Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/22/thom-dunn-talks-about-irish-am.html
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Thanks, @thomdunn! I’ll give it a listen!
Frankly, I have no idea how my ancestors wrapped their tongues around the Irish language. Perhaps this podcast will lessen my anxiety about the mother tongue!
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Irish looks utterly maddening to the untrained eye … but honestly, it’s a lot easier than English. The spelling is entirely phonetic; it just uses a different alphabet. All those consonant-h combos just tell you exactly how to pronounce a thing, and also give you some wonderful insight into its roots. Once you know the rules, everything is easier to pronounce, and more descriptive!
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Oh! This is relevant to my interests, so will check it out! Thanks!
My dad’s family is Irish-American, and all my surviving aunts and uncle have a strong sense of an Irish identity, especially the youngest. The oldest, who we lost not too long ago, also had a strong sense of her Irish heritage. I think it really speaks to how ethnic identity is very much a cultural phenomenon overall. That branch of the family has been here since at least the 1890s, and we still hold on to our sense of Irishness.
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If its Irish-Catholic ill probably get it. #BostonBorn
This was a great listen. Kudos to the host for signing off with slán go fóill. 
Thanks for sharing it. Go raibh maith agat.
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That rendition of Amhrán na bhFiann as a distorted midi file is quite off-putting.
I cant say that I ever heard of fear dearg (far darrig) at all growing up. Probably because my parents had no patience for fairytales.
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Cool stories, man. I like the part about attending pub sessions as a kid. I am 4th generation Irish (and Danish, and Swedish, and, etc.) My Irish line came over from County Clare, like your old neighbors. Unfortunately for me, no childhood pub session memories, but music and arts are still a cherished heritage of ours. Now having added “Mexican” heritage (i.e. indigenous and French) to our family, my wife and I are enjoying the challenge to pass along our memories to our kids.
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It’s funny how things vary from place to place. My family moved from Ireland to England maybe a generation before that, and I didn’t even know my surname was Irish until I was well into my twenties (or later, can’t recall exactly when), and only then thanks to the Interwebs. Any sense of Irishness had been long suppressed, I’m guessing from the need to assimilate. Only the Catholicism was retained.
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Yeah, there was probably far more hostility to Irish immigrants in England than in the US, especially by the time my family came over… they ended up in an area that had a pretty large Irish-American population (MA), so it probably reinforced the embrace of an Irish identity.
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I’m English and Scottish, so I know of what I speak. Getting drunk and being maudlin is not “culture”. Do you disagree? Please do compose me a ballad that’s all treble and no bass about it.
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Americans glom onto their Old World roots often without knowing very much about that heritage. They will say “I’m Italian” or “I’m Polish” without having ever set foot in either country, and not being able speak more than a few choice words or phrases in the language, poorly. Often we are raised with trinkets of the old culture around the house, stories of great-grandparents, maybe some recipes. It’s a very curious phenomenon, and I’m guilty of it too.
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It’s the vowel cluster I generally have problems with, especially with a word I’ve never heard. I understand that some are silent “buffer” vowels thanks to “caol le caol, leathan le leathan”, but it’s still a pain in the ass. And don’t get me started with case and uimhreacha. I thought Russian number declensions sucked!
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Yeah well, speaking of guilt, I guess embracing functionally irrelevant ethnic/nationalist roots feels a lot better than does dealing with the fact that it’s hard to hold on to all of that because your ancestors sold it so they could gain the perquisites of membership in the Whte Club, including the assuaging ability to lord it over black people.
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The case and uimhreacha still fuck me up plenty, but I can at least half-assedly get by and then laugh with an “Is fearr liom Gaeilge bhriste ná Béarla cliste.”
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Darach gets a lot of hatemail for that theme song, but I guess he thinks it’s funny? I really don’t get it.
YUP. American “culture” is so meaningless that a lot of white people just name drop some European ancestry as if it has some implied meaning, then they go back to the crappy modern rock on the radio while they grill their processed foods.
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Not to get all maudlin, but I envy those who have just recently made the move over here, because they can embrace and utilize the technology available to maintain a connection to the places and people of their origins. An Iranian born friend of mine gave me a look like she was seeing a ghost, when I first admitted I had lost touch with all of my overseas extended family from more than 100 years ago when people still communicated by paper.
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