Tuesday, 23 March 2021

To Speak of the Sea in Irish

 

Here is a wonderful piece on a dictionary of coastal irish words and expressions which have been collected by Manchán Magan.

A coastal Irish speaker, walking the beach at night, might have equally expected to hear stranach (the murmuring of water rushing from shore), or the whisper of caibleadh (distant spirit voices drifting in over the waves). They knew the ceist an taibhse (the question for the ghost)—a riddle used to determine if someone they met along the way was human or supernatural. Many words describe ways of predicting the weather, or fishing fortunes, by paying attention to birds or wind direction; to the sea’s sounds; or to the colors in a fire.