Motherfoclóir Quotes

“This may come as a surprise to generations of Irish pupils, but the Irish language wasn't invented just to infuriate people forced to learn it at school.”
― Darach Ó Séaghdha, Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language

“The extremely useful word athghnó is work you do that wasn’t done properly the first time.”
― Darach Ó Séaghdha, Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language

“The Irish for seagull is faoileán, which is often translated literally as wolf bird.”
― Darach Ó Séaghdha, Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language

“Loanwords in English were also a problem – what’s Spanish for manana as it is understood by Anglophones?”
― Darach Ó Séaghdha, Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language

“Historically, the English language had a class system beaten into its dictionary – the people rich enough to eat meat referred to it by different words (mutton, beef or pork) than did the farmers who raised it (sheep, cows or pigs).”
― Darach Ó Séaghdha, Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language

“The Irish for the sea is farraige – not to be confused with Farage, something that should get back in the sea.”
― Darach Ó Séaghdha, Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language

“We don’t think about the grammatical rules of our own language much –”
― Darach Ó Séaghdha, Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language