What it means
Savage is everyday Irish praise meaning brilliant, class, deadly, unreal. You’ll hear it for anything that went off, from a night out to a screamer of a goal, a feed, or even the weather. It’s the kind of compliment that sounds a bit feral but lands as pure admiration. It can still mean cruel too, so context does the heavy lifting.
Usage examples
"That match was savage, lads. We were roaring in the pub, then the manager bought a round and the whole place erupted."
"That All-Ireland Final match at Croke Park last September was absolutely savage from the first whistle to the last point of the closing minutes, lads, we were roaring at the screen in the back room of the pub on Camden Street in Dublin, then the manager bought a round of pints for the whole back room and the entire place erupted in song before the final minute of injury time."
"The wedding of my cousin Sinead from Galway at the country house hotel in Connemara on Friday afternoon of the May long weekend was savage altogether from the welcome drinks at the door to the band of the third set of the evening, the bride wore her grandmother's dress of the nineteen fifties from Donegal, the speeches by the brother of the groom had the entire ballroom in stitches before the dessert course."
Where it comes from
From the standard English adjective savage (wild, fierce, untamed), repurposed by Irish English of the nineteen nineties and early two thousands as superlative praise for anything brilliant, excellent or impressively executed, by the same semantic reversal that turned the original wicked, sick and bad into compliments in British and American youth slang of the same generation. The Irish version crystallized through Dublin pub culture, the GAA stadium of Croke Park and the rural ballad sessions of the West, and now serves as the all-purpose enthusiastic affirmation of the night out, the match performance, the curry chips of the chipper and the unexpected good weather of the bank holiday weekend.
Other ways to say it
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