Irish Translation Forum

All religions look pretty silly to those who don't believe in them. (And as a follower of the Cult of the Golden Wombat, I can assure you that human religions are look downright wacky to wombats.)

However, it is difficult to translate phrases such as "blessed be", "so mote it be", "an it harm none", or "merry meet". As I understand it, most of them were coined by Gerald Gardiner, and he chose the phrasing to sound somewhat antiquated. I'm no scholar of Shakespearean English, but it is my understanding that some of them are ungrammatical or simply wouldn't have been said. But even if a phrase is authentic, how would we translate it? Do we translate it to modern Irish, in which case it loses some of the olde worlde flavour, or do we translate it to Irish from the same time period, leaving people baffled as to why you're talking like you came from that time period.

Personally, I would translate phrases like this into modern Irish, after I'd figured out exactly what you want them to mean.

So for example let's take "blessed be". Here's what I'd do:

beannacht ort
[a] blessing on you

Like "blessed be", this doesn't specify who is doing the blessing.

There are people on this forum who will do pagan and wiccan translations, so don't be put off if some people prefer not to. Not only is religion a touchy subject, but there's an added complication in this case: somehow Irish has become the de facto language of anything New Age-y. I don't know why, because witches, shamans, and the like are part of every culture. It can be tiresome for those who actually study the language. It's a bit like constantly being asked to translate that "May the roads rise to meet you" thing.

Gabh mo leithscéal, anois go díreach a chonaic mé seo, ach is fearr go mall ná go brách. Look at my pagan "thread necromancy" skills ....ceart go leor, first of all Wicca is an oathbound mystery tradition with adherents that aren't "loud" over the net, all the rest are neo-wiccans and fluffy myspagans, and there actually happens to be a large Traditional Wiccan Alexandrian community over here in Ireland because of Janet Farrar. Aside from having direct lineage from Gardner here, there are Druids(neo-Druids) initiated by George Watson MacGregor Reid and Ross Nichols, part of a roughly 300 year old tradition now, and then you have famous ceremonialists from the Golden Dawn such as WB Yeats.
This aside, we seem to be overlooking living examples that capture pre-Christian traditions like the Seanchaí, that exists in our lore and placenames. Folk Catholicism actually does a good job of keeping old pagan traditions alive, and there are traditionalists and reconstructionists that do a good job of this as well. Dáthí Ó hÓgáin's Lore of Ireland , and Sacred Isle:Belief and Religion in pre-Christian Ireland are good recommendations that express this.
There's a festival here every year called Féile Draíochta-http://www.feiledraiochta.org/-for Irish pagans. There were speakers with Celtic studies degrees that know Old Irish, as well as staff from the Cruachan Aí Heritage Centre at this last one in Dublin, and some terms enquired about here I have actually heard spoken.
RedWolf was right about a lot of it not translating well (Old English vs. Modern Irish), so Beannachtí, and Go mbeannaí (na)Déithe duit does fine, as well as Buaileadh shona, bríseadh shona agus buaileadh shona arís
le meas
Micheál

This thread is a year old; no need to resurrect it.