BEGINNERS' BLAS

Gramadach/Grammar

Vocabulary for Special Occasions

I've often wished that learners of Irish had half the amount of support and learning materials available to them as are available to learners of more widespread languages. For more years than I care to mention I've been trying to learn French, and if I haven't succeeded yet it's not down to a lack of learning materials. I've bought many books during my fits of activity, which usually co-incide with the New Year. One of them is called Vocabulaire Progressive du Français and what it does is this: it tells you the phrases that French speakers use in certain situations. What do you say if you're invited to a wedding? How do express sympathy to someone - or congratulate someone? It's all there in the book and it's important because the French are quite formal about these situations, and like to stick to a formulaic way of saying things.

Anyone who has spent any time in the Gaeltacht will know that Irish has its usual ways of dealing with certain situations and we'll looking at some of these tonight. There are some catch-all phrases. Comhghairdeas (or as we say in Ulster, comhghairdeachas) simply means 'congratulations' and can be used to congratulate a couple on a new baby, a friend on getting a job or promotion or whatever. There are some more specific congratulations, however. You can wish all the best to a newly married couple by saying Go maire sibh bhur saol úr - which might translate as something like 'may your new life be a long one'. Another useful phrase is Go maire tú do nuacht. Now, most people associate the word nuacht with the TV or radio news, but it's older meaning is anything new, something you've acquired or a change of circumstances. So that's a blessing that covers a lot of circumstances. Go n-éirí go geal leat is another nice way to wish someone well on some new challenge or undertaking.

You'll have noticed how many blessings start with that word go. Go maire tú do nuacht, go maire sibh bhur saol úr. We use a special form of the verb in these phrases - the subjunctive. It's one of those things you use without realising it - when you say go raibh maith agat for example - may you have good. I remember wondering what the opposite of that was - how you would say 'no thank you'. I toyed with the idea of Ná raibh maith agat before I realised that this would actually be a curse 'May you have no good'. It would be an extreme reaction to someone asking you if you wanted a cup of tea. If someone asks An mbeidh cupán tae agat? you can reply with something like Ní bheidh, go raibh maith agat.

Another thing I noticed in my first trips to the Gaeltacht is that people didn't say the things I expected them to. When welcoming us at the door I thought that the bean an tí might say Tá fáilte romhaibh, but what she actually said was Is é bhur mbeatha, which like most of the other students I had only ever heard in prayers. But Is é bhur mbeatha (or is é do bheatha if you're greeting one person) is a nice way of greeting someone to your home. Of course, there's nothing wrong with Tá fáilte romhat, when greeting someone, but try not to use the phrase as a catch-all translation for the English 'You're welcome'. Say that you buy someone a drink in the pub. He or she says Go raibh maith agat and you want to say 'No bother, you're welcome'. A good response is: Go ndéana sé maith duit ('May it do you good'). I'm so sure about Tá fáilte romhat in this context, although you do hear it a lot.

Staying in the pub, when someone raises his or her glass and says sláinte! you can respond with Sláinte mhór! or D'íocshláinte! It seems as if you always have to go one better than the person who spoke first.

On the sadder side of things, when commiserating with someone on a death or loss of a friend or family member, we usually say something like Ní maith liom do thrioblóid. This is also heard in its English form 'I'm sorry for your trouble'. You can also say Ní maith liom do bhris.

There's no doubt that many of these occasional phrases were lost with the decline of the Irish language in the greater part of Ireland. In the areas where Irish was strongest, people had a strong belief in the supernatural, and in the power of the evil eye. Certain jealous or spiteful people supposedly had the power to inflict damage by casting a glance at people or livestock or whatever the cause of their jealousy might have been. Because of this, people were constantly trying to prove their good intentions with blessings for every occasion. Maybe that's the reason why the Irish language is so rich in blessings. The Munster writer Breandán 'ac Gearailt made a collection of traditional blessings but it seems that this collection didn't sell as well as his earlier collection of curses 500 Mallacht Ort.

Back to basic grammar advice

Back to Beginners Blas