The changes in Irish self-identity in the 2010s hinge on the rise of social media, especially how those networks completely altered the way two perennial features of Irish society - emigration and Gaeilge - fed back into the national conversation. A generation of young people who left Ireland after the bank bailout were able to stay in touch with developments and debates in Ireland, culminating in #hometovote but also feeding into other discussions, such as “the way it's taught”. For many abroad...
Oct 10, 2019•57 min•Ep. 104
Switzerland is one of those countries that doesn’t pop up in the news very often but appears to be ticking along nicely. In this regard it is not unlike Norway, another country that has chosen to keep an arm’s length relationship with the European Union. Now, as Brexit approaches, these two countries are among the models of post-divorce custody being considered by Britain and the EU. But what is Switzerland really like? In particular, what can this multilingual, neutral, financial powerhouse tea...
Oct 03, 2019•49 min•Ep. 103
It’s a tale as old as time - boy meets girl, boy is married, girl wants to break boy’s wife’s legs. Or maybe it’s the simple story of a girl in love with a cobbler, forbidden to go to the fair and waiting for a fairy godmother who will never come. Or maybe it’s the entirely relatable fable of an utterly livid goat? Hibernophile and occasional Mary Black backing musician Steve Martin once said that talking about music is like dancing about architecture. But Steve has never seen Darach’s sensual r...
Sep 27, 2019•52 min•Ep. 102
“Only a game designed by nerds would have charisma as a fantasy power” Gravity Falls A few weeks ago, Orla Ní Dhúill wrote a blogpost that got tongues wagging across the internet. The issue she wanted to address was the phenomenon of the Irish language being used as a kind of public-domain Klingon or Dothraki across fantasy novels and roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons. Naturally, we had to have her on the show! In today’s episode, Orla chats to Peadar (the others are “resting”) ab...
Sep 19, 2019•48 min•Ep. 101
It is our hundredth episode! We are delighted to still be here and even more thrilled that you, are listeners, are still here. To mark this august occasion, Darach, Clodagh and Peadar have dipped into the mailbag to see what’s vexing ye all this week. Expect unusual chicken salads, terrified Slovenians, language learning tips and maybe even the occasional non-glottal stop. --- Please visit www.dropchef.com and use the promotional code given in today’s episode. Dropchef match your order with meal...
Sep 12, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 100
When German-Morroccan DJ Mousse T recorded the song “Horny” in 1998, he surely had no idea that he was creating a Pompeii-like cultural artefact, one that preserved evidence of what a world was like minutes befoe it changed forever. The local slang of a town or of a neighbourhood is part of its cultural treasury. Are new words - be they loanwords of neologisms - an addition or a subtraction from this treasury? What makes some neologisms catch on (text, the verb) and others flounder (talkie)? Wha...
Sep 05, 2019•43 min•Ep. 99
As the 2010s draw to a close, we’ll be looking back at one of the most significant decades in the Irish history since the Civil War. It is a decade that began and ended with wēijī (crisis-opportunity) moments for Ireland’s relationship with the European Union, as well as two landmark referenda that sparked a wave of activism. So who better to chat about all this with than Lisa Nic An Bhreithimh? Lisa works at European Movement, an NGO promoting the work of the EU in Ireland. She was also involve...
Aug 29, 2019•41 min•Ep. 98
The Irish for a Prime Minister is Príomh-Aire; Taoiseach is specifically the title of the Prime Minister of Ireland and it comes from the old word for a tribal chief. This word is still used on the Nuacht on those occasions when an African tribal chief is in the news - older listeners might remember references to “An Taoiseach Bhutelezi”. This isn’t the only time that Irish and African imaginations have dreamed the same dream. When Chinua Achebe set about to write his great novel, Nigeria was no...
Aug 23, 2019•32 min•Ep. 97
The concept of the “silly season” is arguably a dated one in the era of 24 hour news and social media; it dates back to a time when daily newspapers had to fill gaps created by the closure of houses of parliament, higher courts and lulls in the sporting calendar. In some ways, the silly season is all year long now. But in another way, Ireland’s national obsessions with Leaving Cert results, social class and our self-image reaches fever pitch in August, culminating in some terrible hot takes abou...
Aug 15, 2019•52 min•Ep. 96
The Swedish language represents a kind of "what might have been" for Irish speakers - although there were less Swedish speakers than Irish in the world at the beginning of the 19th century, Swedish is the language of choice for millions of people who also have perfect English. In today's episode, Gearóidín phones in from Finland to tell Darach and Eimear about how Swedish is a minority language there, how different it is from Finnish, and how the story of the Finns sounds familiar to Irish peopl...
Aug 09, 2019•43 min•Ep. 95
Some of the most powerful books for and about teenagers take the form of a diary: Adrian Mole, I Capture The Castle, Go Ask Alice and even The Color Purple (although that spreads beyond the teenage years). So begins Máire Zepf's extraordinary new book "Nóinín", one of the most exciting books published as Gaeilge in some time (featuring cover art from Motherfoclóir's own Kirsten Shiel). Belfast's Máire Zepf is Northern Ireland's first ever Children's Writing Fellow and the author of nine books so...
Aug 01, 2019•36 min•Ep. 94
We’re nearly at the end of this strange and dark decade and it’s hard to know what to make of it at this stage. So much has happened since New Year’s Eve 2009 that could not have been predicted, much of it bad. However, one of the nice things that was not expected ten years ago has been the rise of Irish language activism through social media, where unconnected individuals with a love of the language found a way to make it relevant to their online friends. Different social media platforms have d...
Jul 25, 2019•40 min•Ep. 93
"For me, the Irish language was like a ghost limb". The days leading up to the 12th of July are often tense and dramatic ones in the North of Ireland, but never more so than in 2019. After months and months of stalemate and stagnation in Stormont - frustratingly coinciding with the British-Irish border being in the centre of a geopolitical crisis - the DUP's bluff was called with two amendments to the Northern Ireland Act passing in Westminster. An Irish Language Act is one of three factors in t...
Jul 18, 2019•29 min•Ep. 92
Some people out there wouldn’t see a rabbinical calling and a love of Irish dancing and sean-nós singing as a likely pairing. Those people have not met Darach’s guest this week. Saoirse Cecelia Beyer is a New Jersey-based rabbi with a passion for traditional Irish singing and dancing styles which has taken her to fleadhs all over. In this week’s episode, she tells Darach about being a “purveyor of joyful Judaism”, learning conversational Connacht Irish but Donegal Irish songs, PG-13 humour in re...
Jul 12, 2019•46 min•Ep. 91
Gearóidín is a Gryffindor. Peadar is a Hufflepuff. Darach, however, is a muggle who has not read the books, only seen a few of the films and has not yet tuned into the audiobook (famously read by Ros na Rún guest star Stephen Fry). However, so pervasive is the influence of JK Rowling’s books that even he knows more about them than texts he has had to study for exams. The Harry Potter novels have been translated into over seventy languages… including Irish, and that’s where the Motherfoclóir trai...
Jul 04, 2019•53 min•Ep. 90
When it comes to food, television or books, there are no tougher critics than small children. They won’t spare your feelings the way adults have been trained to, but they are loyal to what they love. However, small children’s access to food an entertainment is controlled by busy, tired and all too imperfect parents, who often have a hidden agenda of wanting the child to “learn something”, “just be quiet” or even “speak Irish”. This is the Hobbesian world that Sadhbh Devlin has chosen to tell her...
Jun 27, 2019•59 min•Ep. 89
It’s mailbag time again! Here at Motherfoclóir we love to receive your correspondence, suggestions, corrections and observations. Since we last opened the mailbag we’ve received a wheelbarrow-full of such letters and it’s high time we shared them with you. Clodagh and Éimear join Darach in dipping into the bag and find communications about traditional music, An Triail, the notorious episode 82, possible future topics… and focphocaí. And we were cited in the bibliography of an essay! And we have ...
Jun 20, 2019•38 min•Ep. 88
What's in a name? For most of the world's population, Irish names are the only contact they have with Gaeilge, and this is where its reputation for beauty and difficulty is perpetuated. Prospective parents have a great responsibility in naming a child… as to writers of characters in a novel. In this week's episode, Éimear, Darach and Clodagh are joined by Colm O'Regan, the talent behind the Irish Mammies books and columnist with The Examiner. As a Dad and a novelist, he tells the gang about nami...
Jun 13, 2019•53 min•Ep. 87
Like an old friend you don't really want to see right now, summer has arrived in Ireland, and with it a smartly-turned out stampede of Spanish students. For decades, these stylish loudmouths have been teaching Irish teenagers how to kiss and how to swear like a Spaniard in their version of Irish college. In today's episode, Darach talks to reverse Spanish student Éimear Duffy and Salamanca Erasmus veteran Claire Murray about the differences and similarities between Irish and Spanish, a language ...
Jun 06, 2019•37 min•Ep. 86
Peadar Ó Caomhánaigh, the Johnny Giles of the Motherfoclóir High Table, put his money where his mouth was this year, deciding to stand for election. After a gruelling PR-STV count, our boy won his seat and will represent his fellow Clondalkinites for the next five years. He is one of the 10% of South Dublin County Council representatives to have graduated from a single Gaelscoil, Colaiste Cillian in Clondalkin. In today's episode, Peadar tells Darach all about the experience- why democracy is ou...
May 30, 2019•40 min•Ep. 85
Gráinne Ní Mhuilneoir is the new bainisteoir of An Siopa Leabhar on Harcourt Street, taking over from our good friend and occasional contributor Caitlín Nic Íomhar (who has since been published in the excellent poetry collection "Calling Cards"). You might know Gráinne from @BooksAsGaeilge on Twitter. In this week's episode, Gráinne tells Darach and Gearóidín about her time at publishing house Cois Life and her new role in Ireland's premier Irish language bookshop. She tells us about new and upc...
May 23, 2019•37 min•Ep. 84
Welcome to series 2 of Motherfoclóir! We've missed you something terrible so we have. An awful lot has been happening lately so to kick things off we're having a quick look at a topic that's likely to be looming in the background for the next few months. At the end of 2018, it was widely noted that the movement to repeal the 8th Amendment want from being a political football "too divisive to even talk about" to passing a referendum by a significant majority- all in 12 months. Could the same thin...
May 17, 2019•50 min•Ep. 83
SEASON 2 MOTHERFOCLÓIR! SEASON 2 MOTHERFOCLÓIR! SEASON 2 MOTHERFOCLÓIR! THIS MOTHERFOCLÓIRIN' FRIDAY! Like, rate, review and subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 15, 2019•3 min
We're really sorry, but sure look, it was bound to happen at some stage. Darach is still on leave and the gang has finally gone off the rails. They start out innocent enough, sure. Peadar and Gearóidín and Eimear and Osgur talk about the perils of machine translation, bad tattoos and lazy Government departments. We don't know exactly when it goes bananas, but they read a porno. An honest-to-goodness porno as Gaeilge. Live on stage in Maynooth! This is not the Ireland of Peig Sayers and Brian Bor...
Mar 15, 2019•50 min•Ep. 82
Motherfoclóir Beo was recorded in front of a live audience in the Maynooth Students' Union Venue as part of Seachtain na Gaeilge 2019\. Gearóidín and Eimear explore the 1937 Constitution and in particular the provision that a woman's place is in the home. Was this a betrayal of Brehon Law and Irish history? Or was it a reflection of what we've always done - sidelining women? Can a country fail the Bechdel Test? Peadar asks the questions as our resident legal eagle and medievalist take on over 15...
Mar 08, 2019•48 min•Ep. 81
Laoighseach Ní Choistealbha is a researcher, educator and activist. It was in this latter capacity that she became the driving force behind An Foclóir Aiteach/The Queer Dictionary, a glossary of LGBTQI+ terminology as Gaeilge. So why did it take so long to codify these words about sexuality, gender identify and more? Was it the Brits? Was it the Church? Were we not bothered? Peadar and Laoighseach explore privilege, language learning, grammar rules and Freudian slips as they try, and fail, to st...
Mar 01, 2019•49 min•Ep. 80
Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire is a lecturer in TU Dublin and a well-travelled chef and TV presenter. He's the world's leading expert in Irish food history, so why he agreed to appear on our podcast, we'll never know. Gearóidín and Peadar chat with Máirtín about the history of Irish ingredients, ancient cooking methods, and an absolute heap of cheese. Why is Irish food not held in the same regard as French, Spanish or even Danish grub? What did we eat before the noble spud arrived on our shores? Why do...
Feb 22, 2019•45 min•Ep. 79
Gearóidín and Peadar discuss the idea of fluency. Can you really be fluent? Even if you know literally all the words? Gearóidín and Peadar can communicate in Finnish and French respectively by shrugging and being rude, but that doesn't indicate fluency. And as for legal language, that's a whole other ball game. When your life is on the line, are you really fluent enough to understand the language used in court? As usual, practically none of these questions actually get answered as our heroes bol...
Feb 15, 2019•31 min•Ep. 78
Darach is on leave, so Gearóidín takes the hot seat as the gang are joined by a special guest. Brianna Parkins was the Sydney Rose in 2016 and when she took the stage in Tralee she used her platform to call for legal access to abortion. Two years later she returned to Ireland to campaign for the repeal of the Eighth Amendment and is now working in the media in Dublin. She called in to Headstuff Studios to discuss the differences between Ireland and Australia, her favourite Irish words, and her f...
Feb 08, 2019•43 min•Ep. 77
Darach is back in studio this week, as he and Peadar begin the podcast by discussing the rising trend of Alt-Right Twitter trolls attempting to weaponise the Irish language. The irony of two white men discussing racism is not lost on them. They meander through Brexit, national identity, Britpop and the halcyon days of 2015 as they chat about what it means to be "Gaelach". Dáithí De Mórdha's article: https://tuairisc.ie/gael-is-ea-gael-is-cuma-dubh-ban-no-riabhach/ The Scots Gaelic version of Mot...
Feb 01, 2019•38 min•Ep. 76
