swaddler

   This word is said to have been applied originally to a Methodist minister in Ireland because he often referred to the Christ child in His swaddling clothes. From being a personal nickname it became a general term for Methodists, then was still further extended to all Protestants. James Joyce, in Dubliners, has: ‘the ragged troop screaming after us “Swaddlers! Swaddlers!” thinking that we were Protestants.’ ‘Proddies’ is another commonly used term in Ireland for Protestants, used both vocatively and in third person reference.