Motherfoclóir

The Irish for Passport is pas, which can also mean an episode in time or a fit (of rage or madness, for example). This week Darach is joined by journalist Naomi O’Leary, who has written extensively about EU matters and co-presents “The Irish Passport” podcast. They chat about Ireland and Europe, the politics of language, […]

Motherfoclóir #4 | Brehon vs Bunreacht: Family Law The power of words touches all our lives, never more urgently than when those words form laws. In the first of an ongoing series, Darach talks to Eimear (Brehon Badass) and Gearóidín (Constitution Connoisseur) about how differently an area of law is treated in old and modern […]

Surnames, a relatively recent invention, are done differently from language to language. In Irish, conventions exist to include gender and marital status identifiers in female surnames, but choices are still available. Darach talks (but mostly listens) to Siún, Éimear and Gearóidín about how this quirk of the language and how it dovetails with attitudes to […]

The computers are coming after our jobs – are translators next? It’s a piece of technology straight out of science fiction – a website tool that translates text between any two of a range of languages (many of them less widely spoken than Irish). However, Google Translate is the bane of many Irish teachers’ lives. […]

  The People Vs. The Letter V The traditional Irish alphabet had 18 letters, but in the 20th century there was a gradual thawing of attitudes to the other eight, such as V. However, a very vocal vanguard view V as a villainous visitor to the vernacular vocabulary. In this episode, Darach is joined by […]

Behind the wall of grammar homework lies the amazing world of the Irish language, and Darach (that @theirishfor guy) wants to take you there. With a crack team of the internet’s soundest Irish speakers, Darach will explore topics like differences between the Irish and English versions of the Constitution, silent letters, Gaeilge and technology, how […]