# As Gaeilge
Last year
2022
An Cailín Ciúin: 'It shows an Irish language film can speak to people - it seems foolish to think it couldn't'
We chat to director Colm Bairéad about making the film An Cailín Ciúin, based on a novella by Claire Keegan.
All time
The EU's top court has considered its first ever case in the Irish language. It's about labels on dog medicine
It’s the first time a case at the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice has been conducted through Irish.
Extract: Manchán Magan on the the controversy around the Irish word leprechaun
Taken from an extract from his book, 32 Words For Field, which has been nominated in the An Post Irish Book Awards.
'Go raibh maith agat': New Alliance MP makes first remarks to the House of Commons in Irish
Stephen Farry said he wanted to “reflect the shared heritage of the language across all the traditions in Northern Ireland”.
The Irish For: Cabbage in bed and fruit in a sock - a few lost rituals to help find a suitor
Here are some traditions described in an Irish poem that claim to help find a suitor.
The Irish For: How a fada can make all the difference
The Royal Bank of Scotland did not mention the meaning as Gaeilge of their online banking app Bó.
The Irish For: Are Irish names really that difficult to pronounce?
We should look at names we don’t understand as something exciting to be figured out, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: Cockwombles and the decline of British insults
The Brexit process should be a golden age for satirists and comedians, but unfortunately, something else has happened, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: A Bloomsday Breakfast with extra Subh Milis on Father’s Day 2019
In some ways, it is serendipitous that these two events should happen on the same Sunday, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: Is Ireland more progressive now because we didn’t have baby boomers?
Did you know that Nigel Farage and Keanu Reeves were born in the same year? It’s hard enough to accept that they are the same species, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: Don’t Be Such A Gorilla-Whale-Daughter-In-Law
To translate the meaning of Bridezilla effectively we need to pop the bonnet of the word and look at the moving parts, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: Let's settle the 'crack' versus 'craic' debate by looking at the evidence
The word appears to originate before 1900 in parts of Ireland where spoken Irish was high and literacy was low, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: Hiberno English is a feature not a bug
Sometimes Béarla and Gaeilge are presented as being in conflict in Ireland, but they’re both part of our cultural heritage, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: Did the Irish language influence the names of Gollum and the orcs in the Lord of the Rings?
J. R. R. Tolkien once tried to learn Irish in Galway but he dismissed the language as suffering from “fundamental unreason,” writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: How Beyoncé is helping to get fadas in formation
Thanks to Queen Bé, April 2019 has been an interesting month for accessorised letters, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: Why do we remember things from TV and what does that mean for learning languages?
‘Thousands of Irish people know their rights if they’re arrested in America but not if they’re arrested in Ireland… and nobody would know what mitosis was if it wasn’t for Sabrina,’ writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: We are sometimes called Gaeilge Nazis which feels like a bit of a curse
Gaeilgeoirí often feel the odds are stacked against them. Even when we are right we still end up looking like a spoilsport or a pain in the arse, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: In 1990 Germany got Athaontú (reunification) and Milli Vanilli were exposed for lip-syncing
The German R&B duo dominated the charts at the time and one of them even claimed to be the “new Elvis”, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: The Irish language version of Wikipedia is going strong
Sure enough, one of the longest, best laid-out and most carefully edited pages in An Vicipéid is the page on Star Trek, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: The word Tory comes from the Irish word tóraí meaning a bandit or outlaw
If you’re doing your Irish oral exam next week – you’ll need to know how to say ‘confidence and supply agreement’ and ‘frictionless border’, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
Opinion: What does it take to raise your children through Irish?
My daughter speaks mostly in English but there are also lots of words that she only knows the Irish for – so she mixes them in, writes Caoimhín De Barra.
The Irish For: Some older words don't exist in English - clochscríbhinn means an inscription on stone
George Orwell said that history was a palimpsest – a chalkboard which could be scraped clean and reinscribed, exactly as often as necessary, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: While Europe was stuck in the Dark Ages - Ireland's Brehon laws were relatively enlightened
Satire (Áer) was taken as seriously as physical assault in old Ireland and a range of satirical offences were deemed to warrant compensation, including ‘coining a nickname that sticks’, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: What does old Irish tell us about life in ancient Ireland?
Did the knights of the Fianna use their frithbacáin (handbrake) to do doughnuts, and other boy racer tricks, in the medieval equivalent of an industrial estate? wonders Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: Gender, LGBT and transitioning
Aerach means gay in both the modern sense as well as the original meaning of happy and carefree writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: How many colours can you remember?
Different languages across the world look at the spectrum and make different calls on where certain colours begin and end, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: Brexit and the rise of Hiberno-English
With the United Kingdom set to leave the European Union this year, it’s time for Hiberno English to become the official language of the EU, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: Forget the January blues - let's talk about birds
The fact that the Irish words for duck and lake sound similar gives an alliterative flourish to a seanfhocal about not sweating the small stuff: Ní troimide an loch an lacha – the lake is not heavier for having a duck on it, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For... All the most important Christmas words (including Fairytale of New York as Gaeilge)
Hó hó hó! Darach Ó Séaghdha has a selection box of Irish words for Christmas.
The Irish For: The word deatach, meaning smoke, also refers to the family huddled together around the fire
As one of the first human inventions fire is often used as a metaphor for human civilisation and its downsides, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For: All the characters you know - good, bad or total craic vortex
Darach Ó Séaghdha has a typecast character for every letter in the alphabet – the funny one, the vulgar one, the one with notions or the one who sucks all the craic clean out of the room.
The Irish For: As the nights are closing in - curl up by the fire and learn some winter words
Codladh Geimhridh literally means ‘winter sleep’ and is the Irish for hibernation. Sometimes that feels like a viable option in the Land of Eternal Winter (Hibernia), writes Darach Ó Séaghdha.
The Irish For...The role of dogs in legends, proverbs and the Brehon laws
Dogs took centre stage in Irish mythology, stories and proverbs, just like they dominate our social media feeds today, writes Darach Ó Séaghdha
The Irish For... Seal snot: The literal translations of sea creatures are brilliant
The Irish term for a jellyfish translates literally as seal snot. If this floats your boat you might also enjoy mathair shúigh – suckmother – for squid.
The Irish For... Why do feelings run so high around the letter V?
Is V a cheeky stowaway in the Irish language? Darach Ó Séaghdha takes a look.
