Some info on Glens Irish

http://content.yudu.com/Library/A14ln6/DosandDontsofGlensof/resources/index.htm? referrerUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yudu.com%2Fitem%2Fdetails%2F37848%2F-Dos-and-Don-ts --of-Glens-of-Antrim-Irish

And Rathlin Irish ...

http://content.yudu.com/Library/A14skv/RathlinIrishGaelicPh/resources/index.htm? referrerUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yudu.com%2Fitem%2Fdetails%2F38840%2FRathlin-Irish-G aelic-Phrases

GRM -yu yu looks interesting too...

Tá sé sin go deas.

Thiocfadh 'athrach' ar lch. 3, Ghaeilg Aontroma, a bhreacadh ina bhunleagan: 'árach'. Is é 'árach' an chiall a bhí leis an chéad lá agus is é is ciall don nath i gcónaí. Le cealú an tsíniú fada sa chaint ó thuaidh a tarraingíodh an 'ath-' isteach sa scríobh.

Bhíodh an leagan 'níl/ní raibh árach agam air' coitianta i dtuaisceart Chonnacht. 'Níl/ní raibh neart agam air' atá ag mórán chuile dhuine ar na saolta seo. Is maith ann foilseachán mar seo le daoine a chur ar an eolas agus le meas a tharraingt ar leaganacha ar cheart a bheith os comhair na ndaoine.

Alot of people try and tell me that Ulster Irish is actually a dialect of Scottish Gaelic.

What is it closer to?

And I've heard it argued that Scots Gaelic is just another dialect of Irish. ...and never the twain shall meet.

quote:

And I've heard it argued that Scots Gaelic is just another dialect of Irish...

B'fhéidir go mbeadh ceann de na teangeolaithe urramacha inár measc sásta an cheist spéisiúil sin a fhreagairt!

Dá mbeadh chomhtheanga chaighdeánaithe ann "idir eadarthu" is dócha go mbeifí in ann iad mar chanúintí a shainmhíniú.

The linguistic answer is that you're asking the wrong question. A "language" is a political construct. What you have (or, more accurately, had) with the Goidelic speech varieties is a dialect continuum. This is a situation where each speaker can understand their neighbours with little or no difficulty, but if you take speakers from the extreme ends, they won't be able to understand each other. Formerly, these existed throughout Europe, but promulgation of standard varieties through mass education has eradicated them from many areas. They are still relatively intact in, for instance, southern Germany and adjoining countries.

So, for a Munsterman, some Ulster varieties are scarcely more intelligible than the speech of the Highlands (which, it must be remembered, is not homogeneous either). On the other hand, speakers of Ulster Irish may find some Scottish varieties easier to understand than Munster Irish or even some Connacht varieties. So strictly from the point of view of mutually intelligibility, which varieties would be grouped together is going to depend a great deal on the native speech of the one making the judgment.

But, as I said at the beginning, ultimately this is a political question rather than a linguistic one, and there the answer is clear: Scottish Gaelic is one "language" with its own literary standard and Irish is another with an independent grammatical standard (and orthography). Given the lack of coordination between the agencies responsible for the respective standards, they continue to diverge. Meanwhile, Ulster Irish is being subjected to influence from the Irish standard, which means that it is growing closer to the other dialects of Ireland and more distant from Scottish Gaelic. The loss of transitional varieties (i.e. those native to eastern Ulster) is also a factor.

The difference between a dialect and a separate language is often political, not linguistic.

I would say that Scots Gaelic WAS, i.e., past tense, a dialect of Irish, but they have since gone out of their way to distance and isolate themselves from Irish, such as by revising all of their síntí fada to slant in the opposite direction from Irish, etc.

Since Scotland was originally an Irish colony ("Scottas" meant "Irish people" in Anglo-Saxon), Scots Gaelic was originally a dialect of Irish and not the other way around.

The plantation involved reverse colonization of protestants from Scotland to Northern Ireland, but I doubt many of those would have spoken Gaelic of any sort, would they?

Muise, tá an scéal casta go leor, cibé ar bith.

Most were from the lowlands, but there were a fair few from Argyll and the Isles who spoke Gaelic.

A History of Protestant Irish Speakers is a good read on the subject
http://www.ultach.dsl.pipex.com/resources/A%20history%20of%20Protestant%20Irish% 20speakers.doc

quote:

The Irish of Antrim shared many features with Scottish Gaelic, and the Gaelic of Kintyre and Argyll was very similar to Antrim Irish. Robert MacAdam wrote the following in 1873:

Even yet the Glensmen of Antrim go regularly to Highland fairs, and communicate without the slightest difficulty with the Highlanders. Having myself conversed with both Glensmen and Arranmen, I can testify to the absolute identity of their speech (Ó Baoill 2000: 122).

quote:

As late as 1835 the Synod of Ulster made Irish a necessary subject for the training of all Presbyterian ministers. In 1841 the Presbyterian General Assembly published a handbook for teachers of Irish, which was described as 'our sweet and memorable mother tongue'.

- Oxford Companion to Irish History, Oxford University Press, 2nd Ed., 2002, S.J. Connolly, pg. 315

quote:

There are some fascinating accounts which prove that some of the Protestant settlers in Ulster spoke Scottish Gaelic. John Richardson (1664-1747), rector of Belturbet in County Cavan since 1693, wrote some interesting letters on the subject.

In 1711 a correspondent of Richardson, J. Maguire, noted the following:

I met many of the inhabitants, especially of the baronies of Glenarm, Dunluce and Kilconaway, who could not speak the English tongue, and asking them in Irish what religion they professed they answered they were Presbyterians ... I had the curiosity to go to their meeting on the Sunday following, where I heard their minister preach to them in Irish at which (though I think he did not do it well,) they expressed great devotion ... His audience, (as I understand) was composed of native Irish and Highlanders (Richardson 1711: 16).

quote:

In the Northern Parts of the County of Antrim, which being also deserted by the Irish, upon the landing of the English army near Carrickfergus in 1689, many families from the Western Isles of Scotland, who understood no other language but Irish, settled there. At their first going over, they went to church; but not understanding the divine service celebrated there, they soon went over to the communion of the Church of Rome, only for the benefit of such exhortations, as the Popish priests usually give their congregations in Irish. And when they were asked the reason, why they did so? They said, ‘It was better to be of their religion, than none at all’ (Richardson 1711: 28-9).

Its interesting that there is/was an Irish dialect of Antrim and Antrim has got to be one of the most Unionist counties in the north along with Down. Yet counties like Carlow, Wicklow has no dialect recorded or studied.

Here is recording of Antrim Irish spoken by a native speaker and it has text with it too:
http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~oduibhin/doegen/mcauley.htm

List of words in Antrim Irish:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8308/eastulster.html

Well every county had its own Irish in some form at some point. Native Irish survived in Antrim considerably longer than in Wicklow or Carlow or Kildare. These counties were some of the first to lose their Irish. Way before phonograph cylinders were around etc.

For example, only 135 Irish speakers were recorded in the 1851 Census for all of Wicklow. They were scattered throughout eight baronies. There's a report from back in 1801 (!!) which remarked how no natives of the county were accustomed to speaking Irish.

For Carlow in 1851, the total was 243. 0.4% of the population.

The language shift in these counties probably occurred in the early 1700s, if not earlier...

Wicklow -another abberation. How Fermanagh and Tyrone stayed in the Uk, and Wicklow didn't....

It's funny, have you ever noticed that the more anglicised the area, the more they are liable to come out with random expressions of 'Irishness' and anti-English comments from time to time.

It wouldn't have made much sense for Wicklow to remain but to have all the surrounding counties become a part of the Irish Free State.

You'd think with all those mountains and remote glens that Irish would have survived longer than it did. I think the Military Road (started 1800...completed 1809...in response to the Rebellion of 1798) had a big effect. And of course Wicklow's proximity to Dublin. There were also some small settlements in the county.

Once the Ó Broin and Ó Tuathail were conquered in the 1590s, it was open season...

(Message edited by Danny2007 on March 13, 2009)

Well Dublin kept their speech longer (tho that might have had something to do with the influx of natives of all around Ireland and the ability to speak Irish openly everywhere you went.

How Fermanagh and Tyrone stayed in the Uk, and Wicklow didn't....

Or south Armagh, south Down, south Derry...