In a trice, Irish men engineer something great (8)
I believe the answer is:
terrific
'great' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'in a trice irish men engineer something' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'men' could be 'rr' (R is short for rook - man can mean a chess piece) and 'rr' is found within the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for terrific that I've seen before include "Super, really great" , "'Marvellous, wonderful (8)'" , "Excellent; of great size" , "'Fantastic, tremendous (8)'" , "Fantastic, really great" .)