I am looking at this sentence in Niamh:

quote:

ach dá mbeidís ag machtnamh go ceann bliana air ní fhéadfaidís aon tuairim a thabhairt do cad a thiocfadh as

It is clearly "do" and not "dó". Is this a typo for "dó"? It doesn't make sense in the context. I am thinking that it probably means "de+cad" = couldn't give an opinion on+what would come out of it. Is this right?

D'úsáidfinn "faoi" seachas "do" sa chás seo.

fé, ar, de

Cork_Irish:
I'd trust An tAthair Peadar Ua Laoghaire. As you know he was a well-educated native speaker and a prolific writer and translator. Who knows what nuance he was echoing in using "do". Experts on the dialects know there is much "guagacht" in the use of "do / de / dho / go" etc from one area to another. I think your translation is right, depending on the context.

"they could not form an opinion as to what would come of it"

It's highly unlikely that we have the prepositional pronoun here, as that would surely require something like "i dtaobh", or "mar gheall ar" or "ar":

"ach dá mbeidís ag machtnamh go ceann bliana air ní fhéadfaidís aon tuairim a thabhairt do I dTAOBH/MAR GHEALL AR/AR cad a thiocfadh as".

ar/i dtaobh/mar gheall ar are more likely to be used for "about", "concerning" in the south rather than "fé", though one does also see "fé" meaning "about" with some speakers.

Ailín, as you said "fé" in the meaning of about would be rarer in the south [and "faoi" totally absent, of course], but PUL did very occasionally use it. See this from Mo Sgéal Féin:

quote:

Le n-a linn sin d'airigheas fothram trom láidir éigin nár airigheas riamh a leithéid eile. Ní tóirthneach é sin! arsa mise am' aigne. Do stadas an láir agus d'fhanas tamall am' stad féachaint an aireóchainn airís é. Níor airigheas. Bhíos ag cuimhneamh agus ag cuimhneam féachaint cad leis go samhlóchainn é. Theip orm cuimhneamh ar aon tsaghas fothraim a chuirfinn i gcomparáid leis. Bhí sé ana láidir, ana throm. Ba dhóich le duine go raibh sé sa spéir agus fé thalamh i n-aonfheacht. Dá gcuireadh sé
an tarna guth as d'fhéadfainn, b' fhéidir, tuairim éigin a thabhairt fé cad é an saghas fothraim é, ach níor chuir. Chomáineas liom agus d'imthigh sé as mo cheann.

My translation:

quote:

Just then I heard some kind of loud noise the like of which I had never heard before. "That was no thunder", I said to myself. I stopped the mare and waited a while to see if I could hear it again. I didn't. I kept on thinking of what I could compare it to. I couldn't think of any sort of noise that I could compare it to. It was strong, loud. You would think it was in the sky and in the ground at the same time. If the sound had rung out again, I could, maybe, have come up with an opnion of what sort of noise it was, but it didn't. I continued my journey, and forgot about the matter.

It later turned out to be a tremor or an earthquake of some kind.

But you see, he said, "tuairim éigin a thabhairt FÉ cad é an saghas fothraim é".

(Message edited by corkirish on November 16, 2010)

Yes, but as I said you do hear it from some speakers but I don't think it's the norm.

do=dó. rinne mé rang le Breandán Ó Buachalla anuraidh agus is "do" a deireadh seisean in áit "dó" (nó "de"). (brón ar an mbás...)

má léann tú filíocht Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, mar shompla, feicfidh tú an leagan céanna (gan aon ghuta fada).