A few years ago, I saw a play called Dancing at Lughnasa, in which the “feck” appearred several times. It seemed to take the place of the revered queen mother of all swear words, and I didn’t think about it much at the time. Lately PBS has been showing reruns of Father Ted and the words come up again. In one episode, the female housekeeper says feck several times but refers to the one big swear word. So, where’d this word come from and does it derrive for the German verb “to slap”? Irish dopers, can you help me out?
Not sure of where it came from, but I was reminded of the little scene from Almost Famous
It’s what you can say without getting slapped.
You say it cos it sounds like fuck. Same as you say “sugar” instead of “shit” and “janey mack” instead of “jesus christ”, and “bloomin’” instead of “bleedin’”.
Maybe feck is the opposite of feckless?
“The feck administrator was able to pinpoint the problem, and by August, sales were up thirty percent.”
My guess would be that it’s a combination of “fuck” and “heck”. And yes, you’re allowed to use crude language here, if it’s in an appropriate context. Surely, discussion of the etymologies of said words is an appropriate context.
Mr. Quinion, over at http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-fec1.htm offers that
While I"m sure that your hearing of the word is in no way related to the word in its native usage, I thought you might find this interesting.
Recently I saw someone interviewed on TV ( a British program I believe) who stated that feck and shite were both derived for use by actors on Irish TV. They are allowed to air while the words they replace would not be.
Having an Irish girlfriend, I can confirm that the word is in common usage in Ireland. It doesn’t seem to have even nearly the impact of ‘fuck’ and I’ve often seen it used as the equivalent of ‘damn’, just as a mild expletive.
ARSE!
GIRLS!
DRINK!
FECK!
That’s Father Ted for those you don’t know.
Well, Father Jack really, for those who have managed to live without this classic comedy .
Not at all sure if they were the first to use it on TV, but certainly the most famous for it.
I was quite freaked by this word when I first arrived - I was misquoted to my then-girlfriend’s mother as having said “Feck her then!”. I was mortified, but she thought it was hilarious. Of course, I assumed it merely meant “fuck”. It’s a bizarre duality, since it’s so similar as to be saying something like “billocks” or “cunp”.
This duality is illustrated beautifully by the character of Mrs Doyle, in the aforementioned Father Ted:
The ever classic Mrs Doyle, for the same speech as above
Thanks Samclem. I saw that before I posted. Thanks to everyone else so far. Mrs. Doyle kills me. In fact, that exact quote is what led me to start thinking about this.
This is obviously a question of monumental importance, and I won’t be able to sleep soundly until I know. 
I used to work with a guy that spent some time in the US Air Force stationed in Limestone, Maine. He used the phrase “feck it” regularly. He claimed it was in regular usage by the natives in upstate Maine.