I don’t have a Facebook account (because it’s trendy not to have one). But my wife showed me a post by a friend of both of us.

The friend posted the following:

Buiochas le dhia ta mo ras rite!!ta me ar muin na muice!!!

He’s over the moon that he has finished running a race he was competing in.

Now, he’s left out the sínte fadaí (accent marks). And there’s a couple of mistakes (I make many myself). But I’m happy that he’s practicing Irish and I understood what he means.

But Google Translate ain’t so forgiving! In an attempt to understand, my wife submitted the text in for a translation.

The result?

Thank god my system run! I am a pig urine!!!

Fair play Google! I tried it myself later today, and got a slightly different response:

Thank god my system run! I am on the pig urine!

A slight improvement, but this is a lesson in not ignoring one’s fadaí!

(Note if you’re lost: mún=urine)

Check out his chat, and singing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU-ARsqNiAo

Fair play dhuit, a Thura!

Seachtain na Gaelige is a celebration of everything Irish – music, literature, poetry, theatre, film, you name it. Different activities are organized all over the country by local councils, schools, libraries and other bodies all with one main purpose: keeping the Irish culturealive and kicking THROUGH the use of Irish language. Every year a CD comes out with a mix of popular Irish songs originally recorded in English, but for this special occasion translated into Irish and rerecorded. Well worth buying!
Eventhough the name suggests it’s a week long event, it actually spreads out over 2 weeks. This year it’s all happening between 5th and 17th of March. Check out their website for the schedule of all the activities!

If you are interested in Irish and would like to learn the language, a good way to start is to learn a few basic words and phrases, which will come especially handy in the coming weeks. Listen to some Irish language sayings on irish-sayings.com. If you want to learn some more Irish, check out the software packages on learnirishgaelic.com.

On Translation Forum you can ask for advice on Irish words and phrases you aren’t sure of. irishgaelictranslator.com is a forum where people from all around the world gather to debate the dialects of Irish language, give corrections or more accurate translations for many different purposes such as homeworrk, tattoos, wedding ring engravings and more.

All bigger cities in Ireland are celebrating St. Patrick’s Day for much longer than just one day. This year most celebrations start on the Saturday 13th March and won’t end till the early hours of 18th of March, the day after St. Patrick’s Day.

Parade in Inis 2008

The festival in Dublin is a week long and offers all sorts of cultural events for the whole family. There will be treasure hunts and funfairs for children and music, comedy and film events for a bit older.

Young and old enjoy the parade in Inis 2008.

Inis 2008

The one in Cork is happening on the weekend before St. Patrick’s and on the day, with activities for the whole family.

In Limerick you can enjoy in two parades. The first one is taking place on Sunday, 14th March, when the streets of Limerick will be taken over by the members of bands from all around the world. It’s the Band Parade! On 17th March Limerick will be hosting the second biggest St. Patrick’s Day parade in Ireland! It was around 2 hours long last year!

By now you probably don’t need an Irish Dictionary anymore to know what Póg mo thóin means, or do you?

Limerick 2009

Limerick 2009

Limerick 2009

Limerick’s Band Parade

Band Parade in Limerick 2007

Band Parade in Limerick 2007

Limerick Band Parade 2007

Now there is also an Irishionary.com search engine for Firefox (see the official addon page at Mozilla.org). It lets you search the Irishionary Irish dictionary directly from Firefox. The extension was officially accepted by Mozilla this week. Once installed, it looks like this in my Firefox:

Add to Firefox: You can add this search engine to your Firefox at Mozilla.org.

Add to Chrome: Chrome also accepts custom search engines. To add this to Chrome, first visit Irishionary.com (so that it detects the custom search engine). Then in Chrome click Options -> Basic -> Search engines.

Add to Internet Explorer: In Internet Explorer, you could try Tools -> Manage Add-ons -> Search Providors although I haven’t tested this.

Collins Irish Dictionary for the iPhone

I see that last month launched a $9.99 app for the iPhone.

The Collins Irish Dictionary (reviewed on LearnIrishGaelic.com) is now available for the handheld device.

Supposedly, some key features of this Irish dictionary app are:

• 69,500 translations
• No internet connection required
• Bookmarks

If you’ve had a chance to use this app, let us know what it’s like, and if it’s worth the investment. Is it more beneficial to use this special app instead of just browsing to a dictionary site with your iPhone browser? And what’s the search feature like, can you easily search in both English and Irish?

Source: http://www.apptism.com/apps/collins-pocket-irish-dictionary

A few months ago, I got a letter from RTÉ. On the letterhead it had said “Radio Teilifís Éireann“. Somebody made a mistake typing up the letterhead, I thought!

Actually, it seems that was the organisation’s name for the last 40 years.

They have now be assigned a new name “Raidió Teilifís Éireann”, signed in by the President.

Took a while!

Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0720/1224250946463.html

Want the link to the lastest Irish business news?

Www dot insideireland dot ie slash index dot cfm slash lng slash gaeilge

That’s the link to the Irish section of Ireland’s only bilingual business magazine, InsideIreland.ie. It’s just been launched this week.

We’re always hungry for more Irish-language news. Beo.ie sometimes offers interesting articles. An Druma Mór keeps you pretty up to date with the latest news.

Along comes InsideIreland.ie. It’s been just launched at Foras na Gaeilge. There’s a lot of Irish content there.

However, the Irish content is hidden behind a funny URL.

It doesn’t seem to be as up-to-date as the English section, either. And in the age of instant communication, how can Gaeilge compete with that?

A new Irish dictionary has been published out that covers a potentially huge market for learners of the Irish language. It’s an Irish-Spanish dictionary.

According to EuropeanIrish.com the project began back in the 1970′s and continued right into the 1990′s. However, it didn’t seem to get off the ground until Pádraig Ó Domhnalláin obtained European LINGUA funding at his university in Madrid.

Finally, the Linguistics Institute of Ireland worked on the manuscript to end up with 19,000 Irish-Spanish entries.

It’s Foclóír Gaeilge-Spáinnise, by David Barnwell, Pádraig Ó Domhnalláin and Carmen Rodríguez Alonso, and is published by Coiscéim. If you have used the dictionary, why not tell us in your comments what you thought of it.

However, hostility towards the Irish language persists in Ireland. This view, probably alive for several hundred years in the majority of the population, continues to depress the language’s normalisation in everyday life.

This week “mikemac” asked on Boards.ie whether other people drop Irish words into English conversation like he does.

As we know too well on this site, forums can easily drop into name-calling and heated debates

But the 11-page conversation unfortunately shows just how easily the language can be attacked.

“My name is URL” said:

Admitting that it’s a dead language is admitting that evolution exists

I admire the Darwinism, but I don’t accept that it’s dead! Thousands of people choose to speak it every day.

The same passive-hatred was expressed “elyod”, who offered economics as to why the language “is dead”.

The Irish language is dead and serves no functional propose. Get over it.

If our primary language wasn’t English, we’d probably be 20 years behind where we are now as a country.

There’s also an unfortunate one-to-one connection drawn between the language and Irish republicanism.

from my experience the only people that are big into the irish language are provo types i.e shinners

This type of expression shows that the language still isn’t “normal” yet for many people. Let the language be. Don’t talk it into a hole, as it does indeed need every bit of help it can get.

RTÉ, Ireland’s state broadcaster, has launched a new-look Flash-based video “catch up” service.

It’s only available if you have an Irish IP address. For self-made programming, this should surely be made international.

It features a variety of shows to watch for 21 days after broadcast.

Irish language videos

So far, it seems like they only have An Nuacht for Irish language programming online. Hopefully the newly-launched site will feature more programs in Irish.

Questionable is their decision to create the channel online as “Religious and Irish language”.