Taking this sentence:

Is é an rud nár thuig a cuid cairde ná nach ar na fir a bhí an locht.

1. Is this an accurate understanding of it in English?

What her friends did not understand was that the men were not to blame (or there was no one to find fault with the men).

2. Is the sentence below the equivalent in meaning? If so, what is the stylistic difference between the two? Or is it a regional difference?

An rud nár thuig a cuid cairde nach ar na fir a bhí an locht.

GRMA.

You have the meaning of the sentence correct.

Having had the song "Is é fáth mo bhuartha ..." singing in my head for fifty years I do not like the first part of the first sentence: I would prefer: Is é rud nár thuig a cairde ... I'd leave out the first "an" and I definitely do not like the extensive use of "cuid". It used to be used of hair, (mo chuid gruaige) and money (ár gcuid airgid) and things shared or held in common but definitely not "a cuid cairde". I know I am far from the Gaeltacht but not from native Irish speakers and I listen to Raidió na Gaeltachta every day and I suspect like children using Gaelscoilís before learning proper Irish (ag play-áil sa chlós from a 5-year old!) the youngsters in the Gaeltacht are not really listening to their parents or grandparents uncles aunts or older neighbours -- a cuid cairde is probably acceptable to them. Myself I think it is used too much and that it is not necessary in many cases. Thankfully us oldtimers have something to complain about in the way the younger generation speak and write Irish. "Cuid" seems to be used now as an intensifier of the aidiachtaí sealbhacha and I suppose it is OK. Sniff!

I thought cuid + plural was pretty standard and pretty widespread.

quote:

I thought cuid + plural was pretty standard and pretty widespread.

It is a dialectal feature of Cois Fhairrge. Ó Siadhail gives, prescribing this construction for nouns in the plural:

Tá mo ċuid leaḃarṫa anseo.

In the standard and in Munster you would rather say, as I suppose

Tá mo leaḃair / ċairde anso

(Message edited by ingeborg on April 27, 2010)

I think Taidhgín is right about the article, but Irish use of the article often seems a mystery to me. Compare these:

* siné brígh a bhí leis an gcaint
* isé rud ar ar shocaruigh sé féin
* gur bh' é rud a bhí 'n-a bhéal ag an ngadhar 'ná lámh duine

* siné an rud a chuir ag gáirí iad go léir
* Sidé an rud ar a raibh orainn an aiste do sgrí' .i.
The Elizabethan Age of English Literature.
* cad é an brígh a bhíodh leis na focalaibh

As you have guessed, they are all from Mo Sgéal Féin. I don't think the existing grammar books adequately explain article usage in Irish. It could be just a stylistic thing.

With regard to your first sentence, it means "what her friends did not understand was that the men were not to blame" rather than "there was no one to find fault with the men".

Your second sentence - well, for starters, it is a sentence with a dropped copula, which is completely acceptable. So your question amount to whether the resumptive particle ná may be omitted. Lars describes this type of sentence as a "pseudo-cleft construction" and shows the ná in parentheses, implying it may be dropped. I think it is tidier and easier to understand with the ná in, and I think careful writers like PUL definitely kept the ná in in all these cases - having got through 3/4 of Mo Sgéal Féin I haven't yet seen one case of an omitted resumptive particle.

Is é ainm a bhí air ná Déaglán=ainm a bhí air Déaglán.

Is é deireadh an tOllamh Tomás de Bhaldraithe linn fadó a bheith cúramach ciallmhar agus muid ag foghlaim Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht gan na droch-nósanna a thabhairt abhaile linn..... Déarfainn féin gan iomarca d'aistíl na canúna a thabhairt leat ach oiread.

A Dháithí, as I understand Irish syntax, if there were no article there, there'd be no reason to have a pronoun either. That is, "this is a meaning that is had" would be "sin brí a bhí leis" with no "é". I suspect the reason for the inconsistency here is that Athair Ua Laoghaire generally wrote as he spoke and the article is silent in colloquial speech in these contexts--the a is subsumed by a preceding vowel and the n is usually dropped before a consonant.

What would settle the question is if there are any cases like *"sin é ábhar" or *"is í ainm" where we would expect either "sin ábhar" and *"is ainm" (if indefinite) or "sin é an t-ábhar" and "is í an ainm"[*] (if definite).


[*] "Is é an t-ainm" sa Chaighdeán, ar ndóigh.

A Dhomhnaillín, I was leaning towards viewing "brí a bhí leis" as a definition noun phrase, and thus definite whether or not there is an article there. Similarly "Tadhg is ainm dom", - maybe "ainm dom" can be seen as a definite noun phrase.