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Tag Archives: April Fools’ Day

Fools on Hills, and Otherwise, with Irish Pronunciation Tips Posted by on Apr 1, 2012

(le Róislín) On the topic of fools (amadáin), Irish seems to have an endless supply of words.  Probably other languages do as well (Welsh offering up ffŵl, ffwlcyn, hurtyn, lolyn, penbwl, twpsyn, and ynfytyn, just for starters), but our focus here, ar ndóigh, will be on Irish terms.  We’ve recently discussed quite a few (gamal…

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Lá na nAmadán…na nGamal?…na nÓinseach?…na bPleidhcí?…na bPleotaí? Posted by on Mar 30, 2012

(le Róislín) We may be well accustomed to calling April 1st “Lá na nAmadán” in Irish, but couldn’t there be some other possibilities as well?  Irish has many words for “a fool,” so what would happen if we tried some of the others?  And, grammatically speaking, how do we work backwards from “fools” in the…

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Na hAmadáin (ar leanúint) – The Fools (continued) Posted by on Apr 3, 2009

 (le Róislín)   By now you might be wondering, so what is the Irish word for a female fool?  You might have encountered it already, if you’ve read Charles Kickham’s 1879 novel, Knocknagow, which uses an anglicized form of the word, “oonshugh.”  English-medium Irish literature of that vintage tends to be full of Irish words, but…

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An Chéad Lá den Earrach (The First Day of Spring) – Not! Posted by on Mar 21, 2009

(le Róislín)  Shortly after St. Patrick’s Day, we welcome in an tEarrach (the Spring).  Or do we? We may be accustomed to thinking of March 20th or 21st as the beginning of Spring, but there is actually a lot of controversy in English as to whether Spring starts on the first of the month or…

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