I hear that there is no swear words in Irish. Do you know why the Irish now swear all the time?

My mother all says the 'low people' and the English would only say the F word when she was young! They regarded some working class people as too British for using those kind of words which weren't Irish!!! That could be said especially about the Dubliners Jackeens to some of their compatriots for their lack of Gaelicness!

What gave you the very odd idea that there are no swear words in Irish? There are plenty of descriptive, earthy curses in Irish; as well as plenty of interjections which are used where in English a swear word is usually used due to the poverty of the language.

A léithéid de chacamas, ambaist.

See for example: 500 Mallacht Ort, by Breandáin 'ac Gearailt - 500 curses.

Like Aonghus, I'm quite surprised that someone would suggest that there are no swear words in Irish. I'm not at all convinced that the Irish swear more now.

The Irish do swear a lot, take Colin Farell for instance. I think it's some sort of strategy to show that we're not English, but something different - a rebellion against English. It's a pathetic effort...

At a tender age, a visiting uncle taught me loads of curses in Irish, and they have rolled off the tongue easily since. I started checking this website just to assure myself that there's more to the language.

so what are some Irish swear words/curses? (they dont need to be too hardcore.)

There is colorful language as Gaeilge for sure. What'd you have in mind??

Here's some cussing from this site:

http://www.insultmonger.com/swearing/irish_gaeilge.htm

Go gcuire sé an cac trasna ionat! ;-)

(ATTENTION: one reader has complained that accessing the above link caused problems with his computer. Though the Web page does indeed contain epithets as Gaeilge as indicated by OCG, accessing the page initiates an outbound connection i.e. from your computer to a server, on TCP port 59480. As I have no information on the reason for such a connection, and given the complaint that was received, please access the link at your own risk.

Edited by Caoimhín on 9/3/04 10:30 PM EST)

(Message edited by admin on September 03, 2004)

I have a book called 'Irish-English Slang'. It's full of colorfulo phrases. Not only cuss words, but other slang as well.

I saw in Hodges and Figgs in Dublin yesterday an Irish-English slang book which I had never seen before! It was quiet good and is published by a guy who has his own website www.forsai.com

I got mine on Litrioch.com It's written by Gearóid Mac an Bhainisteora.

That's the same one i saw yesterday!