to be after doing something

What it means

1. 1.

   To have just done something. 'I'm after eating' means I have just eaten — present tense in form, recent past in meaning.

2. 2.

   With emphasis, to report news the listener won't have heard: 'you're after missing him by five minutes'.

In use

• I'm after telling him twice.

• She's only after leaving.

  Note: 'Only after' narrows it further, to the last few moments.

Where it comes from

A word-for-word translation of the Irish 'tar éis' construction — 'tá mé tar éis ithe', 'I am after eating' — which Irish uses for the immediate past. This is the clearest piece of Irish grammar surviving in English, and it is spoken by people with no Irish at all. Outsiders regularly misparse it as wanting something: 'I'm after a pint' in London means you would like one, in Ireland it means you have had it.