Yes líofa isn't a made up word.

Getting back to the difference between bacon/ham, bacon is just cured pork, and ham is a body part not a specific type of meat. If anyone here ever pulled a hamstring playing sport you'll know how important it is not to overwork your hams.

It just happens that the hams of a pig make for particularly good cuts of meat, but no one would think so if they wrote "thigh and arse" on the packet. Really, the word ham is used because of polite English sensibilities, and there's not really a need for a separate word in Irish. It's just a specific cut of muiceoil or bagún.

Now I'm curious, is there an Irish name for rump steak?

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Táim ag foghlaim fós. Fáilte roimh gach aon cheartúchán.

I'm not sure that's the case. In the U.S., in any case, ham is definitely cured...it's very different from, say, pork rump roast.

This Wikipedia quote seems to come closest to what I think of as "ham":



The ham I had in Ireland was similar to the ham in the U.S...the main difference was the bacon, which had a different texture and flavor.

Redwolf

The Scottish Gaelic is a bit closer to the original word. According to MacBain's Etymological Dictionary of Scottish-Gaelic (which, of necessity, talks a lot about Irish), the word isbean comes from "the Norse íspen, a sausage of lard and suet". He also gives í-speni as another form, which might explain the Irish form of the word. He explains that it is ultimately derived from the Norse word spen, meaning "teat". There are quite a lot of somewhat hidden Norse words like that in Irish, and probably even more in Gaelic.



MacBain says that the Middle Irish límtha, meaning polished or sharpened, was cognate with the Welsh llifo, meaning to "grind, whet, or saw", and also with the Latin lîmatus, meaning polished and lî and lei, meaning "smooth" or "flow". In a separate entry, he mentions that the various meanings of líon in Irish, including "linen", "net", and "fill", all come from the same root as well, and mentions Germanic and Slavic cognates, too, so we're dealing with a basic Indo-European root which has taken on different meanings in different places over time. Languages are always in flux (no pun intended), so there's no reason why líofa can't be used to mean "fluent", especially since that's a meaning which appears to be closely related to the the original meaning of the IE root.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

You might like to get hold of 'Lámhleabhar Bia agus Dí' from Foras na Gaeilge. Ham is given (as you'd expect) as liamhás and sirloin steak as stéig chaoldroma. In An Foclóir Beag there is the word rumpa - tóin duine nó ainmhí, but I've no idea if it's been adopted for steak yet.
One translation that did surprise me was on the sleeve notes of the CD 'When All Is Said And Done' by Danú. In the song 'Ó Dheara, 'Sheanduine' they've translated muicfheola as bacon. Here's the complete verse -
Chusa go Corcaigh ag triall ar ghléas tórraimh,
Píopaí tobac agus cláracha comhrann.
Ar mo theacht dom abhaile go tinn tuirseach brónach,
Cá bhfaighinnse mo 'sheanduine ach ag róstadh muicfheola.

Curfá
Ó dheara 'sheanduine, leatsa ní gheobhadsa,
Ó dheara 'sheanduine, loscadh is dó ort,
Ó dheara 'sheanduine, leatsa ní gheobhadsa,
Is dá mbeinnse i mbéal dorais ná beirimse beo ort.

(just one last remark - in Québec, tinned ham is known as 'fesse en can')
Franc