I know that you have to elide unstressed short vowels. Is this obligatory or can I break up the word clusters?

Ḃí sé anseo arú inné -> Ḃí sé’nseo’rú’nné. [v´i: ʃe:nʃoru:ne:]

And can you mark the plural for example in

Tá muca ann -> tá muc’ ann [tɑ: mucaun]

And the following would be akward:

D'iṫ Úna uiḃe aréir [dih u:ni:re:r´].

I know we Germans tend to put words like bricks one after the other and put glottal stops and what do I know between the vowels, but do you string up the words in Irish like pearls on a string?

(Message edited by ingeborg on August 20, 2009)

Tá muc(a) ann strikes me as a fine example of a phrase that looks terribly ambiguous in isolation but in practice never is. The tá...ann construction is very general, only serving to establish (or confirm) the existence or presence of something. If the number of pigs were in any way significant, the speaker would've used a quantifier, e.g. níl ann ach muc amháin or tá tréad muc ann. Much of the time, this introductory phrase would be followed by further explanation which would establish the number anyway, e.g. Tá muca ann agus iad ag alpadh na nglasraí!

As for the other phrases, if they strike a speaker as cacophonous, she can always find alternative ways to phrase the same idea.

D'ith dámh dubh ubh ámh ar neamh inniubh.

Rabhlóg bhreá!