I've started reading through Scáthán Véarsaí, the Selected Poems of Sean Ó Riordain, but keep coming across vocabulary I can't find in my dictionary and also constructions I'm not familiar with. Any help from anyone more proficient than me in the poet's Munster dialect would be greatly received. Here's a few bits for a start. In his 'Apologia' there is the word 'gidh' which I can't find. I have some sense of these two lines from Greg Delanty's translation, but can't construe them properly:

Gidh olc an chuigeann ním
is annamh saol á chrú...

In An Dall Sa Studio I don't understand 'na snámhaithe'. In the dictionary it seems to be the plural of 'an snamhaí' - a creeper, crawler, dawdler.

He is describing the blind man's fingers feeling their way:

Gach méar ag snámh go mall
mar mhéaranna ceoltóra ar a uilis
is bhí an uirlis ann:
do sheinn sé ar an aer táin notaí ciúnais.
goltraí bog na ndall,
na snámhaithe critheaglacha gur thuirling
ar bruach na habhann -
an suíochan sin a luas-sa leis ....


Maybe I could chance one more. In Odi Profanum Vulgus I more or less get the sense but just can't construe the grammar/syntax properly. It would be great if someone could give me a word for word translation. I have a problem with the phrase 'daoscar na ceille' which seems to be saying the opposite of what I think it means. i.e. He wants to separate himeself from the senseless rabble. Also I find the verbs hard to sort out because I can't clearly identify the subjects of 'scarann' or the second 'ghabhadh'. Is the latter used impersonally as in English 'One goes/travels'?

Here it is:

Ní fada bhíonn duine ag cumadh filíochta
go scarann le daoscar na céille,
is gabhann sé go uaigneach mar gabhadh leis na cianta
le tuarim is dínit na cléire.

Anyway, I will be very grateful for any help you can give me.

David




á é í ó ú

Dinneen's dictionary will be a massive help to you, if you can lay hands on it. Available online, for example here:
http://www.ucc.ie/celt/Dinneen1sted.html
but it's still very much worth buying.

Besides the other meanings you list, a "snámhaí" is quite simply a swimmer. "Gach mear ag snámh"... "ná snámhaithe critheaglacha"...

"Gidh" = although, albeit, however much...

"gabhadh" is just the usual habitual past tense, but there is a particularly pronounced tendency in Munster Irish to omit the subjects of verbs. That is what's being done here.
"... go scarann [sé] le daoscar na céille / agus gabhann sé amach go huaigneach mar gabhadh [daoine] leis na cianta..."

"daoscar na céille" = the sensible crowd. Ó Ríordán doesn't find us non-poets "senseless" - far from it!

Hi Abigail Thanks for your help. THis is all very useful.

David

Sorry to hijack your post but this brings back mostly happy memories of study ó Riordáin's poetry for the Leaving. We hear so much about how badly Irish is taught in schools. This has not been my experience at all.

Hi Teachdora

Well if you know your way around O Riordain's Irish you could be a great help to me. I'll be posting some more queries when I get a minute. I've found him much harder to read than either O Direain or Ni Dhomnaill, but I thought I should make an attempt to read more from him that the usual few anthology pieces.

All the best

David

Sorry, I've read even less than the usual few anthology pieces. Just remember studing one for the LC (1985) - I think it was Fiabhras but not sure.

Is trua é, ach ní bhíonn morán cleachtadh agam sa Ghaeilge anois. Ach táim ag iarraidh cúpla amhráin Gaeilge a fhoghlaim ag an am seo.

Mar eireabaillín lena ndúirt Abigail thuas. Just some other points about Abigail's contribution above:

I think "mar gabhadh leis na cianta" is a typo and should read "mar (a) ghabhadh leis na cianta".

Note "daoscar" is not just "crowd" but "rabble", "mob", a pejorative term. I think "daoscar na céille" refers to the common herd with all their preconcevied notions of right and wrong.

Gidh olc an chuigeann ním
is annamh saol á chrú...

ním = deinim
cuigeann = churn, churning (of butter)

Dear Carmanach

Thanks for this. I would never have thought of 'nim' being a contraction of deinim. I though it was from 'nigh' and it dindn't really make any sense. I'm getting worried if I have to work with typos! 'Daoscar' is one of O Riordain's favourite terms, but I got a bit confused with the idea of him cutting himself of from the rabble (yes) but 'sensible'?. Maybe one man's sense is another man's insanity.

Any way Ta me an-bhuioch leat!

David

quote:

Maybe one man's sense is another man's insanity.

That too, but think of "daoscar céille" as being "The commonsense mob" from whom the poet is cut off by his poetic nature.

It's worth reading his introductions to his books to understand him better.

ním comes from earlier do-ghním. Modern déanaim and deinim coming form the dependent forms of the present indicative. Forms with ní- seem to survive only in the common saying Fonn a níos fiach - Where there's a will, there's a way in Corca Dhuibhne, using the -s form of the relative which still survives in Connacht and Ulster but has almost totally disappeared in Munster apart from a handful of forms such as mar seo a leanas, a bhaineas le.

Nó

Taithí a níos máistreacht

Nó

An rud a chíonn an leanbh, níonn an leanbh

Thanks all You've been a mine of information and saved me tormenting myself over these lines!

ním is not a contraction of deinim. Ním is his spelling of "do-ghním", the old form of the verb, of which deinim is a corruption. This implies that Ó Ríordáin did not use ním in his local dialect, and so the use of ním is a poetic form or an affectation.

The historically correct forms were: do-ghním and ní dhéanaim

The CO has got rid of the absolute: déanaim, ní dhéanaim

Munster forms (corruptions): deinim, ní dheinim

Connacht forms: are probably the CO ones, but I haven't checked

Ulster forms: they have ním and ní dhéanaim, or is it níom and ní dhéanam?