dog rough

dog rough (comparative more dog rough, superlative most dog rough)

1. Very rowdy, disorderly, and dangerous.
   • 2007, Enda Walsh, The Walworth Farce, page 48:

     Back in the days when Cork City was dog rough, where to take a night-time stroll was an act of madness comparable to forcing long deadly skewers into your eyeballs, Cork was a jungle back then.

   • 2015, Alan Pinkett, Utta Drivel Too, →ISBN, page 59:

     But the area wasn't so bad - Lower Grope, further west, was the rough bit. The place of hooligan shennanigans and vandal scandals. Where louts shout and thugs mug. Dog rough...

   • 2015, Andrew O'Hagan, The Illuminations, →ISBN, page 131:

     These pubs: dog rough, if you ask me, but there you go.

2. Very difficult and unpleasant.
   • 2007, John Malone, Heading Home, →ISBN, page 46:

     “Ach, life was dog rough back there, Tom, that it was.

   • 2010, John Lonergan, The Governor, →ISBN:

     The prison breakfast was dog rough.

   • 2012, Shane Coleman & ‎Michael Clifford, Bertie Ahern and the Drumcondra Mafia, →ISBN:

     “It was dog rough,” admits one Ahern supporter. A constituency delegate remembers: “The old traditional Fianna Fáil people were getting on. They were outflanked and there was often little or no resistance.”

3. Suffering the effects of stress or excess.
   • 2011, Dan Tunstall, Big and Clever, →ISBN:

     “I felt dog rough on Thursday evening,” I say.

   • 2012, Cath Staincliffe, Dead to Me, →ISBN, page 137:

     Cath Staincliffe sat down to plan an interview strategy for Sean Broughton the next morning she felt dog rough. Damned if she'd let it show though.

   • 2013, Corri Lee, All My Demons, →ISBN, page 221:

     I shake my head, rendered mute by paralysing fear and the unwillingness to admit that I feel dog rough, and would most likely toss my cookies over her nice clean floors if I open my mouth now.