Irish Translation Forum

I've done some research and would like to know if everyone agrees with the translations I've found, mainly if the connotation is the same because obviously worlds like God and country have different meanings in English.

God - Dia
Country (as in the land of a person's birth or citizenship - Tír

Notre Dame which is French for "Our Lady" however I have no idea how to translate that.

Thanks for your help in advance.

The Irish are not big on titles. Many saints are just referred to by their names (St. Patrick's Day is just "Patrick's Day" in Irish, or "Day of the Feast of Patrick"), so one often sees just Muire (a form of Mary usually reserved for her) for "Our Lady", but you also see an Mhaighdean Mhuire ("the Virgin Mary"). One would never use the Irish words which literally mean "our lady" (in other words, it is possible to say that, but it would not be seen as referring to Mary).

God = Dia (but, like many words, it can change in a given sentence, for grammatical reasons).

The word tír means land or country, but if referring to one's homeland, one usually uses instead dúchas. Thus, mo dhúchas means "my homeland" or "my native land".

Just to emphasize something Kevin said: Irish words can change significantly in both spelling and pronunciation depending on how they're used in a sentence and their relationship to other words around them. If you plan to use these in anything other than a standalone fashion, please tell us so we can give you the correct word form and syntax for your application.

Redwolf

Hi Redwolf and Kevin,

Thanks for your insight. I wanted to use them as 3 distinct words (standalone) not a phrase, so I'd assume the above would be correct for that application. I have a follow up question to the discussion of "Tir" however. When "Tir" is used to mean country does it mean "a political state or nation or its territory" or "rural as distinguished from urban areas <prefers the country to the city>.


Thanks again for both of your help it is greatly appreciated!

I have a follow up question to the discussion of "Tir" however. When "Tir" is used to mean country does it mean "a political state or nation or its territory" or "rural as distinguished from urban areas <prefers the country to the city>.

The word tír can mean a country, land, or region, and it can also mean the countryside, but usually in that case it is part of a longer expression. For example, [amach] faoin tír = "[out] in the country", but perhaps a more common way to say that is [amach] faoin tuath. You can also just say things like síos amach (= "out down there"), but that won't work for your purposes. If you are going to use just one word for countryside, I'd go with tuath, because I think that tír by itself would be more ambiguous.