on any of them contraptions anytime soon.”

“I sold these same two bikes to a fella at a car boot sale last year,” says he. “You’d never know, the same lad might buy them again.”

“Well,” says Todd, “if he went to Specsavers in the meantime you’re fecked.”

Working with Todd is an education in people watching, he has everyone sized up as soon as they come in the gate and they have a new name before they leave. There’s a crowd of hippie types in woolly jumpers from up beyond Rathbinnis who arrive regularly in a small van, and while they bring in one load of stuff, they take away the same amount. Todd calls them the Wombles, saying “there’s great give and take in them”.

Another pair that makes a weekly trip to the depot is a retired English couple who settled in Knockard about 15 years ago. They are now more local than the locals themselves and bring with them the news, scandal and gossip from all over South Tipp. Their names are Alf and Vera, Todd calls them Al Jazeera.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before I was rechristened myself. I overheard Todd on the phone to Teresa Keary in the personnel department, discussing the roster at the depot and I had a fair idea who he was referring to when he said: “The Right Honourable Member for Killdicken will be in attendance on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.”