"...Bhíodh sé scuabtha gach oíche ar a theacht abhaile dó óna chuid oibre, agus ar maidin ar éirí dó bhíodh sé ina shrann chodlata....." These darn prepositions! I couldn't figure out why "dó" was there ("ar a theacht abhaile dó", ar éirí dó"). I looked it up in my dictionary, which said, "do-.........6)(a) (expressing virtual subject of verbal noun, preceeded by preposition or prepositional phrase) ag teacht dom, when I was coming. Ar imeacht dó, when he had gone." Can anyone explain this to me? My other question. I came across this idiom: "uair sna naoi n-airde", which roughly translates "once in a blue moon", but literally means "once in nine directions". Can anyone explain the connection?

I once had a mock Leaving Cert Paper that had a question akin to the following on it:

Léirigh an chaoi inar athraigh Séamas i ndiaidh teacht do Mhíoda.

Show how Séamas changed after Míoda came. (the coming of Míoda)


I've haven't a clue how the above grammar works, but a guess would be as so:

i ndiaidh Míoda a mhilleadh : After destroying Míoda

i ndiaidh milleadh do Mhíoda : After Míoda destroyed


Sin mo mhéidse!

Fear na mBróg, I have to say you're making this confusing. If you're not sure, please don't guess.

It seemed pretty clear to me.

When you say:

rud a mhilleadh

The action is being performed upon the thing. It's the object of the clause.


When you say:

milleadh do rud

The thing is performing the action.
It's the subject of the clause.

OK, thanks, sorry to be rude.

Watching Ros na Rún the other day on TG4, I hear someone say:

...tar éis cloisteáil dom go raibh sé ag imeacht

...after I heard that he was going away


as opposed to

...tar éis mé a chloisteáil

...after I was heard

Ok. I'm still a little confused. Since there're 2 people involved, perhaps this is being used to distinguish them? Here's the whole sentence: "Uair sna naoi n-aird a d'fhaigheadh Colm deis chómhrá leis, arae bhíodh sé scuabtha gach oíche ar a theacht abhaile dó óna chuid oibre, agus ar maidin ar éirí dó bhíodh sé ina shrann chodlata, i riocht is go mba charghas leis é a dhúiseacht, agus go rachadh cuid de na lóistéirí eile a bhí in aon sheomra leo le dod dá gcuirtí a gcuid codlata amú orthu." I thought "a theacht abhaile dó" was being redundant, unless the "a" refers to one person, and "dó" to the other? Tá sé seo ag gortú mo chloigeann!

It was only once in a blue moon that Colm got a change to talk to him, since on his (1) coming home from work he was exhausted, and on his (2) rising in the morning he was sound asleep, so that it would be a shame to wake him, and it would drive some of the other lodgers mad if their sleep was wasted on them.

dó in this case fulfils the function of "on" in English. It can also be translated as when e.g. ar theacht abhaile dom, d'ith mé mo dhinnéar.

Without rememebering the story exactly, I think it was the case that the brothers were working different hours, so that Colms brother would arrive home exhausted, and still be asleep when Colm rose in the morning - so that each dó in the passage above refers to another brother.

ag verb dom is an idiom which corresponds to the english on my verb, I did other verb.

As far "uair sna naoi aird"; I don't know the story behind it - there are many such phrases, e.g. na seacht bparóistí - the seven parishes - meaning everywhere around.

(BTW: a blue moon is when two full moons fall in the same calendar month).

dod [ainmfhocal firinscneach den chéad díochlaonadh]
stuaic, stainc, fearg; giodam.


imeacht le dod - to be overcome by a rush of anger.

(Béarla ar "racht", aoinne?)

racht = fit / outburst

racht feirge = fit of anger

fit: níor rith an diabhail focal liom. Bhí sé ar bharr mo theanga, ach...

Dineen says "naoi" (nine) is often used in a magical connotation as a generic number.

He doesn't give "uair sna naoi n-aird" as an example, unfortunately - since he would have explained it!

Go raibh míle maith agat, a Aonghuis.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------(BTW: a blue moon is when two full moons fall in the same calendar month). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A common misconception. Actually, I'm pretty sure a blue moon is when a fourth full moon occurs in a season.

I think Aonghus is right about the blue (two) moons.

Or perhaps not ;-)

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/site/request/setTemplate:singlecontent/contentTypeA/conWebDoc/contentId/406/navId/00500300f00k

The jury is out...

And outer....

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~korista/blumoon.html

I'll have to get back to you on the blue moons, a Aonghuis. I recently read an article in the Old Farmer's Almanac about it. I'll see if I can find it. One other thing, I thought the "a" in "ar a theacht abhaile dó" was a possessive pronoun. It's actually a verbal particle, ceart?

I don't do grammar! But "ar a theacht abhaile dó"
translates "on his coming home"
I think the "a" is his - but I don't usually break stuff down to understand it.

Never mind about blue moons, the article above gives six meanings!

Ar mo theacht dom abhaile... On my coming home
Ar a theacht abhaile dó... On his coming home

Ó Siadhail: "There are three verbal nouns, e.g. goil 'to go', teacht/tíocht 'to come', bheith 'to be', which are preceeded by an unstressed particle 'a' which lenites, e.g. tá mé sásta a thíocht anois 'I am content to come now.'" Why else would there be an 'a' before 'theacht', but not before 'éirí'?

This is what Ó Siadhail is on about:

Usually, you'd say:

Is maith liom dúnadh.
Is maith liom briseadh.
Is maith liom ceannach.

But...:

Is maith liom a theacht.
Is maith liom a bheith.
Is maith liom a ghoil.

He seems to really want to make a rule out of this... maybe it's almost a rule in certain dialects. I myself never use 'a' unless it's after a noun:

Is maith liom an doras a dhúnadh
Is maith liom bheith sásta

But you'll hear people say:

Is maith liom an doras dúnadh

Part of the problem with Ó Siadhail is that he focusses on the Cois Fhairrge dialect with all its non standard usages, without stating which are non standard.

a ghoil, a thíocht, a bheith will not be heard except there.

Of course, this is also Ó Cadhain's dialect...

Yeah. He does tell you a lot of what's different between Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge and Standard Gaeilge, but not everything.

I have a question about Learning Irish (by Ó Siadhail)...I know this might be a bit off topic but I was going to buy another book to help me learn more and I was thinking about his. Now, from what I understand, Teach Yourself Irish (by Diarmuid Ó Sé) is the Official Standard but then what you're telling me is that Learning Irish is more concentrated on one dialect, right? Do you think that after reading Teach Yourself Irish, if I took up a particular dialect, I'm going to get confused and end up starting to learn all over again? Another thing, can anyone think of a book for each dialect? As in, three different books, teaching three different dialects so that maybe I could choose one...?? If anyone can help, I would be very appreciative. I'm very sorry to change to subject on here, Celtoid.

If you know any dialect of Gaeilge, all you have to do is just listen to other dialects and you'll quickly spot and learn the differences. Speech is human instinct, we actually have built-in resources in our brain dedicated to this!

For example, months back, I recall hearing things like:

sa gcafé

in Ros na Rún. I had no explanantion whatsoever for it. But then I just thought about it a little bit and realized, hmm, maybe they just use and urú there instead of a séimhiú?

Even today, watching the news in Gaeilge, the fella said the following sounds:

ach fuair sé boish de bharr a ghortí

But I recognized it as:

ach fuair sé bás de bharr a ghortaithe

Aontaím leat, a Fhear na mBróg. I poked away at "Teach Yourself" for a few years before picking up "Learning Irish" and studying more seriously. What I learned from TY made LI easier to understand. I experience occasional confusion, but all in all, I think Learning Irish is a much more extensive course. Teach Yourself is good if you just want to talk about the weather or order food in an Irish speaking restaurant. I recently acquired the "Turas Teanga" DVD set and that's been helpful in learning dialectical differences.

I think people just need to realize that the dialectal differences in all languages are essentially the same, just as how I as a speaker of English can understand the many MANY diverse dialects of English. Sure just last night I watched a documentary of a fella in Mexico.

Natalie, -- Both Fear na mBróg and Celtoid are correct. The dialectical differences aren't so profound that they would prove greatly confusing to anyone with a reasonably good foundation of the language's basics.

Learning Irish is strictly the Irish of Cois Fharraige.

Recent editions of Teach Yourself Irish are sort of "An Caighdeán Oifigiúil". The authors are scholars of West Munster Irish and the pronunciation of most of the speakers on the tapes hues more closely to Munster pronunciation, but -- fair play to them -- they give plenty of examples of phrases more common to the other dialects. Mar shampla, they don't just teach "Conas tá tú?" but also "Cén chaoi bhfuil tú?" and, if I recall, "Caidé mar atá tú?"

Older editions of TYI, circa 197O, are based on a West Munster dialect, and are a great resource for that dialect.

Now You're Talking is based heavily on Ulster Irish.

Tomás

Tá roinnt den cheart agat a FnaB.
Ach dóibh síúd atá thar sáile, níl an deis céanna acu teacht ar abhar cruinn sna canúintí eagsumhla, agus is minic mearbhall orthu. Bhí an fadbh chéanna ag muintir na Gaeltachta in Éireann sula raibh RnaG ann.

"Older editions of TYI, c. 1970" -- by this you mean the Dillon version? (I found a copy on alibris.com). The grammar and examples are very clear, but I'm getting confused by the non-standard spellings. I didn't realize it was Munster.

Ack. Now I have materials in all three dialects!

Thank you very much. I was just wondering but I suppose from what everyone is saying, it wouldn't hurt me to get any book if its going to further what I know (which at the moment, isn't all that much)...I just wanted to make sure before I went and bought Learning Irish because I was going to buy the box set with tapes and everything this time (last time, there were none available) so before I went and spent a lot of money on them, i just wanted to check. Thank you very much for your help. I think I'm going to go ahead and get it...

Yes, Robin, the Myles Dillon/Joseph Ó Sé editions. The non-standard spellings, negative verb article forms and combined verb/pronoun forms live on almost exclusively in Munster Irish.

Tomás

Go raibh maith agat, a Thomás! The Dillon version is probably the most DENSE lesson books I've ever seen. He managed to pack about two pages of handwritten notes (at leat for me!) in each page.