Irish Translation Forum

I am trying to make this as accurately archaic as possible. It is the end of a good-bye love note. I am concerned most with the 'gu deó' and the signing of her name. 'go deo' is fairly common in modern Irish, but was something else used more often two centuries ago? I ask because I am having trouble locating any form of 'go deo' used that way in any old documents. Would the name take some other form, perhaps the dative or ablative, when signing?

Ta tu ro aille, a chuisle mo chroídhe. Slán libh.

Le ghrádh gu deó,
Rós.

In case my Irish is awful, this ought to translate as:

Thou art truly beautiful, O pulse of my heart. Good-bye.

With love always,
Rose.

Any help is most appreciated. Cheers.

I don't think gu was used in the Irish of the 19th century it would have been go deó as far as I know. I'm basing this on a dictionary by John O'Brien published in the first half of the 19th century (the second edition from 1832) in which is to find under Deó: go deó - ever, always.
There is no entry for Gu.
Howevever I think I would leave go deo out completely and use buan

Tá tú an-álainn, a chuisle mo chroidhe. Slán agat.(if she's leaving and the recipient is staying). Slán leat. (if she's staying and the recipient is leaving)
Mo bhúanghrádh leat
Rós.

The spelling is from the Dictionary I mentioned, but I don't know the style that was used in 19th century Irish love letters so that's my best shot based on what you have, although I suspect it's a little too Englishy.....

Two centuries ago most Gaelic speakers could not read or write in Gaelic or English for that matter.

Gealún,
Thanks very much. I was using a few dictionaries, O'Brien's one of them. The 'gu' was from another one which labelled 'go' as less proper, without giving context however. My character is very educated, so I tried that. My Irish is not very good yet, making it difficult to distinguish usage patterns when I find words. The 'gu' dictionary is also the one which showed me that 'ta tu' was then often used instead of 'tá tú'. In that book, he also has the accent marks often facing the opposite way in many words, but he does use the normal fada as well. I wonder what that is. Not many books that I found had that. You have been quite helpful. I will see what others think and try to make the most educated decision. Thanks again.

fiairefeadha,
Look, mate, what you say is true, but some speakers of Gaelic could, and my character is particularly educated, as well as passionate about her native tongue. The Irish Gaelic literature is fairly rich enough, just not so much in the nineteenth century, and less than a language like English. But an educated person who enjoyed the language and lived among native speakers could conceivably have looked into the literature of it. Thanks for contributing.

You don't say which dictionary that is. You may have a 19th century Scottish Gaelic dictionary. The two accents were in use in Scottish although I can't remember what the difference was.
And gu is the Scottish Gaelic equivalent to go.

What ff says is true, and even with the easing of the penal laws,Irish was in decline among the population at large, and it would have been an exceptional middle or upper class catholic family that would have educated its daughter in Irish in this period. The 19th century in Ireland saw the greatest blow against the language, one from which it never recovered, the Great Famine. Millions died or emigrated, the vast majority of them Irish speakers.
It wasn't until the so-called Gaelic Revival at the end of the 19th century that these classes began to show a real interest in the actual language again.

Gealún,
It was actually a Scottish dictionary. I am a bit upset with myself for not catching that. It must have had one of the Irish phrases I had put in quotation marks and I must have clicked it well late at night (I have about fifteen tabs of dictionaries open). But thanks for alerting me, because that could have could have amounted to even greater blunders. However, I had definitely found a few instances in older Irish which seemed to use 'gu' where they might have used 'go' or 'gó'. The language is new to me, so I may be mistaken. It was positively Irish, though; it is just the context which may be somewhat different. I can try to find those pages again if you are interested.

I have been doing research on the famine and its effect on the language, as well as the decline of the language in general. I typed an explanation here as to why the situation in the book is entirely plausible, but the explanation was long, probably boring, and confusing, the only cure for which would be an even lengthier explanation, but I promise that these factors are all considered and it is plausible.

I want to give you my thanks once more; your help and interest both are appreciated.

Fun (ish??) fact!!

Emily Lawless wrote in the 19th century, and she *tried* to use Irish in her books (certainly in her novel Grania) She was an upper-class woman living in Ireland during the famine (Might be worth looking up??) -- Of course, nearly all of her Irish was spelt incorrectly! Take it as you will!!

BTW: What's the name of your book? It sounds cool!

-- .;.

MichaeleenOgFlynn,
Cheers, friend. I will definitely look her up.

My book is not as yet named, but it will have 'Mornington' in the title, because it is actually a collection of short stories which when pieced together, tell the story of one small area in Mornington. The particular story for which I was posing this query is called 'Blood of a Rose'. That one is a poetry cycle written by a mad man in the 1850s, later found and annotated by a tangentially related character in the 1890s. There is also a murder mystery in 1890s Dublin, about middle-class Irishman who is part of a gang who steal from Liverpool and Dublin English aristocrat ships. There is one more about a Belfast boxer who escapes transportation to Australia and changes his name to live in Mornington. The latter is a novelisation of the folk song 'Black Velvet Band'.

I want to do one more which centres on a realistically written woman, but I have no good ideas yet. It may be a bit before the whole book is done, but if you are interested, I will be putting it up on Amazon or something when it is, though I have considered putting up the individual stories. Not sure yet.

Endloser Winter:

A warning for Emily Lawless's books: they're a little slow. The entire volume one of Grania comprises three days.

YOUR book, on the other hand, sounds very rich. It seems as though you've really done your research, which is key in doing justice to such an ambitious project. There's so much character detail -- and depth -- even in summary! And I think it's brilliant how the stories are tied together -- it reminds me of Edward Rutherford's Princes of Ireland, though his stories are connected by a family line as well as a residence.

I'll keep a look out for it on Amazon

Best of luck to you!!

-- .;.