Dear all, my copy of David Stifter's textbook of Old Irish is due to arrive from Amazon between July 19 and 26th! Once it arrives I would like to study it in a Yahoo! group, and I have set one up at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sengoidelc/

Now, I know people may think it a cheek for me to set up such a group, as I know no Old Irish - yet! And I know Dennis King is an expert here. He is welcome to join and help us, and even to take ownership ofo the group himself. But Yahoo! groups keep me studying. I have found that with my cois fhairrge group a certain obligation to the other people learning with the yahoo! group keeps me working. I plan to go slowly through Sengoidelc. Learning Modern Irish has to be the main focus. But what a shame not to learn the older variants. I want some time in my life to read all the way through the Four Masters, the Book of Invasions and Geoffrey Keating's History of Ireland, so I will have to learn Middle and Classical Irish somehow, but no good books are availabe....

Hopefully Dennis can help you out and contribute to your group.

Beir bua agus beannacht

I have joined the Sengoidelc Yahoo! group, and my book arrives in the next day or two. I understand that the group will begin studying Old Irish next week!

A Dhavid,

Just in a way of promotion - Cork dialect will equip you to read Keating with little difficulty. I tried a bit but then abandoned this exercise because my vocab is limited but I could figure out a whole passage. Keating is not as difficult to read as it is often imagined. But synthetic verb ending are a MUST. Cois Fhairrge is not a good start for this purpose.

Bail Dia ort.

The sengoidelc group has started to learn Old Irish - beginnign with the declension of "ech", Old Irish for horse! Please surf to groups.yahoo.com/group/sengoidelc/