The term is defined in the
Oxford English Dictionary as "one who lives in, or comes from, a rural area; a (simple) countryman (or woman), a provincial, a rustic". It is sometimes said to be a word derived from the remote town of
Kiltimagh,
County Mayo. A further explanation is that the word derives from the word "agriculture", highlighting the agricultural/industrial divide between rural and urban populations. It may be derived from an
Irish-language term '''', meaning 'back of the house'. It was, and still is to a certain extent, common practice in rural areas to enter a neighbour's house through the back door, to avoid tracking dirt through the house and to visit in the kitchen, rather than the front, which was used for more formal visits. Thus the term ''
or culchie'' referred to such rural peoples used to such practices. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many city dwellers from Dublin tenements worked as domestic servants in the homes of wealthier people. The servants were not permitted to enter the house through the front door but had to use the back door or servants' entrance. It became common practice in Dublin to use
culchie in a derogatory manner. Over time, as the numbers of servants dwindled through the 20th century, the term was retained in everyday use. The word
culchie may instead be derived from the Irish word '''', 'woods, forests'. It was used by townspeople, mainly in the western counties of
Mayo and
Galway, as a condescending or pejorative reference to people from rural areas. In the mid-1960s it was adopted as a common term in Dublin, as a counter to the country people's use of the word
jackeen for a Dublin person. The
culchie spelling is common in the English-language media, based on their understanding of phonetics and the word's derivation. It is also sometime spelled
cultchie, indicative of its more likely derivation from ''''.
Culchie is also an Irish term for a simple, impromptu bed, chiefly consisting of planks, hastily slung between the tapered end of an
inglenook fireplace and the nearest wall of a farmhouse kitchen. A culchie might be offered to anyone who asked for a bed for the night, who was not known to the family (rather like letting someone sleep in the barn). So, this could have become a derogatory term for traveling rural labourers and hence just country folk. However, originally it was just an example of common hospitality as often formerly offered to travellers and those in need. ==Culchie Festival==