I am running a St Patrick's event and my Irish is not what it used to be! I want to make a short address as follows.
"Welcome all to our St. Patrick's Night party.We hope youhave a great evening. Enjoy the music, dance and craic."
"Thankyou all for coming. We hope you had fun."
Go Raibh Maith Agaibh

I'm no expert. Here goes:

Fáilte roimh ghach éinne chuigh ár gcósúir oíche naomh Phádraig. Tá súil againn go mbeidh ardthrathnóna agaibh. Bainigí spórt as an gceol, rince agus craic.

Go raibh maith ag ghach éinne gur tháinig sibh. Tá súil againn gur bhain sibh spórt as.

-Phil

Go raibh míle maith agat, a Phil.Anois,beinn bíta beag Gaelige agam amháin!

That's not perfect.

I think Saint Patrick is "Cothraigh" in Irish because the Celts said a "P" as a "C". Other than that I don't see any obvious errors, but I'm no expert.

-Phil

And just think of all the poor Paddy's that are after misspellin' their own blessed name these hundreds of years.

Cothraigh my eye!

Hi Phil,

The Welsh, Cornish and Gaulish Celts changed the "Q" sounding words to "P".
The Irish and their Manx and Scottish colonies retained the original "Q" sound.

So, while 5 in Irish is "cúig", in Welsh it is now "pump".

more on this here:
http://www.zompist.com/euro.htm

I do Stair na Gaeilge in School. It was the "P" Celts, ie. Welsh, Cornish, Brethen, that originally had the 'p' sounds. Then the "q/c" celts took words from those languages and either left the 'p' out all together ( pater -> athair )or changed it to a "q/c" (Pádraig -> Cothraigh).
NOT THE OTHER WAY ROUND.
It was only until later on in History that the Celts accepted the 'p' sound and began to use it, eg. peann prionsa pléasc

Pádraig, you might wanna go and purchase a brain. It's a good investment in the long run. St. Patrick = Cothraigh. All the other Paddies = Pádraig. Read over that again 'til you understand it. Good boy.

-Phil

Phil,

I'm sitting here feeling like someone has kicked me in the stomach. I guess we never get used to being publicly ridiculed. I must admit, friend, you're quite good at it. Bain sult as.

Pádraig

Phil,

While I find your talents vis a vis gaeilge very interesting and very informative, I must say there is a rather palpable undercurrent of anger.

From the comfort of your elevated position you have two choices:

Hurl down insults

Extend a lifting hand

The choice is yours mo chara. I don't know what drives your attitude, but, I do believe it needs checking. You have a ton of information from which many of us could benefit. Unfortunately, the arrogance in your responses is creating a rather large obstacle to effective communication. Bear in mind, my good fellow, while you hold the upper hand on this subject, there are many others where you would be in our position. Take the high road, my friend. Teach, don't belittle.

Le meas,

James

Well Phil, I've never heard the name Cothraigh before anywhere, and I grew up in Ireland so I should know. Where did you get this name from?

As for yor manner in the last mail, well, there's many a learned man who is not wise.

And another thing. Here's an excerpt from www.fiosfeasa.com about the Celtic languages:

"The Goidelic languages are often called Q-Celtic, and the Brythonic (and continental) languages are called P-Celtic. The Q and the P refer to a certain sound, originally something like qu- in Indo-European, which became p- in the Brythonic languages but remained qu- in the Goidelic ones, eventually becoming c-."

So you see, it was the Brythonic languages that changed (Welsh, Cornish, Breton) NOT THE OTHER WAY ROUND.

In response to James, I responded to Pádraig in such a way because of the ignorance of his post.

I do have a fairly good knowledge of Gaeilge and I'm willing to share and learn, but not to people who are going to pretentiously, ignorantly respond with information they pulled out of their arse.
And what's the story with the "publicly ridiculed"? This is the internet, and my name isn't Phil. And you obviously have never been kicked in the stomach.

To Oliver, I would never have guessed you were from Ireland. Actually no wait, this is a Gaeilge site. I got "Cothraigh" from my Secondry School Gaeilge teacher.

-Phil

Phil,
I do not doubt your tremendous grasp of Gaeilge. With that in mind, could you show me where I can cross reference this word "Cothraigh"? A written source would be ideal since I do not have access to your secondary school Gaeilge teacher.
Go raibh maith agat,
-Canuck

I searched for "Cothraigh" on Google. Not one single page found.

Phil, a chara
My husband believes that Cothraigh was a name given to Naomh Padráig by the Árd Rí (high King) and therefore is not a literal translation of the name. This may be wrong but sounds plausible to me. Any thoughts?
Is Mise le meas
Siobhán

See Canuck's response, that's exactly the kind of ignorance I'm talking about. And Oliver's too.

Saint Patrick came to Ireland in 432 AD. He announded to the celts that his name was Patricious, which is Patrick in English, which is Pádraig in Irish, and which the Celts changed to Cothraigh.

It's no big deal anyway, use whichever name you like.

-Phil

Phil, a chara,

Patricious was the name Pádraig used as the "church" language at that time was Latin until Páraig established the Celtic church.
But anyway HAPPY SAINT PATRICKS DAY!

Well, in the absence of any corroboration, I think I'll stick with Patrick.

The name Pádraig comes from the latin Patricius, meaning noble. St Patrick was a Roman Briton, whose actual first name escapes me for the moment but was, I think, Sualtamh.

It is true that the Irish would have had difficulty with the P sound, and may have called him Cothraigh.

But he called himself Patricius, which made it into the language as Pádraig.

Phil, a chara, tóg go bog é agus bíodh meas agat ar dhaoine eile anseo.

And for the rest of you, I ask you to take into account that the artist calling himself Phil appears to be quite young, since he is still at school, and to put up with him.

By the way, my name is Aonghus. :-)

Maith thú a Aonghuis!! Antaim leat re: Phil.

I have always made the assumption that Succouth (my resources say that was his given name) used the term "Patrician" to refer to himself. Given that he existed in the waning days of the Roman Empire and the status of "patrician" was not insignificant. And, from that reference we get "patricius" which became Pádraig.

Phil, this is completely conjecture and logical assumptions on my part. It may be complete balderdash, aging scatological rumination or any other reference to "crap" you might want to assign it. I offer it merely for the sake of discussion.

Le meas,

James

Here is the latin text of St Patricks confession, one of two documents still existing which are accepted as being by the historical Patrick.

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~johnsorh/MedievalLatin/Texts/Patrick.html

It begins
Ego Patricius peccator rusticissimus et minimus omnium fidelium et contemptibilissimus apud plurimos

Is iad Aonghus agus James an cineál daoine faoi a mbím ag rá. Má ghlacann nó mura nglacann tú leis, bím á thógáil "go bog" i gconaí. Seo mise. Léirím meas do dhaoine ar a bhfuil meas agam. Sin an caoi ina n-oibríonn an domhan, murar thug tú faoi deara. Sin an fáth nach léirím meas duitse nó le daoine mar James. Tá sibh dúr, móiréiseach agus míchiallmhar. Is fíor go bhfuilim óg, táim sé bhliana déag d'aois, ach go follasach, tá níos mó céille is clisteachta agamsa ná atá agaibhse.

Anois, déanfaidh mé iarracht seo a rá sa chaoi is fearr:

Go fuck yourself

-Phil

Anyone looking for a translation can ask the two experts. You might wanna talk loudly to them 'cause they don't tend to listen much to anything unless it's their own voice. But I'm sure they show more than enough attention to each other when they're on their own.

And before anyone suggests this post contains "an undercurrent of anger", I wrote this post with a smile on my face.

I'm gonna make it official now, I don't give a shit whether you write or say "Cothraigh" or "Pádraig". If yous are all so Irish, then it's your language, so use it as you like.

The anger, the anger. What to do with the anger??

Phil,

I am far from an expert. As a matter of fact, I'll have to spend at least one to two hours with my dictionary just to translate your Irish. I'm not exagerating in any way--I'm just a 40+ year old American guy with Irish ancestry trying to learn a language--I could barely carry on a basic conversation as gaeilge. I look to people like you, those fortunate enough to have formal education readily available, and those that are fortunate enough to be native speakers, for aid, assistance and guidance. Aonghus, Oliver, Siobhan et. al. (more latin for you) are prime examples of the willingness of others to tutor, mentor and otherwise foster a spirit of acceptance and good will amongst those of us that love this language. Your approach, I'm afraid to say, differs drastically. I do believe that you need some maturing, some personal introspection and perhaps some counseling before you venture into the world in any capacity other than that of a malcontent.

I'll translate your gaeilge from your post and get back with you should it prove necessary or should it provide fertile grounds for further tweaking of your attitude.

Síochán leat!

James

What a surprise

It's James

-Phil

Phil,
Remember Cothraigh? See this page and scroll down to notes to see what it says about St Patrick

http://thecoracle.tripod.com/vol01/12/v112185.html

Slán go fóill

Siobhán

I'm very doubtful about the credentials of that information.

quote" Saint Patrick was originally known as Cothraige, "servant of the Four"."

The etymology of that sounds a bit suspect.

The annals of the four masters are so called becuase there were four major scribes dealing with it, not for any mystical reason.
The whole page reads as an attempt to gather up coincidences to prove some new age theory of the unity of all races by mixing languages and religions over centuries.

Aonghus,

I was just struck by the use of the word "cothraige".
I'd never heard it before Phil used it!
I'm not into all this new age stuff, personally.
However, I would like to know a bit more about the 4 masters to whom you refer. Would you enlighten me, please?

Go raibh maith agat

Siobhán

I'd love to, but I don't know a lot.
I'll research it, and get back to you

Maidir le Cothraighe
It is true that the Old Irish often changed P to C, which is why I celebrated An Cháisc at the weekend (The Pasch, in other languages, from the Hebrew: e.g. Pasqua in Spanish. Easter is a Germanic word which has something to do with Spring. It is said to be the name of a godess, but there seems to be no other record of her).

And there is plenty of evidence that they called Patrick Cothraighe, or something similar to it.

But my argument was that he called himself Patricius.

There is an Article on the Annals here:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06163b.htm

Aonghus,
Go raibh maith agat! Very interesting - I now remember reading a little about the Annals in Donegal Castle!

Siobhán