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Not sure how relevant this may be, but there are a number of expressions in Southern (US) and Black English which derive from Gaelic, as filtered through the English of the Scots-Irish who settled there (who were often only a few generations away from from speaking Gaelic) and also later famine emigrants from the rest of Ireland (who were numerous in places like Georgia) . One such (very common) expression follows this pattern: "They [i.e. "there"] was [sic] more of them than I was looking for there to be". Perhaps a remnant of an older Gaelic expression like "... ná mar fhéachfadh sé chun a bheth".
_________________ I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.
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