{"id":100,"date":"2009-03-12T09:36:31","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T13:36:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=3"},"modified":"2016-07-22T19:00:21","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T19:00:21","slug":"la-fheile-padraig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/la-fheile-padraig\/","title":{"rendered":"L\u00e1 Fh\u00e9ile P\u00e1draig!"},"content":{"rendered":"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn)<\/strong><\/p>\n

As you might have guessed, the title phrase above means “St. Patrick’s Day,” a good time for launching this “blag nua<\/strong>” (new blog).\u00a0 Remember that in pronunciation, the “fh” of the word “Fh\u00e9ile<\/strong>” is completely silent.\u00a0 For that reason, you sometimes see the phrase written as “L\u00e1 ‘\u00c9ile P\u00e1draig<\/strong>,” dropping the “fh” entirely.\u00a0 The apostrophe before the capital “E” indicates that some letters have been left out.<\/p>\n

Now you might wonder what happened to the actual word for “saint”!\u00a0\u00a0 It’s not in the phrase “L\u00e1 Fh\u00e9ile P\u00e1draig<\/strong>,” which literally means “Day of the Feast-day of Patrick.”\u00a0 In Irish, it’s traditional to leave out the term “saint” from many of the things that are named after saints, such as schools, churches, and holy wells.\u00a0\u00a0For example,\u00a0if you look online\u00a0for the Irish phrase “Scoil Mhuire<\/strong>” (St. Mary’s School), you’ll find thousands of examples of the\u00a0phrase in Irish with no word for “saint.”\u00a0 If you try adding the Irish word for \u00a0“saint” to your exact search, you’ll come up with far far fewer, a little over a hundred (as of this writing), once duplicate hits have been eliminated.\u00a0 This happens with other Irish saints as well, such as Breand\u00e1n and, of course, P\u00e1draig.<\/p>\n

What word do you use\u00a0for “saint” when the title is needed?\u00a0 That usually depends on whether the saint is Irish or not!\u00a0\u00a0Irish saints are usually referred to as “Naomh<\/strong>,” as in “Naomh P\u00e1draig<\/strong>” (St. Patrick).\u00a0 Non-Irish saints are usually referred to as “San<\/strong>,” which is related to other European words for saint, like “S\u00e3o<\/span><\/em>,” “Sankt<\/em>,” and Santo\/Santa<\/em>.\u00a0 An example in Irish\u00a0would be “San Niocl\u00e1s<\/strong>.”\u00a0 An dtuigeann t\u00fa \u00e9<\/strong>?\u00a0 Do you understand it?\u00a0 If not, look for an example on this blog around L\u00e1 Nollag<\/strong> (Christmas Day) — and that’s a big hint.<\/p>\n

Most rules in Irish, though, are not absolute, so you may see a few exceptions to this distinction in terminology.<\/p>\n

Now that we’ve established the term for “St. Patrick’s Day,” what’s the next most requested phrase for this holiday (at least in my experience teaching the language professionally for 20 years)?\u00a0 It’s the translation\u00a0of “Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.”\u00a0 This will use some of the words from “L\u00e1 Fh\u00e9ile P\u00e1draig<\/strong>” but will add a couple of new ones.\u00a0 Not, however, the word for “happy!”\u00a0 That may seem surprising, but it fits with Irish tradition.\u00a0 Greetings for most holidays are\u00a0expressed as blessings, so the phrase is\u00a0“Beannachta\u00ed na F\u00e9ile P\u00e1draig<\/strong>” (Blessings of the Feast of Patrick).\u00a0 You can add “ort<\/strong>”\u00a0(on you) for one person or “oraibh<\/strong>” (on you, plural), if you’re talking to more than one person.<\/p>\n

Now that we’ve discussed the formalities, what are some of the other terms we might associate with St. Patrick’s Day?\u00a0 Here are a few colorful or tasty ones, not that these were necessarily all that traditional in Ireland:<\/p>\n

beoir\u00a0uaine<\/strong> (green beer)<\/p>\n

b\u00e9igeal uaine<\/strong> (green bagel) – yes, I was given one once as a gift.\u00a0 It had been dyed a bright Kelly green!<\/p>\n

abhainn ghlas<\/strong> – green river, as we find in Siceag\u00f3<\/strong> (Chicago) for L\u00e1 Fh\u00e9ile P\u00e1draig<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Even these seemingly straightforward terms do bring up a major question in Irish color terminology.\u00a0 There are two different words for “green.”\u00a0So which do you use for these items?\u00a0 Manufactured items are typically “uaine<\/strong>;” in addition to unlikely items like beer and bagels, this would also apply to things like clothing and paint.\u00a0 The word “glas<\/strong>” is usually used for natural phenomena, such as grass and leaves.\u00a0\u00a0 In the phrase, “abhainn ghlas<\/strong>,” we’re using the feminine form of the adjective, since it agrees with the noun river, which is feminine.\u00a0 Of course, one could raise a debate over the term for a “green river,” since the river itself is natural but the dye is manufactured.\u00a0 So far, however, “glas<\/strong>” seems to be the more popular choice. \u00a0Like many color terms in Irish, there are various nuances and details of usage that have to be taken case by case.\u00a0 At some point we’ll discuss the two different words for “red” and what they cover, what the color “bu\u00ed<\/strong>” (yellow) describes, and the symbolism attached to some of the color terms.\u00a0 That, however, will have to be a “course of a different color” and will be posted in future blogs.\u00a0 For now, we’ve reached “an deireadh le blag a haon<\/strong>” (the end of blog one).<\/p>\n

Is mise (le meas) bhur mblag\u00e1la\u00ed nua<\/strong> (Sincerely yours, your new blogger), R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please let me know if you have any particular topics you’d like to see included “sa bhlag seo<\/strong>” (in this blog). Or if you have any other St. Patrick’s Day customs or foods you’d like to discuss, at least until “An Ch\u00e1isc<\/strong>” (Easter) is upon us, with its own set of traditions and foodways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(le R\u00f3isl\u00edn) As you might have guessed, the title phrase above means “St. Patrick’s Day,” a good time for launching this “blag nua” (new blog).\u00a0 Remember that in pronunciation, the “fh” of the word “Fh\u00e9ile” is completely silent.\u00a0 For that reason, you sometimes see the phrase written as “L\u00e1 ‘\u00c9ile P\u00e1draig,” dropping the “fh” entirely.\u00a0…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898],"tags":[3960,3961,4101,4302,4305,4323,4324,4339,4384,4388,4389,4438,4490,4656,1848,4915,3167,5058,3556,5159,2906,5176,5227,5361,5378,3678,5439,5483,111704,111703,5808,5815,6033,6170,6219,8246,6274,6369,6377,6385,6416,6438,6663,6674,6675,6682,6684,6715,6806,6935,6936,2584,3669,913,7220,7652,7664],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-irish-language","tag-abhainn","tag-abhainn-ghlas","tag-an-chaisc","tag-beannacht","tag-beannachtai-na-feile-padraig","tag-beigeal","tag-beigeal-uaine","tag-beoir-uaine","tag-blag-a-haon","tag-blag-nua","tag-blagalai","tag-breandan","tag-bui","tag-chicago","tag-customs","tag-day-of-the-feast-of-patrick","tag-easter","tag-eile","tag-feast","tag-feile","tag-feminine","tag-fheile","tag-foodways","tag-ghlas","tag-glas","tag-green","tag-green-river","tag-happy","tag-happy-st-patricks-day","tag-la-eile-padraig","tag-la-fheile-padraig","tag-la-nollag","tag-mblagalai","tag-muire","tag-naomh","tag-naomh-padraig","tag-nollaig","tag-oraibh","tag-ort","tag-padraig","tag-patrick","tag-phadraig","tag-saint","tag-san","tag-san-nioclas","tag-sankt","tag-sao","tag-scoil-mhuire","tag-siceago","tag-st-patrick","tag-st-patricks-day","tag-tradition","tag-traditional","tag-traditions","tag-uaine","tag-wwwapostrophecatastrophescom","tag-yellow"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8150,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/8150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}