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1. “Mura mbeadsa ábalta an uair sin ar mé féin a chosaint ortsa tabharfadh an Ardríocht duit gan chosnamh, agus tabharfad gill anois duit go seasód an socrú san.”

I have modernised the spelling, but "gill" was spelled "geill" in the original. At the back of my edition of Niamh (the 1907 one), there is a dictionary of words, saying "geall, pl. geill, a pledge; a hostage". I was familiar with geallta as the plural of geall meaning "pledge", but geill has stumped me slightly having two meanings, "pledge, hostage". Of course, I can see that hostages are a pledge of some kind - and we all know Niall had his 9 hostages, and so this was a regular thing, the taking of hostages, in ancient Ireland. I am wondering, in the sentence above, whether Maeleachlainn is saying "I will give pledges to you that I will stand by the deal", or "I will give hostages to you so I will stand by the deal"? The deal is that, as Maeleachlainn is not militarily ready to fight Brian Ború for the High Kingship, Brian gives him first a month and then one year to prepare for battle, and the deal is that if after one year Maeleachlainn can't rustle up the troops to defend his title, he will voluntarily led Brian Ború be High King. The whole thing sounds dodgily fictional, but the pledges/hostages thing is what I am focusing on.

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2. Cad a déanfaí thall i Sasana aon lá le hocht gcéad blian dá mba thall i Sasana a bheadh an t-imreas ar siúl?

This passage is leading into a discussion of how Bolingbroke was not so generous to Richard II when he took the throne from him and had him strangled. Not as generous as Brian Ború was to Maeleachlainn. I am not at all sure what "aon lá le hocht gcéad blian" means. There is nothing to indicate what the 800 years are. Richard II was deposed in 1399.

3. Má is used oddly in Irish, at least to an English ear. For example:

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Do tharla an chaint idir Bhrian agus Maeleachlainn. Má tharla do tharla gur tugadh an mí do Mhaeleachlainn.

"This is what was said between Brian and Maeleachlainn. The upshot was that Maeleachlainn was given a month". Do people agree that "má tharla" is best left untranslated? Or is there a good translation? "Given that that was so, what happened was that Maeleachlainn was given a month"???

Even harder to understand, is the opposition construction with mura:

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Níor tharla an chaint sin ná aon chaint dá sord, idir Bholingbroke agus Risteard. Murar tharla do tharla gur thóg Bolingbroke chuige ríocht Shasana, agus gur chuir sé Risteard chun báis le heagla go mb’fhéidir go dtiocfadh le Risteard a neart do chruinniú agus an ríocht a bhaint de airís.

I suppose the "murar tharla do tharla" is the same as "má tharla do tharla", but follows a preceding negative verb. Maybe "murar tharla do tharla" can be translated in the same way as "má tharla do tharla": "given that that was so, what happened was that... Bolingbroke seized the kingdom of England, etc".

I've got a feeling that Irish learners probably don't say "má tharla do tharla" and "murar tharla do tharla", as they are not syntactically English enough, and only the real hard-core native speakers will speak like that, as it is doesn't correspond clearly to an English phrase....

If you think of a comma, i think it beocmes clearer

Má tharla (referring to previous sentence), do tharla X
Murar tharla, (referring to previous sentence), do tharla X


As for the 800 yeas, there was a lot of sucession wars in England, was there not? Well before the conquest (which was itself a war of succession)

Thanks, Aonghus. I've the 800 years are from the Norman Conquest, to PUL's time. It makes sense now.

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The whole thing sounds dodgily fictional, but the pledges/hostages thing is what I am focusing on.

You may well be right. It is probably nominative plural. Is it "hostages" or "pledges"? I'm not sure.

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Do tharla an chaint idir Bhrian agus Maeleachlainn. Má tharla do tharla gur tugadh an mí do Mhaeleachlainn.

"Má tharla" would be translated as "And indeed/if so, . . . "

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Níor tharla an chaint sin ná aon chaint dá sord, idir Bholingbroke agus Risteard. Murar tharla do tharla gur thóg Bolingbroke chuige ríocht Shasana, agus gur chuir sé Risteard chun báis le heagla go mb’fhéidir go dtiocfadh le Risteard a neart do chruinniú agus an ríocht a bhaint de airís.

"But even so, it came to pass that Bolingbroke . . . "

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I've got a feeling that Irish learners probably don't say "má tharla do tharla" and "murar tharla do tharla", as they are not syntactically English enough, and only the real hard-core native speakers will speak like that, as it is doesn't correspond clearly to an English phrase....

I'm not so sure about that. It depends on the individual and their own level of spoken Irish. I would use forms like "Thugas an t-airgead do, ach má dheineas féin, buíochas ar bith ní ghaibh sé liom". In general, yes, it is true to say that learners follow English constructions as English is their native language. Also, learners generally learn their Irish from other learners and rarely have any contact with native speakers. That's not their fault, of course, living in a place like Dublin and native speakers are in the minority anyway but in terms of learning another language it is perhaps not an ideal situation. I imagine it can be a bit of a shock for learners from the east, for example, to meet a good native speaker and not understand a word as they are simply not used to listening to native spoken Irish. That's why I try and listen to good native speakers as much as a I can, and R na G is an invaluable resource in that respect. I also read texts by Gaeltacht speakers only. That's not to say there are no non-native writers with very fine Irish but I think as a principal it is better to read texts by native speakers of any language.