If you trail your coat behind you someone is likely to step on it, either intentionally or unintentionally, so enabling you to pick a fight. This behaviour was traditionally associated with Irishmen at Donnybrook Fair, an annual fair once held in what is now a suburb of Dublin. Charlotte M. Yonge , in the novel Womankind ( 1877 ), alludes to this association: ‘Party spirit is equally ready to give offence and to watch for it. It will trail its coat like the Irishman in the fair.’