Irish Language Blog

(le Róislín) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain#/media/File:Snap-Apple_Night_globalphilosophy.PNG, Snap-Apple Night (1833), On the Festival of Hallow Eve, public domain, by Daniel Maclise, RA (25 Jan 1806, Cork–25 Apr 1870, Chelsea), inspired by a party he attended in Blarney, in 1832. Includes divination games with melted lead and roasted nuts. Lipéad Gaeilge le Róislín, 2018. Our Halloween topics in this blog series have…

Continue reading

(le Róislín) Having found the adorable picture of a pygmy hedgehog (thuas sa ghrafaic), I figured I’d write this blog about hedgehogs, pygmy and otherwise. Let’s start with the basics – “gráinneog” is the Irish for “hedgehog.” Here are some of the basic forms of the word: an ghráinneog, the hedgehog na gráinneoige, of the…

Continue reading

(le Róislín) A charming retelling of a classic tale, with an animated video, to boot. While I have enjoyed many Irish videos, animations, and cartoons, going back at least as far as “Bouli” (early 1990s),  many of them have very rapid-paced dialogue and sometimes I’m a bit reluctant to recommend them to elementary learners because…

Continue reading

(le Róislín) Doctor … healer … physician? What’s the difference in Irish? And are some of the terms overlapping? Basics first.   Certainly the word most people learn first for “doctor” in Irish is “dochtúir,” and here are its basic forms: 1.. An dochtúir, the doctor, the physician Mála an dochtúra, the bag of the doctor/physician…

Continue reading

(le Róislín) As promised last time, here are the remaining words I have been able to find that end in “-íceach.”  These are aidiachtaí cineálacha (generic adjectives), not eatnainmneacha (ethnonyms) like we saw in the previous blogpost (nasc thíos). Just for a quick review, here are the ethnonyms from the last blogpost again but with…

Continue reading