Where's Darach? He's not in the studio today, so Éimear and Gearóidín are running riot, throwing paper aeroplanes across the Headstuff classroom and talking loudly. During her curation of the @motherfocloir account in January, Éimear asked Twitter followers to tell her what drove their interest in Irish under the hashtag #WhyIrish. It was trending on Irish Twitter within hours. She tells Gearóidín all about it and the Duolingo classes and groups what were created on foot of it. There are also he...
Jan 25, 2019•30 min•Ep. 75
Ireland and Scotland have a lot in common, and this is especially true of Irish and Scots Gaelic. Students of Irish could make a decent stab at the meanings of thousands of Scots Gaelic words and not be far off… left-facing fadas notwithstanding! However, though the two languages contain much of the same stuff, they were forged in different fires over the centuries- in Scotland, the language was not politicised at the same scale and it was not promoted by the State the same way in the 20th centu...
Jan 18, 2019•29 min•Ep. 74
It is fitting that a book set in a cemetery has come to be known as the graveyard of translators. Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s masterpiece Cré na Cille was described in the New Yorker as “too good to translate” although different individuals have tried. It is widely regarded as the finest novel in the Irish language. In this week’s episode, Peadar (who has read it) tells Darach (who hasn’t read it) all about the wonders of this novel, where the occupants of the graveyard are doomed to gossip amongst each...
Jan 11, 2019•39 min•Ep. 73
Irish speakers are referred to in Ireland as a community, a lobby group or even a kind of secret society: a bloc of people with specific and predictable values and objectives, distinct from the mórchultúr of mainstream Irish society. This expresses itself in many forms, from characterisations on radio debates to the sexual othering of Irish speakers (the "hot Gaeilgeoir" stereotype). The truth is, of course, that Irish speakers stand in the same queues as anybody else. You might even be going ou...
Jan 04, 2019•34 min•Ep. 72
It has been quite a year for the Motherfoclóir project - there's been online and offline mayhem of many categories in multiple languages. In this week's episode, Darach, Peadar and Gearóidín take a look back at the highlights of Bliain na Gaeilge - the debates, key people who made us laugh and cry, the @motherfocloir account, the way the present shapes the past, a very special tuít as Gaeilge… and the Irish word of the year. This episode contains more swearing than the losing side of Croke Park ...
Dec 21, 2018•51 min•Ep. 71
Darach Ó Séaghdha's first book, "Motherfoclóir: Dispatches From A Not So Dead Language" was the winner of the Popular Non-Fiction award at the 2017 Irish Book Awards. Today's bonus episode is an extract from the sequel, "Craic Baby: Dispatches From A Rising Language". Craic Baby is published by Head of Zeus and available in bookshops in Ireland and the UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 20, 2018•11 min•Ep. 70
As "Bliain na Gaeilge" draws to a close and we look back, one of the moments of Irish language activism that casts a long shadow is **#NílSéCGL - it's not okay**. The hashtag struck a chord with Irish speakers who were fed up of lazy criticisms and stereotyping in mainstream media, and recognised each other's frustration all too well. #NílSéCGL is the brainchild of Ciara Ní É (@MiseCiara), who joins Darach in the studio this week. She's a poet, teacher and activist who's been very busy lately; a...
Dec 14, 2018•43 min•Ep. 69
The golden age of Irish censorship ended in 1967 when Brian Lenihan Sr introduced a time limit on certain banning orders, leading to thousands of forbidden texts becoming available. Since 1929, a wealth of modern literature and medical writing had been denied to the public by a censorship board which was not required to explain its decisions - Edna O'Brien, Brendan Behan, Aldous Huxley and many others ran afoul of its high hand. However, during this period a wealth of Irish language literature a...
Dec 07, 2018•36 min•Ep. 68
The partition of Ireland in 1922 only included six of Ulster's nine counties in Northern Ireland. This led to the beautiful county of Donegal being cut off- politically and economically distant from its near neighbours, geographically distant from Leinster House. This remoteness - and the fact that Ulster Irish was under-represented in the formative years of the Republic's Irish language policies - have led to Donegal seeming to be a wee bit different to others in the Republic. But is it just th...
Nov 30, 2018•48 min•Ep. 67
Somewhere in the Gaeltacht, a local man (whose first language is Irish) is accused of assaulting another Irish speaker with a broken bottle. What language should the trial be held in? If it is to be in Irish, is the jury a random sample of the defendant's peers? In today's episode, Gearóidín tells Darach and Clodagh all about the remarkable case of Ó Maicín vs Ireland, where a defendant took his fight to be heard by an Irish-speaking jury all the way to the Supreme Court. It's a case that raises...
Nov 23, 2018•34 min•Ep. 66
As any Caoimhe, Siobhán or Medb living abroad will tell you, Gaeilge uses different spelling conventions to Béarla. Students who struggle with this might be interested to hear more about Manx, the Gaelic language of the Isle of Man, which uses English language phonetics. Manx also has the distinction of being declared dead and interrupting its own funeral. In this week's episode, Darach, Gearóidín and Clodagh chat with Katie Kermode, an Ohio native who started studying Manx and got hooked. She t...
Nov 16, 2018•34 min•Ep. 65
Every summer, the Irish people sacrifice thousands of teenagers to Lú, the sun god, so that he will offer them good weather. This sacrifice is called "The Leaving". There's more to Irish than the Leaving Cert and the points race; this is what we've been trying to show in the topics we cover on this podcast. However, it would be pig-headed of us not to mention the Leaving Cert course at all. In this week's episode, Ola and Darach chat with Noirín Ní Mhurchú, who is currently shepherding students ...
Nov 09, 2018•30 min•Ep. 64
**Gadhrach (adj): dog-living, full of dogs.** Despite her massive popularity over here, Saoirse Ronan's hosting slot on Saturday Night Live earned her a slew of criticism. The very idea that Irish people were unusually keen on dogs, an assumption which one of the sketches was based on, was nonsense… wasn't it? As the Irish language shows, there's always been an affinity for our canine cairde here- nine native breeds, a plethora of dog-based animal words and a seanfhocal or two to boot. In this w...
Nov 02, 2018•31 min•Ep. 63
**"Is doiligh drochrud a mharú" - it's hard to kill a bad thing. (Irish proverb)** It's Hallowe'en again and the time is right for a Motherfoclóir Samhain Special! Is Annual Sweetgiving Day a capitalist ploy or is it I inherently socialist? Is the pagan or Christian, American or Gaelic? The spookiest time of the year is arguably more Irish than Saint Patrick's Day; it's certainly a recent arrival to our British neighbours, who were traditionally more invested in Guy Fawkes Day. Darach and Peadar...
Oct 31, 2018•26 min•Ep. 62
**Diaspora: from the Greek word diaspeirein "to scatter about, disperse," from dia "about, across" + speirein "to scatter".** The word "diaspora" was not used in the Irish context until Mary Robinson did so, powerfully sending a message about the global Irish community and the pain felt at both ends of the split of emigration. But 28 years later, is the term still apt? In the final part of our Uachtarán Trilogy, Darach talks to Peadar and Gearóidín about how presidents have presented Ireland to ...
Oct 26, 2018•42 min•Ep. 61
Few writers ever managed to achieve the triple crown of critical acclaim, popular success and sustained relevance that Brian Friel managed in his five-decade long career. In this week's episode, Darach, Peadar and Siún discuss his masterpiece "Translations", which tells its story of doomed love and dark politics against the backdrop of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland in 1830 - a critical moment in the colonial project when Irish placenames were carelessly and significantly rewritten. What was the...
Oct 19, 2018•1 hr•Ep. 60
On Wednesday 10th of October, Darach, Gearóidín, Peadar and Éimear swooped upon the Sugar Club on Lesson Street to discuss the importance of the Irish language to the role of president. Three presidents in particular are directly associated with watershed moments in the history of the language - Douglas Hyde, Éamon De Valera and Michael D. Higgins. The gang discuss the implications of their support for an interest in Gaeilge, which inevitably includes a discussion of the 1996 movie Michael Colli...
Oct 12, 2018•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 59
"Hamlet has been performed in Klingon" Aisling Carolan. For a poet, the fact that the Irish word tír (country) and the English word tear (a sad drop of water) sound the same is profoundly significant. For a linguist, however, this is a coincidence and a cursed one at that. How much weight should we attribute to similar sounding words with similar meanings in different languages? In this week's episode, we consider the theory, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, that Hebrew and Gaelic languag...
Oct 05, 2018•32 min•Ep. 58
It's Mailbag time again, when the Motherfoclóir team review correspondence that has been submitted to the show by email to motherfocloir@headstuff.org. In this week's visit to the postroom, Darach, Ola and Peadar read and discuss exciting epistles which deal with topics ranging from Greek and Latin, less vs fewer, the widow's memory, an aimsir ghnáthchaite agus an aimsir ghnáthláithreach, the differences between ye, yous, youse, yis and yisser… and the great coddle debate continues. Happy birthd...
Sep 27, 2018•34 min•Ep. 57
Irish presidential elections are rare and brutal, but voters have chosen some truly remarkable and inspiring people for the role. Perhaps more than the role of Taoiseach, the presidency has reflected the hopes and values of Irish people and successive presidencies have marked distinct eras in the evolution of the Republic. The Motherfoclóir Team are going to bring you a short series of episodes about the presidency in advance of this year's election - in today's episode, Gearóidín and Darach dis...
Sep 21, 2018•37 min•Ep. 56
For nearly two centuries, we have been told that English is the language of commerce and industry and that the Irish language sits outside this world, peeping in. Could a company from Ireland ever use Gaeilge in its product branding the way Ikea uses Swedish? Osgur Ó Ciardha is one half of the team behind Pop Up Gaeltacht (the other half being Motherfoclóir regular Peadar Ó Caomhanaigh). In today's episode, he chats to Darach about whether PUG has identified a market for an Irish language bar, t...
Sep 14, 2018•43 min•Ep. 55
The Irish for Stradbally is an tSráidbhaile, which means village (or street-town if you want to be very literal about it). For a weekend at the end of summer every year, Stradbally hosts the Electric Picnic festival and this year the Motherfoclóir Podcast was invited to perform a live show for the revellers. This was a double honour for the show as it allowed local gal Gearóidín McEvoy return from Finland to Strad in triumph, basking in the jealousy of all the townsfolk who ever doubted her supe...
Sep 07, 2018•44 min•Ep. 54
The breakthrough star of Irish twitter in 2018 must surely be @ruthiefizz – while other tweeters have hurled poorly-cogitated stock arguments at each other, her “Other Ireland” account has used the possibilities of the format to explore important ideas like consent, misogyny and mental health while also sharing informative and fancy facts about (and pictures of) wildlife. What her thousands of followers may not know, however, is that Ruth Fitzpatrick has a solid academic background in Celtic Civ...
Aug 30, 2018•52 min•Ep. 53
The Irish for tax is cáin… not to be confused with caoin, which is crying. In life the two great certainties are death and taxes, which is fitting given that many forms of taxation were first introduced to pay for wars. Today’s Vatican City is a fragment of the Papal States, a temporal political entity that governed a portion of Italy larger than Ireland for a thousand years – from the era of Brehon Law until the age of the Home Rule movement. Records of taxes levied by the Papal States represen...
Aug 24, 2018•42 min•Ep. 52
Michael Flatley has been in the news again with his new film “Blackbird” (possibly named for an Irish set dance) and his questionable choice of followed Twitter accounts. No matter how successful his foray into action movies is, it is certain that he will be mostly remembered for and associated with Irish dancing. Irish dance, with its distinctive costumes, moves and tunes, is this island’s most recognisable unique cultural export and the point of greatest overlap in the experience of people who...
Aug 17, 2018•48 min•Ep. 51
**"If I were a boy /Even just for a day /I’d roll outta bed in the morning /And throw on what I wanted and go"** **Beyoncé Knowles, If I Were A Boy, 2007** Welcome to our 50th episode! If you're a regular listener you may have heard us mention the Modh Coinníollach before… but what is it? As with Peig who we chatted about last week, the Modh Coinníollach has become a kind of mascot for those who have bad memories of Irish from school. This has become a tired cliche in need of a good shake. In or...
Aug 10, 2018•34 min•Ep. 50
"Peig passes the Bechdel Test". Sparklingly witty, unfailingly honest, sometimes misunderstood and with a grá for the Gaeilge, Tara Flynn and Peig Sayers are two women who have been unfairly criticised a lot in recent years. Although Peig is sadly unavailable, Tara was kind enough to visit Darach this week for a chat. Tara tells Darach about her iconic work on the Morbegs (and the attention to detail put into the Irish language content), reevaluating Peig as an adult and the simple joys of the o...
Aug 03, 2018•34 min•Ep. 49
_The Irish word for a rat, francach, can also mean a French person (when capitalised)._ In their most recent media campaign, Vodafone have paid tribute to a long-standing tradition in Irish advertising; the French crush. Prior to this Ireland has had a history of taking cues from our Gallic pals - most famously the tricolour. French is the most-widely taught foreign language in Ireland and comparisons between it and Irish are inevitable. But how apt and how valuable are such comparisons? French ...
Jul 27, 2018•32 min•Ep. 48
Famously, much is lost in translation. However, writing is a lonely calling, and the act of literary translation by one's peers presents an opportunity for literary intimacy. Two versions of a poem, presented side by side, can be more than the sum of the parts. Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill is one of Ireland's most brilliant and resonant poetic voices, and "Pharoah's Daughter" - a collection from almost thirty years ago - is still urgently relevant and accessible. Ní Dhomhnaill's dánta are accompanied by ...
Jul 20, 2018•33 min•Ep. 47
2018 has been a landmark year for women’s rights in both Ireland and New Zealand. At home, we have voted to repeal the 8th Amendment. Our Antipodean mates have acknowledged a different aspect of reproductive rights (specifically, working mothers not having their careers scuppered) when their Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, gave birth to a daughter – and the country didn’t grind to a halt. That little girl’s name- Neve* Te Aroha Ardern Gayford – is a nod to two traditions, Irish and Maori, and in...
Jul 13, 2018•35 min•Ep. 46
