The German Connection - An Nasc Gearmánach

The text I wrote about stupid prejudices was commented (in my old blog) by Eoin Ó Cróinín, who pointed out that while Irish obviously isn't a fascist language, there have been Irish speakers with fascist or Nazi connections, notably the organization called Ailtirí na hAiséirí, "The Architects of Resurrection". (Note that while éirí is masculine - an t-éirí, genitive an éirí, the compound word aiséirí usually is exceptionally feminine, an aiséirí, na haiséirí.) This is an important point and needs to be addressed.

An bhlagmhír a scríobh mé faoi na réamhbhreithiúnaisí amaideacha a bhíos ag na daoine i dtaobh na Gaeilge, fuair sí freagra ó Eoin Ó Cróinín a dúirt, cé nach teanga Fhaisisteach í an Ghaeilge, gur léir go raibh cainteoirí Gaeilge ann agus baint éigin acu leis an bhFaisisteachas nó leis na Naitsithe, go háirithe an eagraíocht úd Ailtirí na hAiséirí. Pointe tábhachtach é agus is fiú tuilleadh a rá ina thaobh.

It stands to reason that reactionary or fascistoid people were active in the Irish language movement in the years of the Free State. One such person was actually Seán Sabhat a.k.a. Seán South, who became an IRA martyr when he was killed in the Brookeborough raid during the Border Campaign, but it is typical of the political eclecticism of the Irish nationalist movement that the raid was led by Seán Garland, later a leader of the Marxist faction of Sinn Féin.

Luíonn sé le réasún go raibh daoine frithghníomhacha nó Faisisteacha gníomhach i ngluaiseacht na Gaeilge i mblianta an tSaorstáit. Duine acu siúd ab ea Seán Sabhat, a d'iompaigh ina mhairtíreach de chuid an IRA nuair a maraíodh é sa ruathar ar Achadh Lon le linn Fheachtas na Teorainne. Chomh héicléicteach is atá gluaiseacht náisiúnaíoch na hÉireann áfach, ba é Seán Garland a bhí ina cheann feadhna ar na hÓglaigh a rinne an ruathar - agus é i gceannas ar fhaicsean Marxach Shinn Féin ina dhiaidh sin.


Seán Sabhat was active in Conradh na Gaeilge and had practical and sensible ideas about promoting Irish, but at the same time he was a member of Maria Duce, a very conservative Catholic organization led by Father Denis Fahey, a priest who had experienced the turmoil of the Dreyfus affair while staying in France and been influenced by local anti-Semitic theologians (he was a young student back then, and susceptible to influences). I would refrain from calling Father Fahey a Fascist; he is most reminiscent of those clerical or religious reactionaries of the time which were found in many Catholic countries. Some of them did become Hitler's allies, with Slovakia's leader Jozef Tiso as a well-known example.

Bhí Seán Sabhat gníomhach i gConradh na Gaeilge agus smaointí praiticiúla ciallmhara aige faoi chur chun cinn na teanga. San am chéanna bhí sé ina bhall de Mharia Duce, eagraíocht an-choimeádach Chaitliceach arbh é an tAthair Donncha Ó Fathaigh a cathaoirleach. Sagart ab ea an tAthair Ó Fathaigh a bhí ina chónaí san Fhrainc díreach nuair a bhí scannal Dreyfus faoi lán an tseoil, agus é faoi thionchar diagairí Francacha frith-Ghiúdacha ansin (bhí sé ina mhac léinn óg san am, agus ní raibh sé díonta ar thionchar den chineál sin). Ba leasc liom Faisisteach a thabhairt ar an Athair Ó Fathaigh; is éard is mó a chuireas sé i gcuimhne dom ná an cineál frithghníomhaithe reiligiúnacha nó cléireacha a bhí thuas sa chuid is mó de na tíortha Caitliceacha san am. Cuid acu ar ndóigh chuaigh siad le Hitler - Jozef Tiso sa tSlóvaic mar shampla.

And of course, speaking of clerical reactionaries, Francisco Franco in Spain became the dictator of Spain in his own right. He also attracted the sympathies of many Irish people, and while there were Irishmen fighting for the Republic, there also was a sizable Irish force which sided with Franco - the Blueshirts, led by Eoin Ó Dubhthaigh, who became the Irish Brigade in Franco's army. The Blueshirts were originally pro-Treaty soldiers who had fought the anti-Treaty IRA in the Irish Civil War.

Agus ar ndóigh, más ag trácht ar fhrithghníomhaithe cléireacha atáimid, ní féidir linn gan tagairt éigin a dhéanamh do Francisco Franco, a bhain amach deachtóireacht na Spáinne, é féin. Bhí cuid mhór de mhuintir na hÉireann báúil le Franco, agus siúd is go raibh cuid mhaith Éireannach ag troid ar son Phoblacht na Spáinne, thaobhaigh fórsa mór Éireannach le Franco - na Léinte Gorma, faoi cheannas Eoin Uí Dhubhthaigh, a d'iompaigh ina mBriogáid Éireannach in arm Franco. Ar dtús, is éard a bhí sna Léinte Gorma ná saighdiúirí in Arm an tSaorstáit agus iad ag cur troda ar na hÓglaigh frith-Chonartha i gCogadh na gCarad.


It is worth noting that while Seán Sabhat sided with the Republican tradition and joined the IRA, Eoin Ó Dubhthaigh and his Blueshirts were Free Staters. In Irish politics, the Republican vs Free State divide was so important that the more universal left wing vs right wing divide gave way to it.


Is fiú a thabhairt faoi deara ná, má chuaigh Seán Sabhat leis an bPoblachtánachas agus leis an IRA, gur Saorstátairí a bhí in Eoin Ó Dubhthaigh agus ina chuid Léinte Gorma. Chomh tábhachtach is a bhí an scoilt idir na Poblachtánaigh agus na Saorstátairí ba mhinic a sháraigh sí an scoilt idir an eite chlé agus an eite dheis.


As regards Ailtirí na hAiséirí and Glúin na Buaidhe, they were both organizations led by Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin. He was active, among other things, in the legendary Irish-language newspaper An tÉireannach in the thirties; it is often spoken of as a Socialist paper, but actually it was another example of the peculiarly Irish radicalism which can be right-wing and left-wing at the same time. In 1940, he started a branch of Conradh na Gaeilge known as the Resurrection Branch, Craobh na hAiséirí.


Maidir le hAiltirí na hAiséirí agus le Glúin na Buaidhe, ba eagraíochtaí iad a bhunaigh Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin. Bhí an Cuinneagánach ina ghníomhaí ghnóthach i ngluaiseacht na Gaeilge: sna tríochaidí scríobhadh sé don pháipéar mhórchlúiteach úd An tÉireannach: is minic a thugtar "nuachtán Sóisialach" air, ach le fírinne is sampla é den radacachas shain-Éireannach ina n-aontaítear an eite dheis agus an eite chlé. Sa bhliain 1940 chuir an Cuinneagánach tús le craobh nua de Chonradh na Gaeilge, mar atá, Craobh na hAiséirí.


Craobh na hAiséirí became known as the most active and most enthusiastic branch of the organization. Among the people it attracted were Proinsias Mac an Bheatha, later a renowned Irish-language journalist and a prolific but mostly less than readable writer (he did author one tolerably good historical novel though, Cnoc na hUamha), and Annraoi Ó Liatháin, who turned out to be a talented writer of adventure novels in the language.

Is é an teist a bhí ar Chraobh na hAiséirí san am ná go raibh sí ar an gcraobh ba ghníomhaí, ba dhíograisí de Chonradh na Gaeilge. Chuaigh daoine cosúil le Proinsias Mac an Bheatha agus Annraoi Ó Liatháin sa Chraobh - ina dhiaidh sin bhí Proinsias ina iriseoir aithnidiúil Gaeilge agus ina scríbhneoir lagmheasartha leabhar, cé gur éirigh leis úrscéal stairiúil amháin a chumadh - Cnoc na hUamha - a bhí réasúnta maith. Maidir leis an Liathánach, chruthaigh seisean thar barr ag scríobh úrscéalta eachtránaíochta sa teanga.


Craobh na hAiséirí left the Conradh to become Glúin na Buaidhe, The Generation of Victory (as Ó Cuinneagáin was from Belfast, it is no wonder that the name of the organization was in Ulster Irish; in the present standard language it would be Glúin an Bhua). About the same time Ó Cuinneagáin started his own political party, Ailtirí na hAiséirí. His political philosophy was undeniably influenced by Fascism and Franco-style authoritarian clericalism, and he was able to spread a contagious enthusiasm for the Irish language among young people, but does this prove that there is something inherently Fascist about the language?

D'fhág Craobh na hAiséirí an Conradh, agus is é an t-ainm a bhaist siad orthu féin ansin ná Glúin na Buaidhe (Glúin an Bhua a bheadh ann de réir an Chaighdeáin, ach ó ba as Béal Feirste don Chuinneagánach, b'fhearr leis leagan Ultach a úsáid). Faoin am chéanna bhunaigh an Cuinneagánach a pháirtí polaitiúil féin, mar atá, Ailtirí na hAiséirí. Ba léir go ndeachaigh an Faisisteachas agus an cineál cléireachas údarásaíoch a shamhlófá le Franco - go ndeachaigh an dá rud seo i bhfeidhm ar a fhealsúnacht pholaitiúil, agus ba léir freisin go raibh sé in ann díograis i leith na Gaeilge a mhúscailt i measc aos óg a linne, ach an ionann sin is a rá go bhfuil an Faisisteachas i ndúchas na teanga?


Rather the other way round. Ó Cuinneagáin understood that he could not spread his ideology among the masses by using Irish alone, and he found it necessary to use more English than Irish in his propaganda rag Aiséirí ("Resurrection"). This led to protestations that there was too little Irish in the paper, and if there was, it was at least partly due to there being too few writers with good Irish happy to see their articles appear in the paper.

A mhalairt ar fad, a déarfainn. Thuig an Cuinneagánach nach bhféadfadh sé a idé-eolaíocht a chraobhscaoileadh agus é i dtuilleamaí na Gaeilge amháin, agus ba riachtanach leis an tús áite a thabhairt don Bhéarla san iris úd Aiséirí a bhí mar ghléas bolscaireachta aige. Ansin áfach bhí go leor Gaeilgeoirí míshásta leis an easpa Gaeilge ar an bpáipéar, agus má bhí a leithéid d'easpa ann, ceann de na cúiseanna ab ea é nach raibh mórán Gaeilgeoirí maithe fonnmhar a gcuid altanna a chur i gcló ag an gCuinneagánach.


Ó Cuinneagáin did write approvingly about Nazi Germany, but his main emphasis was on the Catholic authoritarianism. Those who caught the contagion of Irish language enthusiasm from him either returned to the fold of Conradh na Gaeilge - such as Annraoi Ó Liatháin - or focused on practical aspects of language work - such as Proinsias Mac an Bheatha, who was for years the editor of the newspaper Inniu.

Is fíor go moladh an Cuinneagánach an Ghearmáin Naitsíoch ina chuid scríbhinní ó am go ham, ach is ar an údarásaíocht Chaitliceach a chuireadh sé an bhéim ba mhó. Iad siúd a tholg an díograis teanga uaidh, d'fhill siad ar Chonradh na Gaeilge sa deireadh - cosúil leis an Liathánach - nó dhírigh siad ar ghnéithe praiticiúla na hoibre teanga, ar nós Proinsias Mac an Bheatha, a chaith na blianta fada ina eagarthóir ar an nuachtán úd Inniu.


Actually, while Seán Sabhat was probably influenced by Ó Cuinneagáin's writings while very young, the most important attempt made by Nazis to contact and recruit Irish-speaking nationalists was the rescue of Frank Ryan (Proinsias Ó Riain). Ryan was actually a left-wing Republican fighting in Spain who had been captured by Franco's forces and was languishing in a prison in Burgos waiting for execution. The German intelligence service, the Abwehr, got interested in him as a possible asset and got him released and handed over. (Here it might be worth pointing out that the Abwehr itself was a military organization rather than a Nazi ideological one: its leader Wilhelm Canaris was actually imprisoned and executed shortly before the end of the war because of his relations with the military opposition that had attempted to kill Hitler.)

Le fírinne, cé gur dóigh go ndeachaigh scríbhinní an Chuinneagánaigh i bhfeidhm ar Sheán Sabhat nuair a bhí sé an-óg, ba é tarrtháil Phroinsiais Uí Riain an iarracht ba mhó a rinne na Naitsithe le dul i dteagmháil le náisiúntóirí Éireannacha le Gaeilge agus lena leas a bhaint astu. Poblachtánach ón eite chlé a bhí sa Rianach a ghlac páirt i gcogadh cathartha na Spáinne, agus é cimithe ag fórsaí Franco. Bhí sé i bpríosún i mBurgos (príomhchathair shealadach Franco i dtuaisceart na Spáinne) i nganfhios don tsaol agus an chuma ar an scéal go raibh sé le cur chun báis, ach ansin chuir an Abwehr, seirbhís faisnéise na Gearmáine, suim ann agus iad ag déanamh go bhféadfaí é a úsáid ar dhóigh éigin. Mar sin bhí na Spáinnigh sásta é a scaoileadh as an bpríosún agus a sheachadadh chuig na Gearmánaigh. (Is fiú a phointeáil amach anseo, is féidir, gur eagraíocht mhíleata a bhí san Abwehr, is é sin, nach eagraíocht idé-eolaíoch de chuid Pháirtí na Naitsithe a bhí inti. Go gearr roimh dheireadh an chogaidh caitheadh Wilhelm Canaris, ceannasaí an Abwehr, i dtóin an phríosúin é féin, agus cuireadh chun báis é, toisc go raibh baint aige leis an gcomhcheilg mhíleata a rinne iarracht Hitler a dhúnmharú.)


Frank Ryan was supposed to be brought back to Ireland together with Seán Russell, an Irish Republican de facto turned into a German agent, probably in order to start a pro-German Republican rising against Ireland's government. The operation was masterminded by Edmund Veesenmayer, the SS specialist for this kind of subversion, but it folded partly because of bad preparations (Ryan was neither trained nor given instructions for the mission), partly because of Russell's sudden illness and death on board the submarine that was taking them to Ireland. Ryan was brought back to Germany and died in Dresden in 1944. There is no reason to suspect foul play behind his demise, as he had been a very sick man for some time. He had lost most of his hearing while still in Ireland, having been badly mistreated by Free State jailers, and his spell in the Spanish prison wasn't exactly wholesome either.

Bhí Proinsias Ó Riain le tabhairt ar ais go hÉirinn in éineacht le Seán Ó Ruiséil, Poblachtánach Éireannach a bhí iompaithe ina ghníomhaí Ghearmánach de facto. Is dócha go raibh siad le ceannairc Phoblachtánach a thosú a rachadh chun leasa don Ghearmáin. Ba é Edmund Veesenmayer a bhí i gceannas ar an oibríocht seo, agus é ina speisialtóir ag an SS le haghaidh treascairt pholaitiúil den chineál seo, ach sa deireadh thit an tóin as an oibríocht. Ní raibh sí ullmhaithe go rómhaith, nó ní bhfuair an Rianach oiliúint ná treoracha le haghaidh an mhisin, agus mar bharr ar an donas, nuair a bhí an bheirt fhear ar bord fomhuireáin ag dul go hÉirinn buaileadh an Ruiséalach breoite go tobann, agus bhí sé básaithe sular bhain an fomhuireán amach ceann a scríbe. Tugadh an Rianach ar ais go dtí an Ghearmáin, agus fuair seisean bás in Dresden sa bhliain 1944 ar chúiseanna sách nádúrtha, nó bhí sé ag éileamh go dona le giota maith ama anuas. Chaill sé éisteacht a chluas, an chuid ba mhó di, sular imigh sé ó Éirinn, nó thug séiléirí an tSaorstáit drochíde dó, agus ní dheachaigh a sheal sa phríosún Spáinneach chun follántais dó ach an oiread.


Of course, it is necessary to mention Francis Stuart here, too. Stuart was an iconoclastic modernist writer who was friendly with Ezra Pound; I guess both gentlemen were the kind of cultural elitists who felt attracted to Nazis because they felt their kind would fare better as courtly poets of a supposedly enlightened totalitarianism than in a vulgar democracy. Stuart had had some involvement with the Republican side of the Irish Civil War, but I don't know whether he had any idea of the Irish language. Anyway, he was approached by Helmut Clissmann and Eduard Hempel, German representatives in Ireland, and invited to Germany to give a series of academic lectures. This he did. Later he used to broadcast English-language radio propaganda aimed at Irish listeners.


Ar ndóigh tá sé riachtanach cúpla focal a rá i dtaobh Francis Stuart anseo chomh maith. Scríbhneoir íolbhristeach nua-aimseartha a bhí ann agus é mór le hEzra Pound. Lucht scothaicmeachais iad an bheirt fhear seo, is dóigh liom, agus luiteamas acu leis an Naitsíochas toisc gur shíl siad go mbeadh a leithéidí féin ní b'fhearr as i gcóras ollsmachtúil soilsithe (shíl siad go raibh soilsiú nó eagnaíocht éigin ag roinnt leis an Naitsíochas) ná i ndaonlathas madrúil. Bhí baint éigin ag Stuart leis na Poblachtánaigh i gCogadh na gCarad, ach níl a fhios agam an raibh focal Gaeilge sa phluc aige. Pé scéal é d'iarr Helmut Clissmann agus Eduard Hempel, arbh ionadaithe oifigiúla don Ghearmáin iad, - d'iarr siad ar Stuart sraith léachtanna acadúla a thabhairt sa Ghearmáin. Rinne sé rud orthu. Ina dhiaidh sin chaith sé seal ina chraoltóir Béarla ar raidió bolscaireachta na Gearmáine agus é ag díriú ar éisteoirí Éireannacha.


There was another Irish broadcaster there though, a certain Róisín Ní Mheara, who seems to have been a more ideologically convinced supporter of the Nazi regime than Stuart, and who also was a speaker of the Irish language. Back in the nineties, she published a pro-Nazi memoir in the language which inspired some heated discussion, but seems to have been forgotten since. Whether she was a Nazi in the strict sense of the world, I don't know, but she seems to have been an unrepentant anti-Semite and an old-fashioned Catholic conservative appalled at the depravity of the modern world. In this way, she was the complete opposite of such modernist Fascists as Ezra Pound. She was more akin to Tiso and Franco.

Bhí craoltóir Éireannach eile ag obair anseo - Róisín Ní Mheara ab ainm di. Dealraíonn sé go raibh sí fíor-bháúil le hidé-eolaíocht na Naitsithe - ní ba bháúla ná Stuart; thairis sin bhí Gaeilge aici. Sna nóchaidí d'fhoilsigh sí a cuimhní cinn, leabhar a thug le fios go raibh luí aici leis na Naitsithe i gcónaí. Tharraing an leabhar callán éigin sna meáin Ghaeilge, ach is dócha gur ligeadh i ndearmad í ina dhiaidh sin. Níl a fhios agam an féidir a rá go raibh sí ina Naitsí i gciall cheart an fhocail, ach is cosúil go raibh sí ina frith-Ghiúdach neamhleithscéalach agus go raibh déistin uirthi roimh dhrúis an domhain nua-aimseartha, toisc gur le coimeádachas Caitliceach a tógadh í. Mar sin bhí a saoldearcadh bun os cionn le nua-aimsearthacht Fhaisisteachas leithéidí Ezra Pound, ní ba chosúla le smaointeachas Tiso nó Franco.

The natural placement of explanatory relative sentences in Irish

The expression "explanatory relative sentence" means here such relative sentences as "the man who spoke to you", i.e. the man who is defined by the fact that he spoke to you, what we know about him (to start with) is the fact that he spoke to you.

Let's say, for instance, "The man who spoke to you wrote this novel". In Irish, this translates into Scríobh an fear a labhair leat an t-úrscéal seo. That's fine, but the explanatory relative clause is here inside the main clause: Scríobh an fear [a labhair leat] an t-úrscéal seo. In this example it is easy enough to tell the relative clause from the main clause, but in long and complicated sentences it might become more difficult.

Instead, it is advisable to write:

An fear a labhair leat, scríobh sé an t-úrscéal seo "The man who spoke to you, he wrote this novel"
More examples:

An bhean atá ag canadh amhráin, is léise an gluaisteán úd thall "The automobile over there belongs to the lady who is singing" ("The woman who is singing, the automobile over there belongs to her")

An chuid ba mhó de na scríbhneoirí Sóivéadacha a chuaigh ag scríobh úrscéalta i ndiaidh an chogaidh, bhí siad ina n-iriseoirí cathéadain lena linn "Most of the Soviet writers who went to write war novels after the war were front journalists during it."

An fear a chéadcheap Teoiric na Coibhneasachta, is é sin Albert Einstein, chaith sé tréimhse ag obair in Oifig na bPaitinní san Eilvéis. "The man who invented the theory of relativity, that is, Albert Einstein, - he spent some time working in the Swiss Patent Office."

The political parties of Northern Ireland, as they are called in Irish

Democratic Unionist Party = an Páirtí Aontachtach Daonlathach. Treated as a definite noun construction, with a definite article. Genitive: an Pháirtí Aontachtaigh Dhaonlathaigh.

Sinn Féin. The same in Irish. Treated as a proper name, with the genitive form Shinn Féin.

Social Democratic and Labour Party. = Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre. Treated as a noun followed by a definite genitive, which means that the genitive form is Pháirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre.

Ulster Unionist Party = Páirtí Aontachtach Uladh. "Uladh" is the genitive form of "Ulaidh" = Ulster. Thus, the translation suggests "the Unionist party of Ulster". Being a proper name, Ulaidh is inherently definite. Thus, it is illegal to add a definite article before Páirtí. The genitive of the party name is thus Pháirtí Aontachtach Uladh. (A thinkable alternative translation would be "an Páirtí Aontachtach Ultach", where "Ulster" would be translated with an adjective. In this version, an article would be necessary, and the genitive would be "an Pháirtí Aontachtaigh Ultaigh".)

Alliance Party of Northern Ireland = Páirtí Comhghuaillíochta Thuaisceart Éireann. Éire = Ireland is a proper noun, thus inherently definite. Its genitive form can take an article or omit it, but both ways it is inherently definite. Thus, the construction Tuaisceart Éireann has the genitive Thuaisceart Éireann. In the construction Páirtí Comhghuaillíochta, Comhghuaillíocht is not a proper noun, but a noun in genitive (-a) modifying the word "páirtí", and "páirtí comhghuaillíochta" is an alliance party. However, when Northern Ireland is added, it becomes definite: Páirtí Comhghuaillíochta Thuaisceart Éireann. And its genitive form is Pháirtí Comhghuaillíochta Thuaisceart Éireann.

Traditional Unionist Voice: an Glór Traidisiúnta Aontachtach, genitive an Ghlóir Thraidisiúnta Aontachtaigh. I am not terribly happy with this version, because "Glór Traidisiúnta na nAontachtóirí" ("the Traditional Voice of the Unionists") or "Glór na nAontachtóirí Traidisiúnta" ("the Voice of the Traditional Unionists") would sound better in Irish.

Green Party in Northern Ireland = an Comhaontas Glas i dTuaisceart Éireann, genitive: an Chomhaontais Ghlais i dTuaisceart Éireann.

UK Independence Party: Wikipedia provides a translation that is definitely wrong. I suggest Páirtí Neamhspleáchais na Ríochta Aontaithe, genitive Pháirtí Neamhspleáchais na Ríochta Aontaithe.

Progressive Unionist Party: an Páirtí Aontachtach Forásach, genitive an Pháirtí Aontachtaigh Fhorásaigh.

People before Profit Alliance: The suggested translation is Comhghuaillíocht an Phobail roimh Bhrabús, but I am not entirely happy with this, as it means "The People's Alliance before Profit". Besides, pobal means rather "community" than "people". However, the genitive form of the suggested translation is "Chomhghuaillíocht an Phobail roimh Bhrabús".

Animal Welfare Party: I'd suggest Páirtí Cosanta na nAinmhithe, i.e. the party of defending the animals. "Animal welfare" would be "leas na n-ainmhithe", I guess, so a word for word translation would be Páirtí Leas na nAinmhithe.

Note that theoretically speaking, "(a) Unionist" as a noun is the same as "Unionist(ic)" as an adjective, i.e. Aontachtach. However, the noun Aontachtóir is usually preferred. The noun for any kind of nationalist is basically Náisiúnaí, but in Northern Ireland contexts Náisiúntóir is commonly preferred.

The noun for Loyalist is Dílseoir. However, we also need the adjective for such expressions as "Loyalist terrorists". My best bet would be "Dílseach", i.e. Loyalist terrorists = sceimhlitheoirí Dílseacha. Loyalism is Dílseachas or Dílseoireacht.

What is Irish? Cad é an rud atá sa Ghaeilge?

I guess there are people out there who are sincerely ignorant of the fact that Ireland hasn't always been a largely English-speaking nation and who are puzzled to find out that there is an Irish language which isn't the same as the dialect of English spoken in, and associated with, Ireland. Thus, here is a comprehensive posting about Irish today.

Is dóigh liom go bhfuil daoine amuigh ansin nach bhfuil a fhios beo acu nach raibh an Béarla chomh líofa ag bunadh na hÉireann ó thús agus atá inniu, agus iontas orthu a fháil amach go bhfuil teanga Éireannach ann nach ionann í agus an cineál Béarla a labhraítear in Éirinn agus a shamhlaítear le hÉirinn. Mar sin, seo blagmhír chuimsitheach faoin nGaeilge inniu.

Irish is a Celtic language. Celtic languages are one of the branches of the Indo-European language family, which includes Germanic languages (such as English and German, for instance), Romance languages (those which have developed from Latin, such as Italian, Spanish and French), Italic languages (an earlier grouping of now-extinct languages, such as Latin and several other ancient languages spoken in what is now Italy), Indo-Iranian languages (such as Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, and Persian) and many others. Thus, Irish is demonstrably related to both English and Latin, although this relationship is not obvious, except to a specialist.

Teanga Cheilteach í an Ghaeilge. Is éard atá sna teangacha Ceilteacha ná craobh de chuid na dteangacha Ind-Eorpacha, ar a n-áirítear na teangacha Gearmáinice (an Béarla agus an Ghearmáinis mar shampla), na teangacha Rómánsacha (a d'eascair ón Laidin, cosúil leis an Iodáilis, an Spáinnis, agus an Fhraincis), na teangacha Iodáilice (teangacha marbha cosúil leis an Laidin agus roinnt seanteangacha eile a labhraítí san áit a bhfuil an Iodáil inniu), na teangacha Ind-Iaránacha (an Hiondúis, an Urdais, an Bheangáilis agus an Pheirsis, mar shampla) agus a lán eile. Mar sin, tá gaol ag an nGaeilge leis an mBéarla agus an Laidin araon, cé nach bhfuil an gaol seo soiléir a thuilleadh, ach amháin don tsaineolaí.

Irish is one of the oldest written languages of Western Europe. It was committed to writing about the year 700 CE, although even before that, a form of Irish was used for inscriptions. The inscriptions were made with an alphabet known in modern Irish as oghamchraobh, and the obelisks on which you can see such inscriptions are called oghamchlocha, Ogham stones.

Tá an Ghaeilge ar cheann de na teangacha scríofa is sine in Iarthar na hEorpa. Thosaigh traidisiún liteartha na Gaeilge timpeall ar an mbliain 700 AD, agus roimhe sin féin bhí cineál Gaeilge in úsáid in inscríbhinní. Iad siúd a rinne na hinscríbhinní seo bhí siad i dtuilleamaí aibítir ar leith ar a dtugaimid an Oghamchraobh i nGaeilge an lae inniu. D'fheicfeá inscríbhinní den tsaghas seo ar oibiliscí ar a dtugtar Oghamchlocha.

The literary language that came about in 700 CE is called Old Irish. This was already a Christianized language which borrowed words and concepts from Latin and Greek, the classical tongues of the Western civilization. Old Irish writers were basically monks, but they weren't bent on destroying all pre-Christian culture. So they wrote down the old mythologies of Ireland, both the Ulster cycle and the Fenian cycle, although they did omit most references to pre-Christian religion.

An teanga scríofa a tháinig ar an bhfód timpeall ar 700 AD is gnách Sean-Ghaeilge a thabhairt uirthi. Teanga Chríostaithe a bhí ann cheana féin agus í ag tarraingt ar an Laidin agus ar an nGréigis, teangacha clasaiceacha na sibhialtachta Iartharaí, le haghaidh téarmaí agus coincheapanna nua. Iad siúd a scríobhadh litríocht i Sean-Ghaeilge, manaigh a bhí iontu go bunúsach, ach san am chéanna ní raibh siad meáite ar an gcultúr réamh-Chríostaí go léir a chur de dhroim an tsaoil. Mar sin bhreac siad síos seanmhiotais na hÉireann, an Rúraíocht agus an Fhiannaíocht araon, cé gur bhain siad an chuid is mó de na tagairtí don chreideamh réamh-Chríostaí de na scéalta.

The Irish name for Irish is Gaeilge, and many might ask if there is a difference between "Irish" and "Gaelic" as concepts in English (or in other languages). There indeed is. The "Gaelic languages" are a whole branch of modern Celtic languages. They include Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Manx. Speaking about one Gaelic language is thus akin to speaking about one Scandinavian language. Old Irish, though, could as well be called Old Gaelic in English, because Scots Gaelic and Manx are offshoots of it, together with Modern Irish.

Ós rud é gur "Gaeilge" atá ar an teanga, is dual don Bhéarlóir a fhiafraí, cad é an difríocht (má tá a leithéid ann) idir "Irish" agus "Gaelic" mar choincheapanna sa Bhéarla (nó i dteangacha eile, fiú). Tá difríocht ann ar ndóigh. Craobh iomlan i gcrann ginealais na dteangacha Ceilteacha iad na teangacha Gaelacha. Is iad siúd ná Gaeilge na hÉireann, Gaeilge na hAlban agus an Mhanainnis (Gaeilge Oileán Mhanann). An té a thráchtas ar an "Gaelic" mar aon teanga amháin bheadh sé chomh maith aige a bheith ag tagairt don "Lochlainnis" mar aon teanga amháin. An tSeanGhaeilge áfach, is gnách "Old Irish" a thabhairt uirthi as Béarla, ach san am chéanna ní bheadh sé mícheart an téarma "Old Gaelic" a úsáid, más mian leat béim a chur air gurb aisti a d'eachair an triúr acu, Gaeilge na hÉireann, Gaeilge na hAlban, agus Gaeilge Mhanann araon.



After the Old Irish, there was something called Middle Irish. The term is somewhat problematic, because in earlier times it used to mean something else: earlier, "Middle Irish" included the Irish from the twelfth century to the seventeenth century, which is now known as Classical Irish, or Early Modern Irish. According to our understanding, Middle Irish was the period of linguistic uncertainty between Old Irish and Early Modern Irish, with substandard spoken language forms and hypercorrections (i.e. uninformed attempts to write standard Old Irish leading to forms which were neither correct Old Irish nor correct spoken language) proliferating in the literary language. However, some old books which use the term "Middle Irish" to refer to Early Modern Irish are still being reprinted (notably Eleanor Knott's Irish Syllabic Poetry).

I ndiaidh na SeanGhaeilge, bhí a leithéid ann agus an Mheán-Ghaeilge. Níl an téarma sin róshoiléir, nó d'athraigh a chiall i rith na mblianta: ar dtús ba nós "Meán-Ghaeilge" a thabhairt ar an nGaeilge ón dóú haois déag go dtí an tseachtú haois déag, an cineál Gaeilge ar a dtugtar "an Ghaeilge Chlasaiceach" nó "an Nua-Ghaeilge Mhoch" inniu. De réir is mar a thuigtear dúinn, is éard a bhí i gceist leis an Meán-Ghaeilge ná an tréimhse éiginnteachta i gcúrsaí teanga idir an tSean-Ghaeilge agus an Nua-Ghaeilge Mhoch, nuair a bhí an teanga scríofa breac le foirmeacha ón gcaint chomh maith le foirmeacha forchearta. Is éard atá i gceist leis an "bhforcheartú" ná go bhfuil an scríbhneoir ag iarraidh cloí leis an gcaighdeán Sean-Ghaeilge agus é chomh haineolach ar an gcaighdeán sin nach bhfuil a chuid "ceartúchán" ceart de réir an chaighdeáin ná de réir na cainte. Tabhair faoi deara, áfach, go bhfuil seanleabhair áirithe i bprionta i gcónaí a úsaideas an téarma sin Middle Irish le tagairt don rud a dtugaimid Nua-Ghaeilge Mhoch air inniu - ar nós Irish Syllabic Poetry le hEleanor Knott.  

Early Modern Irish begins in the 12th century and ends in the 16th century. Classical Irish is the form of Early Modern Irish cultivated by bardic poets - the Irish word for "poet" is file, in the old orthography fileadh, and the standard language used by poets was indeed called ceart na bhfileadh, i.e. "the correctness of the poets", "what the poets find correct". The poets' Irish was quite far removed from the everyday speech of the common people, being above all a cultivated written language and developing independently of spoken dialects. However, it was not an archaic language - it did, for example, readily accept loanwords from English.

Thosaigh tréimhse na Nua-Ghaeilge Moiche sa dóú haois déag agus tháinig deireadh léi sa tseachtú haois déag. An cineál Nua-Ghaeilge Mhoch a bhí á cleachtadh ag na filí cuairte tugtar Gaeilge Chlasaiceach air. Is gnách "ceart na bhfileadh", is é sin caighdeán na bhfilí, a thabhairt ar an stíl seo chomh maith. Bhí Gaeilge na bhfilí sách difriúil le gnáthchaint na cosmhuintire, ós rud é gur teanga scríofa shaothraithe a bhí inti, agus í ag forbairt beag beann ar na canúintí labhartha. San am chéanna ní teanga bhréagársa a bhí inti. Mar shampla, d'fháiltíodh sí focail iasachta ón mBéarla.

There were other styles in Early Modern Irish - the canamhain (this is the same word as canúint, which in today's Irish means "dialect"), which was less rigorously literary and more conversational than the poets' standard, and the historians' annalistic style, which was artificially old-fashioned, but presumably felt to be historically correct by those who wrote it. It seems that it was usually laughed at and parodied by others.

Bhí stíleanna eile sa Nua-Ghaeilge Mhoch - an chanamhain (is ionann mar fhocal é agus "canúint"), nár chloígh chomh dian sin le ceart na bhfileadh, nó bhí sí ní ba chosúla le caint na ndaoine. Ón taobh eile de bhí a stíl féin ag lucht scríofa na n-annál staire, agus iad ag iarraidh seanaimsearthacht agus ársaíocht mhínádúrtha a chleachtadh, toisc gur shíl siad go gcaithfidís a ceart a thabhairt don stair. Dealraíonn sé gur ábhar gáire agus scigaithrise ab ea Gaeilge na staraithe do na daoine eile.

Towards the end of the Early Modern Irish period, the historian Geoffrey Keating (Seathrún Céitinn) wrote Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (usually called "Keating's History of Ireland" in English, although the title means "Foundation of Knowledge on Ireland"), a compendium of Irish history and mythology. Keating departed from the usual style of Irish-language history-writing, using instead a kind of classical Irish that is relatively intelligible even to those only familiar with today's Irish. This is why Keating's Irish was enormously influential among the first Irish revivalists in the eighteen nineties.

Nuair a bhí ré na Nua-Ghaeilge Moiche ag druidim chun deireanais, scríobh an staraí Seathrún Céitinn "Foras Feasa ar Éirinn", ar díolaim abhair é ina gceanglaítear stair agus miotaseolaíocht na hÉireann dá chéile. Níor chloígh Céitinn le gnáthstíl na staraithe Gaeilge ach le stíl Chlasaiceach agus í réasúnta intuigthe acu siúd féin nach bhfuil ach Gaeilge an lae inniu acu. Sin é an fáth go ndeachaigh Gaeilge Chéitinn go mór mór i bhfeidhm ar cheannródaithe athbheochana na Gaeilge sna 1890idí.

The time from the demise of the classical language in the 17th century to the revival of modern contemporary Irish in the 20th century is a dark period in the history of the language. However, literature was being written even in those centuries. Among the most well-known works is, of course, Brian Merriman's epic poem Cúirt an Mheon-Oíche, "The Midnight Court", which is probably most well-known because of the fact that its English translation was censored in the Irish Free State, while the far more ribald original text was widely available in bookshops.

An tréimhse ó dheireadh na ré Clasaicí sa 17ú haois go hathbheochan na teanga san fhichiú haois is gnách dearcadh uirthi mar bhlianta dorcha i stair na Gaeilge. Mar sin féin bhí litríocht á saothrú sna blianta sin féin. Is é an dán eipiceach Cúirt an Mheon Oíche an saothar is cáiliúla ón tréimhse, ar ndóigh, ach is é an fáth leis sin ná go ndearnadh cinsireacht ar an aistriúchán Béarla sa Saorstát, cé go raibh teacht ar an mbunleagan Gaeilge, agus é i bhfad níos graosta ná an leagan Béarla, go forleathan sna siopaí leabhar.

Irish for the traveller

"Where is the pub?" Cá bhfuil an teach tabhairne?

"Everywhere." Gach uile áit.

"Who is that beautiful girl over there?" Cé hí an ghirseach dhathúil thall ansin?

"That's my girlfriend." Is í mo ghrá geal féin í.

"Aren't you the lucky guy!" Nach méanar duit!

"Yes, I am." Is méanar cinnte.

"Where could I buy the newest edition of Peig?" Cá bhféadfainn an t-eagrán is úire de Pheig a cheannach?

"In the bookshop. But be careful, it's uncensored Kerry Irish." I siopa na leabhar. Ach bí cúramach, tá Gaeilge Chiarraí ann nach ndearnadh cinsireacht ar bith uirthi.

"Would you please point that machine gun some other way? It scares me." An mba mhiste duit gan an t-inneallghunna sin a dhíriú orm? Cuireann sé scanrú orm.

"Is this an unapproved road?" An bóthar neamhcheadaithe é seo?

"Yes, it is. There might be old booby traps here, placed by the Volunteers for the British. so we must drive carefully." Is ea. Is féidir go bhfuil sean-bhobghaistí fágtha anseo, cinn a chuir na hÓglaigh roimh na Sasanaigh fadó. Mar sin caithfidh muid bheith cúramach ag tiomáint. 

"Where are the smugglers?" Cá bhfuil na smuigléirí?

"Well, I do some smuggling myself sometimes." Bhuel bím féin ag smuigléireacht ó am go ham.

"Is this good poteen?" An poitín maith é seo?

"It's great. Mercury and cadmium add to the peculiar taste." Tá sé thar barr ar fad. Tá mearcair agus caidmiam ann a chuireas leis an mblas ar leith sin.

"Oh, I'm sorry, somehow I'm not thirsty anymore." Ó, tá brón orm, níl tart orm a thuilleadh.

"No problem. I'll drink to your health!" Tá sé ceart go leor. Ólfaidh mé do shláinte! 

Snakes on a plane? Sure, but in Irish.

The language of aviation is English, and even in languages less endangered than Irish, aviation terms commonly are relatively raw borrowings from English. However, we sure can do better. So, here are the parts of a plane.

The plane itself is eitleán, which is a masculine word (an t-eitleán, an eitleáin, na heitleáin, na n-eitleán), but typically referred to with a feminine pronoun (the same applies to boats, ships and other vehicles). In old days, most eitleáin had a lián which is a propeller, attached to a seafta liáin or a propeller shaft for the traiseoladh cumhachta or transmission of power from the engine, inneall. Small planes even today usually have an inneall comhbhuailteach or inneall frithingeach, i.e. a reciprocating engine, and such an engine has sorcóirí, cylinders, and loiní - pistons - the way the internal combustion engine or inneall dócháin inmheánaigh of a gluaisteán has. You can call a reciprocating engine a piston engine - inneall loiní - too. Loine is a feminine word: an loine, na loine, na loiní, na loiní.

However, passenger planes these days are usually jet planes, scairdeitleáin. A jet engine is called scairdinneall, and it has a compressor - comhbhrúiteoir - for air intake (aer-iontógáil). Behind the compressor there is the combustion chamber, cuasán dó (or maybe cuasán dócháin!), where the breosla or fuel is consumed, and then the stream of fuel turns the tuirbín or turbine. There are also turboprop engines - inneall turba-liáin - and turbofan engines - inneall turba-fean. That word looks like a very raw loanword indeed.

The main part of the plane is the cabhail or fuselage - it is a feminine noun, an chabhail, na cabhlach, na cabhlacha, na gcabhlach. Inside the fuselage you'll find the cábán or cabin, with the stewards and air hostesses - in Irish, both are called óstach or aeróstach, and this is a first-declension masculine noun: an t-aeróstach, an aeróstaigh, na haeróstaigh, na n-aeróstach. For cabin stewards, the word stíobhard can be used too. It is an old and well-established loanword (and even in my country's first language the word used is "stuertti", so using stíobhard is just fine).

A modern aerlínéar (airliner) will fly at high altitudes - sroichfidh sí an-airde agus í ag déanamh a bealaigh, tá a fhios agat. So, it is necessary for the cabin to be pressurized or brúchóirithe. Note the similarity of aerchóiriú 'air-conditioning' and brúchóiriú 'pressurization' - the second one means, word by word, 'pressure-conditioning'. Makes sense, doesn't it? Both are part of the córas rialaithe timpeallachta or environmental control system.

An aircraft has also something called eitleonaic or avionics. I must say I am not particularly happy with this Irish term, which is an English-modelled abbreviation for leictreonaic eitilte (flying electronics, or aviational electronics), but I guess it's more compact than leictreonaic eitilte after all. Eitleonaic includes such stuff as uathphíolóta (autopilot), rabhchán raidió neamhthreo (non-directional radio beacon), córas an-ardmhinicíochta uile-raoin (Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range system, or VOR), gléasra fadtomhaiste (distance measuring equipment, or DME), trasfhreagróir (transponder), córas tuirlingthe ionstraimí (instrumental landing system or ILS), not to mention an Córas Suite Domhanda or GPS.

A plane obviously has sciatháin or wings (singular form: sciathán, a wing), with flapaí (flaps) and coscáin eitilte (air brakes) as well as ailearáin (ailerons).  The tail of the plane usually consists of a cobhsaitheoir ingearach (vertical stabilizer) with a stiúir (rudder) attached - this is a feminine noun: an stiúir, na stiúrach, na stiúracha, na stiúrach - as well as a cobhsaitheoir cothrománach or horizontal stabilizer, with a rialtán airde or elevator (the Irish word means "altitude controller").

The eitleán is steered by the píolóta who is a professional eitleoir. He is assisted by the loingseoir eitilte (navigator). possibly even an innealtóir eitilte (flight engineer). They are sitting in cró an phíolóta (cockpit). They have a lot of ionstraimí (instruments, gauges) to attend to, but nowadays with everything computerized and electronized, so that they have just computer displays instead of those gauges, and they can choose which instruments they want those displays to show - this is called cró gloine (glass cockpit).

Planes land on an aerfort (actually aerphort would be etymologically better, as a spelling). Or maybe it is just an airstrip. aerstráice. Landing itself is tuirlingt, and landing-gear is fearas tuirlingthe. (The focloir.ie website gives also an alternative expression, cosa tuirlingthe, i.e. landing feet, which sounds excellent to me.) The place where the plane lands is the same place where it takes off, i.e. a runway, rúidbhealach. A taxiway is raon innealta, or bealach innealta - the participle innealta is associated with the verb innill!/inleadh "to set, to order, to array". And of course it is important for the pilot to stay i dteagmháil raidió with the crew in the túr rialúcháin, control tower.

What does "Celtic" mean?

For a linguist - a student of language in general, or certain languages - the word "Celtic" means only one thing: Celtic languages. Celtic languages are a well-defined subgroup of Indo-European languages, which are a group of mutually related languages spoken in Europe, northern India, and some countries between Europe and India such as Iran and Afghanistan. Yes, the main languages of Iran and Afghanistan are indeed Indo-European and as such related to both Irish and English.

When we speak of "Celts", we mean the people, or peoples, who speak, or historically spoke, Celtic languages. Modern Celtic languages include Irish, Scots Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Breton, and Cornish. Ancient Celtic languages include Gaulish, Celtiberian, and Lepontic, but these are basically just shorthand expressions for groups of ancient inscriptions which share similar features. We don't have enough Gaulish to, say, write a history of Gaulish literature.

The idea that Celtic languages are somehow intrinsically enigmatic or mysterious should not be entertained. For instance, those Gaulish inscriptions are largely possible to understand and interpret, because they are written in a language that is related to other Indo-European languages - and no group of languages has been so thoroughly studied and mapped as that one. Of course, we can never understand everything, because we know little of the cultural context, but this applies to all ancient languages. Even Latin, which you might think should be intelligible in its entirety, given the fact that it is a classical language that has been studied for centuries, has its own share of enigmas: there are extant texts (such as the Carmen Saliare fragments) in a form of Latin which is much older than the language of Cicero and Virgil and which aren't well understood.

As regards modern Celtic languages, they are quite well understood and can be learnt and studied by everyone. Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton are all living languages, while their long-term survival might be precarious. Of the above-mentioned languages, I only speak and write Irish, so I might as well concentrate upon it. Books are still being written and published in Irish, both by native speakers and learners (myself included). There is such an awful lot of published folklore in Irish that if the language lost its last native speaker, it could still be resurrected with all its dialect differences.

Note this:

• Basque is not a Celtic language, it is a language isolate with no relatives. There are a couple of possibly Celtic loanwords in Basque though.
• Galician is not a Celtic language, it is a Romance language related to Portuguese. Many Romance languages have Celtic loanwords and show Celtic influence, but all Romance languages have basically developed from Latin.
• Gaelic is not one language, but three (Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx) which are mutually about as similar as Scandinavian languages are.
• Welsh is not a Gaelic language, although it is a Celtic language.
• "Celtic" as a term is above all about linguistics, about the way how certain languages are related to each other. The cultures of the peoples who speak, or until recently spoke, Celtic languages are not necessarily particularly related to each other, any more than English culture is related to Swedish culture although English and Swedish are, as Germanic languages, originally quite closely related.
• There is no one Celtic mythology, although there are Celtic mythologies. For instance, the Irish mythologies of Fiannaíocht (the cycle of the Fianna or Fenian heroes) and Rúraíocht (the Ulster Cycle with Cú Chulainn).
• Celtic mythologies have significantly influenced common European culture. Above all, it should be noted that the stories about King Arthur and the knights of the round table are ultimately based on Welsh mythology, although the present form of the stories is probably more related to how the stories were rewritten and reinvented by medieval French poets. For instance, Sir Lancelot as a character was introduced by the very influential French writer Chrétien de Troyes.
• The "Ossianic mythology" introduced by James Macpherson in the 18th century similarly had a deep impact on European culture by creating interest in the culture and folklore of the common people. Macpherson's stories were actually relatively poor retellings of Fenian myths in English, but Macpherson did have an idea of Gaelic myths as told in Scots Gaelic.
• And now it should be noted that Irish and Scots Gaelic myths are indeed related, but only because the languages themselves are closely related and diverged only relatively recently.
• Things said in a Celtic language are not always profound and elevated. You can definitely speak about prostitution, defecating or sewage treatment in Irish. Shit, by the way, is cac in Irish, and piss is mún or fual. In case you were curious.
• The fact that speakers of Irish or Welsh, for instance, use English words while speaking their languages is not due to the language being intrinsically old-fashioned or unsuitable to modern life. It is due to the fact that those people live in a largely English-speaking country, where the majority language is encroaching on the minority language. This is about power and prestige, not about the intrinsic nature of the language.
• Welsh is most closely related to Breton and Cornish, Irish is most closely related to Scots Gaelic and Manx. But Welsh is so unintelligible to an Irish-speaker, and the other way round, that the common Celtic origins of the two languages do not help them understand each other.
• On the other hand, Irish and Scots Gaelic are very similar both in their written and in their spoken forms. The main reason why they do not feel like the same language anymore is that those dialects which were in between have disappeared.
• In fact, most native speakers of Scots Gaelic nowadays live in the Outer Hebrides, where the local dialect has been subject to exceptionally strong Old Norse influences. Thus, you can say that the most widely spoken form of Scots Gaelic today is the historically most divergent one.
• Breton is not immediately related to Gaulish, it is rather a derivative of Cornish, which has come into being due to (originally seasonal) migration from Cornwall. So, although Breton is spoken in France, it originally was the same language as Cornish and came from the British Isles.
• Welsh is closely related to both Cornish and Breton.
• Cornish died out in the 18th century as a community language. There are, though, ongoing attempts to revive it as a spoken language. While some success has been achieved, there still is a lot of disagreement about what kind of Cornish should be revived and whether Welsh and Breton words should be used for concepts for which authentic Cornish only uses English borrowings.

SOME TERMINOLOGY, NAMES AND STUFF:

• Basque = a non-Celtic minority language spoken in France and Spain. Sometimes people erroneously think that Basque is a Celtic language, because it is a minority language of which they know very little, and in such a way similar to Celtic languages. Actually. Basque is a linguistic isolate with no modern relatives (there was an ancient language called by linguists Aquitanian, but the list of known Aquitanian words is very short and so obviously Basque that for all we know Aquitanian might simply have been old Basque, not just a "related language")
• Béaslaí, Piaras (1891-1965) = an Irish-language writer and nationalist activist, known for his dramas and his novel Astronár, an allegory about the Irish struggle for freedom. In this novel, Ireland is an Eastern European country called Amora, subjugated by Kratonians, and everybody has a pseudo-Greek name (such as the hero Astronár).
• Breton = the Celtic language spoken in Brittany
• Brezhoneg = the name of Breton in Breton
• Brittonic languages = Welsh, Breton, and Cornish
• Celtiberian = an ancient language spoken in what is now Spain, known from inscriptions
• Celtic = a branch of the Indo-European language family
• Cornish = the Celtic language once spoken in Cornwall. There are several reconstructed forms of Cornish, such as Unified Cornish, Modern Cornish, Kernewek Kemmyn and Unified Cornish Revised, but now some sort of compromise Cornish has been created.
• Cymraeg = the name of Welsh in Welsh
• Cymraeg Byw = an artificial form of spoken Welsh standardized in the 1970s. Due to the great gap between literary Welsh and spoken dialects, this form of Welsh was developed as a substitute for the "received pronunciation" that had not developed in a natural way. It was supposed to become the normative spoken language of broadcasters, but instead, it was taught to non-natives, who then were left speaking a form of Welsh which was a departure from any real Welsh either spoken or written. This misuse led to the subsequent abandonment of Cymraeg Byw, which might have worked just fine if used as originally planned, as a broadcasting norm.
• Davitt, Michael (1950-2005) = a modern Irish-language poet
• Gaeilge = the name of Irish in Irish
• Gaelic languages = the branch of Celtic containing Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Manx. Also called Goidelic languages
• Gaeltacht = a village or area where a traditional dialect of Irish is spoken
• Gàidhlig = the name of Scots Gaelic in Scots Gaelic
• Galician = the Romance language spoken in the part of Spain north of Portugal, a very close relative (or historically speaking the parent language) of Portuguese. Not a Celtic language.
• Gaulish = an ancient Celtic language spoken in what is now France, known from inscriptions
• Gwalarn = a Breton school of writers and a literary journal in the Breton language, active in 1925-1944
• Gwenedeg (Vannetais) - one of the four dialects of Breton, so different from the others that it needs a written language of its own
• Hedd Wyn = the pen name of Ellis Humphrey Evans, a Welsh-language poet of the First World War, killed in action in 1917.
• Indo-European languages = the most well-known and researched language family of the world, which includes Albanian, Armenian, Baltic languages (Latvian and Lithuanian), Slavic languages (Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Sorbian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Slovenian, Bulgarian and Macedonian), Celtic (Irish, Scots Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, Breton and the ancient Celtic languages), Germanic (English, Dutch, German and the Scandinavian languages as well as Gothic and other ancient Germanic languages), Greek (ancient and modern; Ancient Macedonian was probably related to Greek, definitely not the same language as modern Macedonian, which is close to Bulgarian), Indo-Iranian languages (Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Pashtu and many others), Italic languages (such as Latin, from which modern Romance languages descend), and several ancient, extinct languages such as Hittite and Tocharian. Most languages spoken in Europe are Indo-European; the major exceptions are Basque, which is not related to any other language; and Finnish, the Sami languages, Estonian, and Hungarian, which are all related to each other, being Finno-Ugric languages.
• initial mutation = the way how the first sound in a word mutates into another sound in a word, as a grammatical change. Very typical of modern Celtic languages.
• Insular Celtic = the Celtic languages spoken in the British Isles, or originating from there. All the modern Celtic languages (including Breton) are Insular Celtic
• Irish = the Celtic language spoken in Ireland
• Kerneveg (Cornouaillais) = one of the dialects of Breton
• Kernewek or Kernowek = the name of Cornish in Cornish
• Italic languages = an ancient subgroup of Indo-European languages that included Latin and such related languages as Faliscan, Umbrian, Oscan and many others. Latin ousted other Italic languages when Romans occupied and annexed the parts of Italy where they were spoken.
• Italo-Celtic = According to one theory, a subgroup of Indo-European languages that included both Italic languages and Celtic languages (this suggests that they had a common ancestor language younger than Proto-Indo-European, i.e. Italo-Celtic). These days this theory is not very popular.
• Leoneg (Léonard) = one of the dialects of Breton
• Lepontic = an ancient Celtic language spoken in what is now Northern Italy, known from inscriptions
• Lewis, Saunders (1893-1985) = a renowned poet and writer in Welsh
• Mac Amhlaigh, Dónall (1926-1989) = a writer of Irish-language prose about the life of Irish workers in Britain, who also wrote in English. Thanks to his fluent journalistic style, he should be studied by any learner of the language.
• Mac an Bheatha, Proinsias (1910-1990) = a productive, but not very original writer of Irish-language prose. He was a non-native, but wrote mostly quite decent Irish. His historical novels have some literary merit.
• Mac Grianna, Seosamh (1900-1990) = a modernist writer from Donegal, whose interesting literary career was cut short by depression and psychosis
• Manx = the Celtic language until recently spoken in the Isle of Man, closely related to Irish and Scots Gaelic
• Ó Cadhain, Máirtín (1906-1970) = the most important writer of prose in the 20th century
• ogham = a form of writing used in the oldest Irish inscriptions. These are very short ones and their usual content is something like "I was such a big boss in our tribe that my sons could afford to put up this stone in my memory".
• ogham Irish = the kind of Irish used in the ogham inscriptions
• Ó Grianna, Séamus (1889-1969) = a productive writer of novels and short stories about the Irish-speaking Donegal, mostly read because of his beautiful Irish; elder brother of Seosamh Mac Grianna
• Ó hÁirtnéide, Mícheál (1941-1999) = also known as Michael Hartnett, a modern Irish-language poet who also wrote in English
• Old Irish = the kind of Irish written in the years 700-900.
• Ó Riordáin, Seán (1916-1977) = a modern Irish-language poet
• Pictish = the language spoken in Scotland before Old Irish (subsequently Scots Gaelic) made inroads. Pictish was probably related to Welsh (there are pre-Gaelic place-names in Scotland which include Celtic elements reminiscent of Welsh) but there is also the possibility that there were two Pictish languages, one of them Celtic and another unrelated.
• Roberts, Kate (1891-1985) = a noted Welsh writer of prose
• Romance languages = the languages that descend directly from Latin, such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Romanian, Catalan, Galician etc.
• Scots = the Germanic language spoken in Scotland and Ulster, either an English dialect or a separate language closely related to English. Not a Celtic language.
• Scottish Gaelic = the Celtic language spoken in the Scottish Highlands and Islands
• Tregerieg (Trégorrois) = one of the dialects of Breton
• Welsh = the Celtic language spoken in Wales

Why is "aerfort" written that way?

Aerfort is of course the Irish word for "airport", but it looks somewhat funny. To start with, that word aer, air, which does not seem to adhere to the "caol le caol, leathan le leathan" principle (and no, it does not - there are other similar examples). And why -fort? Should it not be -phort, because in compound words the second constituent is lenited (p becoming ph), and it is obvious the latter part of this word is "port"? Yes, it should, but for some reason the ligeadóirí agus casadóirí of the Caighdeán have decided otherwise.

One of the problems of Irish orthography is that there is no satisfactory way to write a long e sound both preceded and followed by a broad consonant. In Munster, -ao- is pronounced like this, but in most dialects, -ao- is more like a long i sound preceded and followed by a broad consonant. (A well-known exception is aon with its derivatives, which is usually pronounced with an e sound even in non-Munster dialects.) Note though that this particular long i is very unstable and has very different phonetic realizations due to the influence the broad consonants have on it: the English names Milligan and Mulligan are both based on Ó Maolagáin: in words (mostly names) borrowed from Irish into English the -ao- has very different English reflexes. (Русским изучающим ирландский язык конечно известно - или должно быть! - , что ирландское "ao" - очень похоже на русское "ы", которое является самым лучшим русским приближением ирландского звука.  - Может быть я здесь еще буду публиковать целые статьи по русски, но я стесняюсь писать на этом языке, которым владею гораздо хуже, чем ирландским. Russian speakers have in their native language a very good approximation of Irish "ao" - the sound they write "ы". I might yet write blog posts about Irish in Russian, but as yet I am ashamed to write Russian, my command of which is much more shaky than that of Irish.)

Long e sounds preceded and followed by broad consonants are found both in loanwords and original Irish words - of the latter, the very word Gael is an example. (Pre-Caighdeán spellings for this word include Gaedheal and Gaodhal.) Note the noun traein '(railway) train'. In it. the long e sound is preceded by a broad consonant but followed by a slender one, and to signalize the latter, an -i- is inserted. On the other hand, in its genitive form traenach the -n- is broad, and this is shown both by the fact that the extra -i- is dropped and that the -n- is followed by an -a-, which is unambiguously a broad vowel. Thus, although no textbook I have used makes this explicit, the "ae" of the present orthography must be treated, for all intents and purposes, as a broad vowel in its own right.

Then that -fort. Obviously, the word is a compound of aer and port, and shoult be written aerphort rather than aerfort. However, in the Caighdeán spelling compound words, the last constituent of which is basically -phort, are written like this: aerfort "airport", longfort "military base, military stronghold, camp", críochfort "terminal", calafort "port, harbour" (this is a compound of caladh "port, harbour, landing" and port). This is just a convention, I am not especially fond of it - I would prefer the more regular aerphort, longphort, críochphort - although I admit that caladhphort looks kind of clumsy compared to calafort, and calaphort would feel vaguely wrong.

Note that there is also the word ceannfort, which means "commandant" (there are no majors in the Irish armed forces, there are commandants - I guess this was modelled on the French military tradition, in an attempted departure from the English one). I am not sure about the etymology of ceannfort, but I guess it was originally not a compound word but a genitive construction (ceann an phoirt?). Maybe you'll find the explanation in Dinneen's dictionary.

Remarks upon the Irish military oath

The Irish military oath for officers of the permanent defence force has the following wording:

Mionnaímse/Dearbhaímse [name], go solamanta go mbead dílis d'Éirinn agus tairiseach don Bhunreacht agus, faid a bhead im oifigeach de na Buan-Óglaigh, go gcomhlíonfad gach ordú dleathach a bhéarfas m'oifigigh uachtaracha dhom agus nach gceanglód le haon eagraíocht nó cumann polaitíochta ná le haon chumann rúnda ar bith ná nach mbead im chomhalta den chéanna ná nach dtaobhód leis an gcéanna.

In English, the same oath is as follows:
I [name] do solemnly swear/declare that I will be faithful to Ireland and loyal to the Constitution and that while I am an officer of the Permanent Defence Force I will obey all lawful orders issued to me by my superior officers and will not join or be a member of or subscribe to any political organisation or society or any secret society whatsoever.

(Source: Defence Act 1954, section 43, sixth schedule.)

The Irish text is not bad as it is, but personally I take issue with certain aspects of it:

• The form solamanta. "Solemn" is in today's Irish sollúnta, and I think I have only met solamanta in this particular text (although I guess it is also mentioned as an alternative form in Ó Dónaill's dictionary).
• The use of such forms as bead "I will be", ceanglód "I will join", comhlíonfad "I will keep/obey/observe", taobhód "I will side (with)". Personally, I would prefer beidh mé, ceanglóidh mé, comhlíonfaidh mé, taobhóidh mé. The synthetic form of the first person singular future tense feels a little too Munster these days.
• The word tairiseach. I have only met it as a noun, in the sense of a mathematical or physical constant. Well, of course it does exist as an adjective, and you find it in dictionaries, but you practically never see it in either native folklore or native literature. The Irish text is obviously a translation from the English one, and as the English text uses two different words - "faithful" and "loyal" - the translator felt compelled to do so, too. However, I'd prefer to just say dílis d'Éirinn agus don bhunreacht. Another possibility would be to use urramach or a related word for variation: go mbeidh mé dílis d'Éireann agus go dtabharfaidh mé urraim don Bhunreacht.
• The use of céanna as a standalone pronoun. Usually we find this only in the idiomatic expression mar an gcéanna. It is not wrong to use an céanna as a standalone pronoun (this usage is mentioned in Ó Dónaill), but it is far more typical and natural to use it in an adjective attribute position (an rud ćeanna and so on). Instead of leis an gcéanna, den chéanna I would prefer lena leithéid, dá leithéid.
• Bhéarfas is a form of tabhair!/tabhairt, and in the present standard language it would be thabharfaidh (because standard Irish does not acknowledge either the direct relative form of the verb or the b(h)éar- stem of the verb tabhair). Personally, I'd prefer to keep the direct relative -s, though - thabharfas. I don't think bhéarfas is wrong, but combining the -s relative form (in my opinion, especially typical of Ulster and Connacht) with such synthetic forms as ceanglód, bead and so on in the same text feels stylistically awkward, noting that those synthetic forms are mainly Munster Irish.
• The use of ceangail!/ceangal le... for joining a society sounds kind of funny to me, too. I'd say simply dul i..., which is the usual way to refer to joining a society. Thus: nach rachaidh mé in aon eagraíocht ná in aon chumann polaitíochta ná in aon chumann rúnda ar bith... Note though that I find cumann polaitíochta much better than cumann polaitiúil. Nowadays they would sure translate "a political society" as cumann polaitiúil, which at least originally used to be more literary and less straightforward style than cumann polaitíochta. The Irish way is to use a genitive attribute - dochtúir mná is better Irish for "a female doctor" than dochtúir baineann, and cumann polaitíochta is better Irish than cumann polaitiúil. (In fact, I'd say there is a subtle difference between cumann polaitíochta and cumann polaitiúil. The first one is a political organization which is explicitly meant to be political and has political aims. The other one is an organization that has other than political aims - theoretically - but that has been politicized. For instance, think of a situation where there are two Irish-language organization, one of which is only an Irish-language one, while the other one has been hijacked by a political party. Then the first one would be spoken of as an cumann neamhpholaitiúil, the one as an cumann polaitiúil.)
• Comhalta rather than ball for the member of a society or organization is quite correct, you don't see it too often these days.

In my own variety of Irish, I would suggest:
Mise, Seán Ó Rudaí/Síle Ní Rudaí, mionnaím/dearbhaím go sollúnta go mbeidh mé dílis d'Éirinn agus go dtabharfaidh mé urraim don Bhunreacht; agus, fad is a bheas mé i m'oifigeach de chuid na mBuan-Óglach, go gcomhlíonfaidh mé gach ordú dleathach a thabharfas mo chuid oifigeach uachtarach dom, agus, nach rachaidh mé in aon eagraíocht nó cumann polaitíochta ná in aon rúnchumann, nach mbeidh mé i mo chomhalta d'eagraíocht ar bith den chineál sin, agus nach dtabharfaidh mé tacaíocht dá leithéid.

One thing more: joining an organization as a member is in Irish dul i..., but taking its stance is dul le... Chuaigh sé i bPáirtí na Polaitíochta means that he joined the Political Party, but chuaigh sé le Páirtí na Polaitíochta means that he only shared its stance. (I use here Páirtí na Polaitíochta or the Political Party for a generic political party.) If I could work out a way to do it elegantly, I'd attempt to use these constructions in my translation. However, ní rachaidh mé i ná le haon eagraíocht... does not sound elegant, and ní rachaidh mé in aon eagraíocht...ná ní rachaidh mé lena leithéid is not good style either. I'll work on this yet.

However, while my suggestion is more intelligible and colloquial than the official one, I don't say it couldn't be further improved. And, while the official one could be streamlined, there is also the argument that if a ceremonial text is not blatantly wrong, it should not be altered, because the old-fashioned style is part of a tradition. The military oath might be stylistically peculiar, but if you are an Irish army officer with fluent and good Irish and still insist on the official text for such reasons, then you are probably right and I am wrong. I am not a military man myself, and I don't want to come across as somebody who'd teach his dad how to make babies.

Michael Collins the astronaut (a reading for learners)

This reading is about Michael Collins, but not the Michael Collins you are thinking of. This one is an American astronaut.


Rugadh Michael Collins sa bhliain 1930. Bhí a athair ina oifigeach in Arm na Stát Aontaithe, agus nuair a chríochnaigh sé an mheánscoil, chuaigh sé ag staidéar in acadamh míleata na tíre, West Point. Theastaigh uaidh bheith ina fhear mhíleata cosúil lena athair. Bhí suim aige san innealtóireacht agus san eitleoireacht chomh maith, agus nuair a fuair sé a dhintiúirí ó West Point, chuaigh sé san Aerfhórsa.

rugadh 'was born' - note that the Irish autonomous form is an active (not passive) form, which means that you need to use the accusative forms of the pronouns with it, thus rugadh é 'he was born' (é 'him').

bhí...ina oifigeach word for word 'was...in his officer' - the underlying idea is that he was performing in the capacity of an officer. You can also use this structure if you are speaking of children assuming roles in a game: tá Seáinín ina oifigeach, agus an chuid eile de na páistí ina ngnáthshaighdiúirí 'Seáinín is (being) an officer, and the other children are (being) common soldiers.'


Arm na Stát Aontaithe US Army. Note that it is not allowed to put a definite article before Arm in this phrase, because the fact that it is followed by the definite genitive plural na Stát Aontaithe, it is already definite enough. Similarly, na Stáit Aontaithe takes the article, but Stáit Aontaithe Mheiriceá does not, because Stáit Aontaithe is in it already definite because of being followed by the definite genitive Mheiriceá. The proper name Meiriceá is already definite by virtue of being a proper name.

meánscoil (being a feminine noun, it becomes an mheánscoil with definite article) means 'secondary school', but in America it can be used to refer to a high school.

chuaigh sé ag staidéar 'he went to study'. In Ulster, it would be chuaigh sé a staidéar with a (< do). Note that while English takes the infinitive construction with 'to', in Irish either ag + verbal noun (+ object in genitive form) or a (< do) + verbal noun (+ object in genitive form) is needed after the verbs tosaigh/tosú, téigh/dul and tar/teacht. Note that for 'he went to study', we could also use chuaigh sé ag foghlaim léinn (Ulster chuaigh sé a fhoghlaim léinn, or ...a dh'fhoghlaim léinn in a more pettily dialectal orthography). In English, 'he went to learn learning' sounds awkward, but in Irish, ag foghlaim léinn and léann a fhoghlaim have a good Gaeltacht pedigree. Léann 'studies, learning' is a very old Latin loanword, indeed the same word as the English word 'legend' (both are based on the Latin word legenda 'things to be read').

theastaigh uaidh: The verb teastaigh/teastáil means 'be needed, wanted' and it takes the preposition ó. Uaidh is the third person masculine singular form of the preposition and means thus 'from him'. Note that the Ulster writer Seán Bán Mac Meanman's use of ar rather than ó with teastaigh/teastáil is due to influence from synonymous expressions in his dialect such as bheith de dhíth/d'fheidhm/de dhíobháil, which all take ar. Teastaigh/teastáil was not a feature of Seán Bán's dialect, and thus he used it awkwardly with an improper preposition.

innealtóireacht 'engineering'

eitleoireacht 'aviation'. Note this very productive pattern of word-building: when you have the name of the tradesman, you add -(e)acht and get the name of the trade. Innealtóir is an engineer, eitleoir is a pilot or an aviator. I can think of only one exception: siopadóireacht means shopping, but a siopadóir is not a person doing the shopping - that word means shopkeeper. (For shopkeeping, you will then need to use another expression, such as ceard an tsiopadóra, 'the trade of the shopkeeper'.)

dintiúirí is the plural of dintiúr, which comes from the English word 'indenture'. However, the plural dintiúirí (I guess the official standard plural would be dintiúir, but it feels more natural to add the extra -í) means 'credentials' in a very generic sense.

chuaigh sé san Aerfhórsa 'he went into the Air Force', i.e. joined it. Joining an organisation is 'going into it'. And you shouldn't add the word isteach here, san is good enough. Sa, san is the fusion of i(n) 'in, into' and an 'the'; it might be easier to understand what it is, if you remember that the older orthography is ins an: chuaigh sé ins an Aerfhórsa.

Note that there is a subtle difference between chuaigh le and chuaigh i. Le refers to embracing the stance, say, of a political party, and also taking up a trade. I refers to joining an organization as a card-carrying member. Thus, chuaigh sé i bhFine Gael, chuaigh sé i bhFianna Fáil, chuaigh sé i Sinn Féin means that he joined said party as a member, while chuaigh sé le Fine Gael, chuaigh sé le Fianna Fáil, chuaigh sé le Sinn Féin means that he embraced its stance. And Adolf Hitler's fatal decision to go into politics - worded in his infamous book in German as 'Ich aber beschloss Politiker zu werden' and in English as 'I on the other hand decided to go into politics' would in Irish be 'Mise áfach, chinn mé ar dhul le polaitíocht'.


Ní raibh fonn air triail a bhaint as an Arm, ó bhí a athair ina oifigeach ansin. Shíl sé, dá rachadh sé san Arm, go mbeadh lucht a chomhaoise in éad faoi pé céim suas a gheobhadh sé, agus iad ag síleadh go mbeadh an tArm ag fabhrú do chlann lucht na ceirde. Mar sin, roghnaigh sé an tAerfhórsa.

fonn 'wish, desire, inclination, urge' takes the preposition ar, as emotions and urges usually do. An urge is "on" you in Irish. Note, though, that love (grá) and hatred (fuath) are not treated as transient emotions, but as more permanent attitudes: they are not on you, but at you (ag).

triail is a try, a trial, and triail a bhaint as...'to pull a try out of [something]' is the usual way to say 'to try [something]'. However, triail/triail is also a verb in its own right, and it would be just fine to say 'an tArm a thriail'.

lucht a chomhaoise 'the people of the same age'

in éad 'jealous' - le refers to the person you are envying, faoi to the thing you are envying him.

pé means 'any, whatever'. Synonyms include pé ar bith, cibé, cibé ar bith, and in some dialect it has mutated into fébrí. Usually just pé or cibé though, with ar bith often added for good measure. Note pé scéal é or cibé scéal é for 'anyhow, in any case'.

céim suas 'a step up' is a promotion. A demotion is, of course, céim síos.

fabhraigh/fabhrú 'to favour'. Note that you need to use do 'to, for, to the benefit of' with this verb. By the way, in Ulster there is an unrelated verb fabhraigh/fabhrú meaning 'to develop'; it is probably just a local variant of forbair/forbairt 'to develop'.

clann (collectively) 'children, descendants'. To use in the sense of 'family' (i.e. including the parents) is not traditional, although this usage has made huge inroads in the well-known variant of the language to which the extremely strictly technical term 'that dreadful school Irish' is commonly applied. The 'official' word for 'family' is teaghlach, which is much better, although people keep suggesting it is somehow bad or not in their dialect. Other words for 'family' include muirín and muirear, which have the additional sense of burden (thus it is not surprising that family planning is pleanáil muiríne) as well as comhluadar, which actually means 'company' even in the sense of 'jolly company', but which in Connacht Irish has very strongly the sense of family. Conlán has been recorded in East Ulster folklore in this sense, but regrettably East Ulster Irish is extinct in the wild.

lucht na ceirde 'the people of the trade', in this example the military trade.


Chaith an Coileánach na blianta fada ag foghlaim eitleoireachta agus innealtóireachta san Aerfhórsa, agus sa deireadh thosaigh sé féin ag oiliúint meicneoirí don fhórsa. Murab ionann agus cuid mhór de spásairí a ghlúine féin níor throid sé i gCogadh na Cóiré. Rud eile áfach gur eitleoir trialach a bhí ann, is é sin go mbíodh sé ag baint trialach as cineálacha nua eitleán, ar nós a lán eile a chuaigh le spásaireacht.

oil/oiliúint 'to train'

meicneoir 'a mechanic'

glúin 'knee', but also 'a generation, an age-cohort'

murab ionann agus 'unlike'

Cogadh na Cóiré 'the Korean War'; the Irish means 'the war of Korea'. Note that an Chóiré 'Korea' includes a definite article, as many names of countries do in Irish.

rud eile áfach 'it's another story'

eitleoir trialach 'test pilot'

ag baint trialach as 'testing'. Note that triail 'try, trial, test' is a feminine noun and its genitive is trialach, and when the object of a verbal noun follows it, it is usually in the genitive form.

is é sin 'that means'

ar nós a lán eile 'in the way of many others'. Ar nós 'in the way of, like' should basically be followed by the genitive, but usually isn't, in natural speech.

a chuaigh le spásaireacht 'who became astronauts' (note again chuaigh le 'went with'). Spásaireacht 'astronautics; the astronaut's trade'


I dtús na seascaidí chuir sé spéis sa spástaisteal, ó bhí Údarás Aerloingseoireachta agus Spáis na Stát Aontaithe (NASA) ag déanamh an-dul chun cinn san am, ach nuair a chuir sé isteach iarratas ar oiliúint spásaireachta, níor glacadh leis. Bhí cúrsa spásaireachta dá chuid féin ag an Aerfhórsa, áfach, agus cead isteach ag an gCoileánach ansin.

spéis 'interest' in the sense of becoming interested in something (interest in banking is called ús or - if exorbitant - gaimbín). It can also be suim (a word also meaning 'sum') and at least Colm Ó Gaora uses the occasional or nonce word suiméad with suim in the negative expression níl suim ná suiméad agam ann, which I facetiously translate as 'I am neither interested nor shminterested in it'. Anyway, as you see here, interest, whether spéis or suim, is in Irish at (ag) you, and you take an interest in (i, in) something. Or actually, you 'put' (cuir/cur) it in something.

spástaisteal is 'space travel', of course.

Údarás Aerloingseoireachta agus Spáis na Stát Aontaithe is my attempt to convey the sense of 'National Aeronautics and Space Administration', i.e. 'the Aeronautics and Space Authority of the United States'. Aerloingseoireacht, 'air-seamanship', is the word for aeronautics (loingseoireacht 'seamanship, navigation, voyaging', loingseoir 'navigator, mariner', loingeas 'fleet', long 'ship'). Note that Aer Lingus is just a fancy (read: wrong) way to write what should be Aerloingeas 'air fleet'. Administration is riarachán, but in my opinion it sounds like the act or activity of administrating something - in the sense of an authority administrating something, údarás or authority feels more natural.

Dul chun cinn means 'progress, forward movement', and an-dul chun cinn is obviously good progress, a lot of forward movement.

Iarratas is an application, and when you apply for something, you 'put in an application on' it (iarratas a chur isteach ar rud). Note that cuir/cur isteach ar dhuine means 'to disturb'.

cead isteach 'permission to enter' means simply that he could go there, nothing more official or formal. Note that if somebody has cead a chos/cead a cos ('permission of his/her feet') he/she can move freely, and if he/she has cead a chinn/cead a cinn ('permission of his/her head'), he/she can decide freely. Note also cead cainte 'permission of speech', i.e. freedom of speech - at meetings, the English expression 'Let the man/woman talk!' corresponds to Irish 'Cead cainte! Cead cainte!'

I ndiaidh an chúrsa sin d'fhill sé ar a sheanobair agus chuir sé isteach iarratas nua. An iarracht seo chuaigh Deke Slayton, príomhspásaire an Údaráis, i dteagmháil leis lena fhiafraí de, an raibh spéis aige sa spásaireacht i gcónaí. D'fhreagair an Coileánach go raibh, agus fuair sé oiliúint chuimsitheach spáis. Mar a scríobh sé ina chuid cuimhní cinn ina dhiaidh sin, tháinig sé aniar aduaidh air go gcaithfeadh sé staidéar a dhéanamh ar gheolaíocht mar chuid den chúrsa. Níor taibhsíodh dó san am go mbaistfí "armalcoilít" (ainm a thagraíos do Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin agus Michael Collins araon) ar cheann de na mianraí a d'aithin na geolaithe sna clocha a thug an triúr seo leo ón nGealach.

príomhspásaire: my attempt to translate "Chief Astronaut". Slayton was actually Chief of the Astronaut Office.

cuimsitheach 'comprehensive'

tháinig sé aniar aduaidh air 'it came as a surprise to him'

níor taibhsíodh dó 'he could not imagine, he had no foreboding, he had no presentiment'. Taibhsigh/taibhsiú 'to loom, to appear' is used like this in the autonomous form to convey the sense of foreboding or presentiment.

Thug an Coileánach an chéad chuairt ar an spás sa bhliain 1966. Ba é "Gemini a Deich" an misean a bhí i gceist. Bhí áit do bheirt spásairí sa spásbhád den déanamh Gemini, mar is léir ón ainm, agus ba é John Watts Young leathbhádóir an Choileánaigh. Bhí Young tar éis a chéad seal a chaitheamh sa spás cheana féin - "Gemini a Trí" a bhí ar an misean sin, agus ba iad Young agus Virgil "Gus" Grissom na spásairí. Bhí Grissom le bás a fháil go gránna nuair a chuaigh an spásbhád tástála úd Apollo a hAon trí thine sa bhliain 1967.

thug...an chéad chuairt ar an spás 'paid the first visit to space', 'visited space for the first time'. (It sounds better in Irish!)

leathbhádóir 'companion'

déanamh can mean 'a make, a model'

Is éard a bhí i gceist le tionscadal Gemini ná scileanna tábhachtacha spásaireachta a chleachtadh go praiticiúil - mar shampla, ba nós leis na spásairí seal a chaitheamh taobh amuigh den spásbhád - is é sin, siúlóid spáis a dhéanamh. Thairis sin, bhí siad lena spásbhád féin a nascadh den "fheithicil targaide", is é sin, spásbhád gan fhoireann a scaoileadh chun bóthair in éineacht le Gemini - Agena a thugtaí ar an gcineál seo "feithicle". Go bunúsach is éard a bhí i gceist le hAgena ná inneall breise a d'fhéadfaí a nascadh de spásbhád den déanamh Gemini. Le linn a misin bhain Young agus an Coileánach úsáid as a nAgena féin le luas a chur faoina spásbhád-san, agus ansin thug siad cuairt ar an Agena eile a d'fhág foireann an mhisin úd Gemini a hOcht ina ndiaidh roimhe sin.

siúlóid spáis 'space walk'. In fact, I would not object to saying tá sé ag siúl an spáis ('he is walking space') to refer to an astronaut on a space walk. Note, by the way, that space is called an spás in Irish. This is an example of the definite article used in Irish in the generic sense.

nasc/nascadh and ceangail/ceangal: In my opinion (which is based on solid reading of folklore) natural Irish prefers the preposition de (yes, de, not do, although these two are confused in much of natural spoken Irish) to refer to the object one ties to, or clings to. Le should refer to the thing you use for combining or tying two things with. It is common non-native error to use le with verbs of tying or combining, where de would be more appropriate.

I Mí Iúil 1969 a gheal lá na cinniúna: ansin bhí Collins, Armstrong agus Aldrin le heitilt a fhad leis an nGealach. Nó - bhí sé i ndán don Choileánach fanacht sa mhodúl ceannais, agus an bheirt spásairí eile ag tuirlingt i Muir na Sáimhe sa mhodúl gealaí. Ar ndóigh, ní raibh braon uisce sa mhuir sin. Níl uisce ar bith i "bhfarraigí" na Gealaí, nó ní farraigí iad i ndáiríribh ach machairí basailt - is é sin machairí as cloch bholcánach, agus iad níos gile ná na "garbhchríocha", atá níos sine ó thaobh na geolaíochta de.

gheal lá na cinniúna 'the day of destiny dawned'

a fhad le 'as long away as'. Especially in Ulster Irish, this is simply used in the sense 'to (a destination)'

bhí sé i ndán dó 'it was in store for him'

modúl ceannais 'command module'

agus an bheirt spásaire eile ag tuirlingt 'while the other two astronauts are/were landing/descending'. Tuirling/tuirlingt 'to land, to descend'.

Muir na Sáimhe 'Sea of Tranquillity'.

modúl gealaí 'moon module, lunar module'

cloch bholcánach 'vulcanic stone', i.e. igneous rock

na garbhchríocha 'the highlands', here used to refer to the parts of lunar surface that aren't "sea".

ó thaobh na geolaíochta de 'as far as geology is concerned, from a geological point of view'. Geolaíocht = geology.

Ar dtús chaith spásbhád na bhfear seal ag fithisiú an Domhain. Ansin thug sí aghaidh ar ár satailít go dtí gur bhain sí amach fithis na Gealaí, áit ar fhág an bheirt eile slán ag an gCoileánach le tuirlingt a dhéanamh. Chaith sé tamall taobh thiar den Ghealach, ionas nach raibh teagmháil raidió aige leis na spásairí eile ná leis an Domhan féin, agus é ar an duine ab uaigní riamh. Mar sin féin dúirt sé i ndiaidh an mhisin nach raibh an t-uaigneas sin ag luí air. Bhí sceitimíní air roimh an gcéad uair eile a bheadh sé in ann labhairt le daoine arís, áfach.

ag fithisiú 'orbiting'

fithis 'orbit'

agus é ar an duine ab uaigní riamh 'him being the loneliest man ever'. Note ar in expressions referring to relative position: tá sé ar an duine is uaigní riamh 'he is the loneliest man ever', tá sé ar an gcéad fhear riamh ar éirigh a leithéid de chleas leis 'he is the first man ever to have success with such a trick'.

sceitimíní 'thrilled anticipation'

Nuair a tháinig Armstrong agus Aldrin ar ais ón nGealach, bhí an-mhífhoighne ar an gCoileánach, agus an-lúcháir air rompu. Ag teacht isteach d'Aldrin ba dhóbair don Choileánach póg a thabhairt don fhear chomh ríméadach a bhí sé na cairde a fheiceáil chuige slán sábháilte.

lúcháir 'welcoming joy'

ag teacht isteach d'Aldrin 'when Aldrin was coming in, entering'

ba dhóbair dó...'he almost...'

ríméadach 'happy, elated'

na cairde a fheiceáil chuige 'to see the friends coming to him, towards him'

slán sábháilte 'safe and sound'