St. Patrick’s Day festivities have been turned into a St. Patrick’s Festivals around the country.

Seachtain na Gaelige is, simply put, a celebration of Irishness through the medium of Irish language. it includes music events, conversation evenings, table quizzes, different workshops and more. The events are organized all around the country by local councils, schools, libraries and other cultural bodies.

Another thing we get at home every year for Seachtain na Gaelige is a music CD containing rerecorded Irish pop songs, that were originally recorded in English. The CD is called “Ceol”.

St. Patrick’s Festival in Dublin starts with funfairs for children and music and comedy gigs for adults. But there is much more than just those, with all events culminating with the big St. Patrick’s Day parade starting from Parnell Square.

Irish-Sayings.com have St. Patrick’s Day sayings in Irish Gaelic.

Limerick is organizes the second biggest parade in Ireland, or that’s what they promise! It has to be checked out going down O’Connell Street. Limerick also has its famous Band Parade – the Limerick International Band Competition, taking place during the same week.

Both Cork and Galway have cultural events scheduled all the way to the big parade day. In Galway the parade starts on Dominic Street, in Cork from South Mall.

Oideas-gael.com sell a DVD with of a whole range of Irish short films.

Yu Ming is Ainm Dom

A favourite Irish language film of mine is Yu Ming is Ainm Dom. It’s about a Chinese guy who learns the language and then tries to use it when he arrives in Dublin:

Fluent Dysphasia

Fluent Dysphasia is about a guy who drinks so hard the night before that he forgets how to speak English.
Fluent Dysphasia

Fíorghael

This short film deals with modern politics in Ireland.

Others

Mac an Athar (downloadable)
An Teanga Rúnda

There are some free resources for your to learn to speak Irish Gaelic online.

• The BBC has invested a lot of interest in their language learning resources, and it’s always being updated. It usually features an Ulster dialect, as it’s BBC Northern Ireland that creates these resources. You can check out their Irish language section here.
• If you’re already a bit familiar with the language, funny man Des Bishop has an online learning section. The “funny man” part is debatable (here at IrishLanguageToday.com we like him a lot). He grew up in New York, moved to Ireland, and more recently dedicated a year of his life to learning the language.

Irish Language for Beginners

This site has some articles to get you started speaking bits of the language:

• Counting from 1 to 10 in Irish
• Counting people
• Basic Irish grammar

Learn to speak Gaelic online

Learning Gaelic online is a great way for you to learn for a couple of reasons:

• Access the lessons anywhere online. No need to install software on a particular PC.
• Your progress is tracked no matter which computer you’re using.
• You start to learn instantly, no need to wait for the software to arrive.

Bitesize Irish Gaelic teaches you Irish Gaelic online. Its approach is to take learning Gaelic in bitesized chunks. It makes it easier to learn, since you learn at your own pace bit-by-bit.

Learn to speak Gaelic at home

LearnIrishGaelic.com offer a complete language program if you’re willing to invest in learning the language. The program features software with lessons, quizzes, a built-in dictionary, pronunciation practice, and there’s also an audio CD and a little book of stories. It’s targeted at Irish language for beginners, so you don’t need to know a single word before getting in to it. Click here to find out more about the learning program.

We’ll start with some simple Irish language toasts.

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Cheers!
Sláinte! /sloyn-cha/

A hundred thousand welcomes!
Céad míle fáilte /kayd mee-la foyl-cha/
This is a common phrases, and you would use this toast when inviting a close friend into your home, for example.

Good luck!
Go n-éirí an t-ádh leat.
/guh nire-ee on taw lyat/

St Patrick’s Day blessings upon you!
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
/ban-ock-tee na fay-lah paw-rig ur-iv/
You can listen to a whole lot of St Patrick’s Day Irish sayings over at Irish-Sayings.com.

Happy New Year!
Athbhliain faoi mhaise duit!
/ah-vleen fwee vosh-ah ditch/

Would you like more here? Post a comment below to ask for it.

It’s a nice specific way of counting, as the words make it instantly obvious that you’re talking about a collection of people rather than things.

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Counting People

one person
Duine amháin /din-ah ah-woyne/

two people
Beirt /bayrt/

three people
Triúir /troor/

four people
Ceathrar /kah-hrar/

five people
Ciúigear /coo-ig-er/

six people
Seisear /shesh-er/

seven people
Seachtar /shockt-er/

eight people
Ochtar /uck-ter/

nine people
Naonar /nay-ner/

ten people
Deichniúr /jeh-ner/

Tips About Counting People in Irish

• Bitesize Irish Gaelic offer a full Irish Gaelic lesson on counting people in Irish Gaelic. You can sign up to access the lesson, it’s also full of audio so you can better learn how to say the words.
• You’ll notice that most of these words end with -ar. That’s a little tip for helping you to memorize the words.

St Patrick arrived in Ireland when the Irish themselves were not yet renowned for travelling the globe. He is now one of the patron saints of Ireland, and his day of celebration is shared amongst Irish people in Ireland and further afield.

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Patrick in the Irish Language

The equivalent of the name Patrick in the Irish language is Pádraig.  It can be pronounced as either “paw-rig” or “pawd-rig“.

In fact, the Irish language at the time of St Patrick did not have a native “p” sound! So, the Irish probably adapted the Latin Patricius into a name beginning with “c”.

St Patrick’s Day in Irish Gaelic

The basic way to say St Patrick’s Day in the Irish language is “Lá ‘le Pádraig“. Pronounce it something like “law leh paw-rig“. Do you see the “le” in the middle with an apostrophe before it? This is actually the word “fhéile“, and shortened as it makes the phrase easier to say. “Féile” means festival in Irish Gaelic. “Lá” means Day in the Irish language.

Other St Patrick’s Day Sites

Try Irish-Sayings.com for St Patrick’s Day sayings.

If you can’t get to a lesson, then there is still hope for you. You should sign up on Bitesize Irish Gaelic for their online Gaelic lessons.
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Irish Language Lessons in Universities Worldwide

In 2006, the Irish government announced that it would make €300 million available to universities around the world who teach Irish. Believe it or not, there is a large number of universities who have Irish studies. So if you’re serious in learning the language, this might be a great place for you to start your search for Irish Gaelic lessons.

Institutions receiving funding from the Irish government for their Irish lessons/studies:

• UWM Foundation (Wisconsin University), USA
• Humbolt-Scoil na Léinn Cheiltigh, Berlin, Germany
• Institiúid an Léinn Ghael-Mheiriceánaigh (Lehman), New York, USA
• Universität Mannheim, Germany
• Institiud na hÉireann i bPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
• University of Oslo, Norway
• Coláiste na nGael, Paris, France
• University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Wales
• Károli Gáspár University, Budapest, Hungary
• University of Szeged, Hungary
• Ionad na Léinn Éireannaigh, Univerzita Karlova, Prague, Czech Republic
• Cardiff University, Wales
• University of Liverpool, England
• Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany
• Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany
• Dusseldorf University, Germany
• University of Freiburg, Germany
• University of Bonn, Germany
• North American Association for Celtic Language Teachers, Ontario, Canada
• University of St. Thomas, Texas, USA
• University of St. Thomas, Minnesota, USA
• Boston College, USA
• University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
• Université Rennes 2, Brittany, France
• The Centre for Canadian Irish Studies, Concordia, Montreal, Canada
• Glucksman Ireland House, New York University, USA
• SKSK (Studienhaus für Keltische Sprachen und Kulturen), Germany
• University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, USA
• University of Cambridge, England
• Comhaltachtai do Mhic Léinn – Johann Kaspar Zeuss
• Ollscoil Chaitliceach Lublin, Poland
• New College of California, USA
• Daltaí na Gaeilge
• Nova Scotia, Canada
• Fordham University, Nua Eabhrac, USA
• St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, England
• Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland
• Fealsún (Irish tuition for beginners), Missouri, USA

RnaG is owned and operated by RTÉ, the national broadcaster of Ireland. The Irish language radio station used to time-share with “Radio 3″ which was a classical music station. However, RnaG now broadcasts 24 hours a day on its own frequency.
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A long-standing rule at RnaG was that it was not allowed to play any English-language songs. This sounds fine theoretically, but it held the station back from providing up-to-date pop music for young people. It is of my opinion that this policy probably damaged the radio station for a long time. At the time, I had no interest in listening to Irish traditional music on a daily basis. Now that the rule has been lifted since around 2005, there are some great evening music shows that play both pop and indie music. These evening shows have been branded as AnochtFM. RnaG offer lots of archived Irish language radio programs to listen to, check out their web site.

Raidió Fáilte is a Belfast-based Irish language community radio station. It is most definitely a hip, cool, fun radio station. Of course, they broadcast live online. Raidió Fáilte landed a major coup by arranging a radio interview with Ian Paisley, the leader of the Democratic Unionists Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland.

The BBC is quite surprisingly doing a great job with Irish language radio programming. They are said to have 40 hours of Irish language programs every week.

Raidió na Life is a Dublin-based local Irish radio program.

An up-coming trend is also for the English-language radio stations in Ireland to provide some programming through Irish Gaelic. My local radio station is called Spin South West. Their radio station Top 40 Oifigiúl na hÉireann features all the latest pop music, and is a great advertisement of the language for young people.

If you like listening to Irish Gaelic to learn the sound of it, we recommend you sign up on Bitesize Irish Gaelic. They have Irish Gaelic lessons for learning the language. Their strength is that they’re packed full of audio that you can listen along to.

Irish Gaelic is not called Irish Gaelic by Irish people in Ireland.

It’s nice that we could get that out of the way. So if you’re looking for another name for the Irish language, you can begin with “Irish“. Many Americans have said that this sounds unnatural to them, but it is how the language is called in Ireland.

For example, it would be perfectly natural in Ireland to ask someone “Do you speak Irish?”, or “I learned Irish in school”.
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And be sure not to call the Irish language simply “Gaelic”. While some people in Ireland will refer to the language like that, it’s an ambiguous term. This is because there also exists Scottish Gaelic, which is often simply referred to as “Gaelic”.

Another Name – How the language calls itself

When speaking in the Irish language, you call the language Gaeilge. Pronunciation of that word does vary between regions of Ireland, depending on the dialect of Irish. Even another language for Irish Gaelic is “Gaolainn” (you’ll see several spellings of this) and it’s a variation only used in the south of the country.

But the words for the numbers in the Irish language change depending on the following situations:

1. If you are just counting numbers.
2. Or if you’re counting things.
3. Or if you’re counting people.

(We’ve written an article also on Irish language grammar).

Basic Irish Language Numbers (1 to 3)

Let’s teach you how to first count the basic Irish Gaelic numbers. You need to start small!

1. A haon /ah hay-un/ = One

2. A dó /ah doh/ = Two

3. A trí /ah tree/ = Three

That’s it! You can now count to three in the Irish language. There’s a couple of things to look at here. First, I have put the approximate pronunciation guide in italics for English speakers. Second, you have surely notice the “A” at the beginning of each number. It’s pronounced somewhere between /ah/ and /uh/. The “A” is said before a number when you’re counting up. It’s just a convention which comes naturally to Irish native speakers. The pure Irish words for “one, two, three” are “aon, dó, trí”. But if you’re counting up in a row, you’ll say “a haon, a dó, a trí“.
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Counting 1 to 10 in Irish

Ready to count some more numbers? Let’s go now from one to ten. To hear these numbers spoken, check the Irish Gaelic lesson on Bitesize Irish Gaelic.

1. A haon /ah hay-un/ = One

2. A dó /ah doh/ = Two

3. A trí /ah tree/ = Three

4. A ceathair /ah cah-hir/ = Four

5. A cúig /ah coo-ig/ = Five

6. A sé /ah shay/ = Six

7. A seacht /ah shocked/ = Seven

8. A hocht /ah hukt/ = Eight

9. A naoi /ah nay-ee/ = Nine

10. A deich /ah jeh/ = Ten

For more examples on counting in Irish Gaelic, sign up for Bitesize Irish Gaelic to listen to Counting above 20 Part I and Counting above 20 Part II. The BBC have a great online lesson on counting that you can listen to in your browser. Do you want this lesson to be longer and cover more items? If so, just comment on this article, and I’ll get right to it! Seriously!