Hello everyone!

I'm new to the study of Irish. I've begun with Learning Irish as I'm comfortable with the grammar-heavy approach and I'd prefer to start off with a dialect vs. the CO. Everything's good so far.

I'm an American and I've never been to Ireland although I hope to take the trip soon, but mostly I'm in this for the literature, since that's my great love in life. I got the idea of learning the language because I'm a big fan of Brian O'Nolan and his writing under various guises, some of which is in Irish. Now I know there's a lot of great literature written in the Connemara dialect that will at least be approachable by the time I'm done with LI, but in the long term I really want to read Brian O'Nolan's stuff, so I'm curious about the kind of Irish he was writing.

I know he was from Ulster originally, but not from the Gaeltacht so I don't assume that's his dialect, necessarily. And since he was a genius and could write even in Old Irish, he was probably capable of writing in whatever dialect he chose. But can someone give me a general idea?

Thanks a lot for your help and for being here!

-Dylan

In case, anyone is not familiar with the name Brian O'Nolan, he also wrote under the possibly more familiar names Flann O'Brien and Myles na gCopaleen.

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He writes in a sort of general Irish that was common early in the 20th century, it's sort of dialectal neutral, but not standard Irish (which didn't exist yet). He's a very good writer, at least I think so.

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

Thanks Saoirse! I should've specified.



Thanks, that's really interesting, and good because I suppose it won't be too troublesome to read. Can you direct me towards any information about the characteristics of this form of Irish, or how and why it came about?

His writing in English is phenomenal, and I've heard his Irish writing described as "idiosyncratic" so I'd guess it's something special too.

Also, while we're here, and since you've recommended elsewhere that An Béal Bocht not be read until one has read broadly in Irish, is there a specific course of study and preparatory reading you would recommend to someone with the goal of being able to read An t-Oileánach?

Thanks again.

It's not really a recognised "form" of the language, it's simply that about a hundred years ago all the dialects had similar genitive systems, synthetic forms, datives, e.t.c. so as long as a writer didn't really use local spellings for words and avoided dialectal words and certain dialect unique constructions, they would have been easy to understand, i.e. despite the dialects Irish did have a common core. You'll see it in 19th century texts like Cín Lae Amhlaoibh. If you read "The Irish of Erris, Co. Mayo", the grammar described there is pretty much what is used.


To be able to read An t-Oileánach, you'd really have to be fluent in Irish in my opinion. Second to that, you'd have to be very familiar with Munster grammar, I know a native speaker from Mayo who had a bit of trouble with it.

I'll post a bit of An t-Oileánach to give an example of what I mean in a bit (a bit = few hours - few days )

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

Ya, Irish would have been much more wide-spoken and the dialectal continuum would have still very much been intact. Though Amhlaoibh himself did question how long more the Irish language would go on for especially in his area of Callan.

In my opinion, Amhlaoibh's diary contains two registers, a formal and informal register. In the formal register, the grammar is consistent and conventional.

However, the informal register - which would have probably been very close to the actual spoken vernacular - is a bit all over the shop.

This is especially apparent in his use of the genetive case.

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

Thanks! All of this is very interesting. I've heard An t-Oileánach is exceptionally hard to read, but I'll get there eventually. It's been my mission since I read this from Myles na gCopaleen: "The stranger is advised that it is worthwhile to learn the Irish language to read this work. Against it about 90% of books in English, with their smear of sophistication, fall into the ordained bin of trash."

I think I'll continue with Learning Irish for now, finish it and do some more entry-level reading, and then move on to Munster. I've downloaded all the Munster Irish materials from your forum and from the corkirish blog so they'll be there when I need them, probably a long time from now.

Yeah, it's that formal register that Irish writers still had in the late 19th/early 20th century and would be used in O'Nolan's books.


Yeah he dropped that whenever there was an adjective or anything following the noun. He also didn't inflect the adjective into the plural.
From dialect experts I've spoken to, apparently most of the Irish dialects would have been Amhlaoibh's speech before they disappeared. The remaining dialects of today are either very conservative or very innovative compared with the national "average" of the early 19th century.

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

An Criomhthanach was a very honest man and his opinions can be jarringly harsh to a modern reader. His unadorned opinions on life and the people around him are part of what makes the book worthwhile, a sort of anti-bullshit view of things, but sentimental at the same time.

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal