Connacht Irish

File:Iers.jpg

An Irish-language sign in County Galway

Connacht Irish (Template:Langx) is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Connacht. Gaeltacht regions in Connacht are found in Counties Mayo (notably Tourmakeady, Achill Island and Erris) and Galway (notably in parts of Connemara and on the Aran Islands). Connacht Irish is also spoken in the Meath Gealtacht Ráth Chairn and Baile Ghib. The dialects of Irish in Connacht are extremely diverse, with the pronunciation, forms and lexicon being different even within each county.

The Irish of South Connemara is often considered the "standard" Connacht Irish owing to the number of speakers however it is unique within Connacht and has a lot more idiomatic connection to extinct dialects in North Clare (for example "acab" instead of "acu" in the rest of Connacht). Words such as and tend to be pronounced with a Munster accent in South Connemara whereas in Joyce Country, Galway City and Mayo they are pronounced with the Ulster pronunciation. In addition to this the standard in Connacht would be to pronounce the words and as "leofa" and "dófa" however in South Connemara and Aran they are pronounced "leothab" and "dóib". Lexical and pronunciation differences exist within Mayo with Tourmakeady featuring an "í" sound in vowel endings much more commonly. In addition to this the lexicon of Dún Chaocháin to the east of Belmullet tends to be far more Ulster influenced than that of Eachléim ( vs ) and there is a huge Ulster influence on the dialect of North Mayo in general owing to historic migration. The Irish of Eachréidh na Gaillimhe and Dúiche Sheoigheach tend to share more phonetic commonalities with neighbouring Mayo than with South Connemara.

Documented sub-dialects include those of Cois FharraigeTemplate:Refn and Conamara Theas,Template:Refn both of which are in Galway, and Erris in Mayo.

Lexicon

Some differences between Mayo and Galway are seen in the lexicon:

Mayo	Galway	Gloss
		I hear
		Difficult
		New
		Sore

Some words used in Connacht Irish that are not found in other dialects include:Template:Sfn

Connacht	Standard	Gloss
		Meet, uses verbal noun of
	-	Young child; Mayo, Munster & Ulster: Young boy
	Munster:	Kitchen

Variant spellings include:

Connacht	Standard	Gloss
		verbal noun of : To come
		Again
		Captain
		Cousin
		Farm, Farmer
		Ever / Never

Variants distinctive of, but not unique to Connacht include:

• , "potato", "potatoes"
• , "whiskey"
• , emphatic form for the first person plural pronoun, Ulster Irish uses this form as well, whereas Munster Irish uses although are used in Mayo, particularly in the Erris dialect.
• , "every" (contraction of gach + uile)

Phonology

The phonemic inventory of Connacht Irish (based on the Tourmakeady accentTemplate:Sfn) is as shown in the following chart (see International Phonetic Alphabet for an explanation of the symbols). Symbols appearing in the upper half of each row are velarized (traditionally called "broad" consonants) while those in the bottom half are palatalized ("slender"). The consonant is neither broad nor slender.

Consonant phonemes	Labial						Coronal						Dorsal				Glottal
	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Labio- velar		Dental		Alveolar		Alveolo- palatal		Palatal		Velar
Plosive
Fricative/ Approximant
Nasal
Tap
Lateral approximant

The vowels of Connacht Irish are as shown on the following chart. These positions are only approximate, as vowels are strongly influenced by the palatalization and velarization of surrounding consonants.

File:Connacht Irish vowel chart.svg

In addition, Connacht has the diphthongs .

Some characteristics of Connacht that distinguish it from the other dialects are:

• In some varieties, vowel lengthening before word-internal clusters of voiced plosive + liquid (e.g. "church")
• In some varieties (e.g. in Erris Irish (County Mayo)Template:Sfn and, as seen in the table above, in Tourmakeady) a four-way distinction among coronal nasals and laterals: , , often without lengthening of orthographic short vowels before them.
• In the variety spoken in Cois Fharraige (the area along the north shore of Galway Bay between Barna and Casla), underlying short is realized as a long front while underlying long is realized as a back .
• is realized as (or is replaced by ) after consonants other than . This happens in Ulster as well.
• Broad is rendered even in initial positions, with a few exceptions.
• The inflected pronouns agam, agat and againn are usually reduced into monosyllables , , .
• The prepositions are both realised as and their inflected forms are frequently pronounced (and sometimes written) in their lenited forms.
• The preposition-article compound (i + an "in the") causes eclipsis, where it causes lenition in the Caighdeán and in the other dialects.

Morphology

Nouns

In some dialects of Connacht the plural endings and are always replaced by -annaí and -achaí. It is also common in many Gaelic-speaking areas of Connemara that the dative singular form of all 2nd declension nouns has been generally adopted as the nominative, giving these nouns the typical ending in palatalized consonants in the nominative singular. This is indicated in the spelling by the letter i before the final consonant.

Connemara form	Standard form	Gloss
		Plural ending
		Shoe
		Craft
		Ear
		Foot, Leg
		Hand

Verbs

Irish conjugation is characterized by having a mixture of synthetic forms (), which provide information about person and number in the verb ending, and analytic forms (), which require the addition of a pronoun. In Galway and Mayo, as in Ulster, the analytic forms are used in a variety of forms where the standard language has synthetic forms, e.g. "we praise" (standard ) or "they would praise" (standard ). However, the synthetic forms, including those no longer included in the standard language, may be used in answering questions.

Connemara	Standard	Gloss
		I make/do
		I eat

Connacht Irish favours the interrogative pronoun and forms based on it such as , "when" instead of Munster , or instead of Munster/Ulster . As in Ulster, Scotland and the Isle of Man, relative forms of the verb such as "that/who/which will be", or , "that/who/which do~does" are frequently used.

Notable speakers

Some notable Irish singers who sing songs in the Connacht Irish dialect include Seosamh Ó hÉanaí who was the subject of a 2017 feature film, Song of Granite, by director Pat Collins, MacDara Ó Conaola, Darach Ó Catháin, Seán Mac Donncha and Máire Áine Ní Dhonnchadha.

Inis Meáin storyteller Dara Beag Ó Fátharta was a notable exponent of Inis Meáin Gaeilge and appeared in several television programmes about the island on Irish and international screens.

Literature

• [folklore about the sea and seaweed, Cois Fhairrge]
• [short stories, Maigh Cuilinn]
• [short stories, Maigh Cuilinn]
• [folklore, Maigh Cuilinn]
• [short stories, Maigh Cuilinn]
• [novel, Maigh Cuilinn]
• [short stories, Maigh Cuilinn]
• [novel, Maigh Cuilinn]

• [storytelling of Tomás Laighléis, Mionlach]

• [autobiography]
• [short stories and journalism]
• [folklore, Connemara]
• [biography, Aran Islands]
• [collection of writings by Mícheál Breathnach, Cois Fhairrge]
• [local history, Connemara]
• [stories, Northern Mayo]
• [memoirs, Northern Mayo]
• [Northern Mayo]
• [folklore, Aran Islands]

• [autobiography, Connemara]

• [folklore, eastern Galway]
• [novel, Connemara]
• [short stories, Connemara]
• [short stories, Connemara]
• [short stories, Connemara]
• [short stories, Connemara]
• [essays, journalism, history, politics, miscellany, Connemara]
• [short stories, Connemara]
• [novel, Connemara]
• [journalism, Connemara]
• [essays, Connemara]
• [history, politics, Connemara]
• [novel, Connemara]
• [research and opinions, Connemara]
• [short stories, Connemara]
• [folklore, Achill Island]
• [folklore, Northern Mayo]
• [folklore, Northern Mayo]
• [novel, Connemara]
• [novel, Connemara]
• [short stories, Connemara]
• [folklore, Connemara]
• [local history, Aran Islands]
• [story, Aran Islands]
• [story, Aran Islands]
• [folklore, Aran Islands]
• [short stories, Connemara]
• [novel, Connemara]
• [folklore, autobiography, Connemara]
• [West Galway]
• [folklore, Bearna/Na Forbacha]
• [autobiography, Aran Islands]
• [poetry, Aran Islands]
• [novel, Tourmakeady]
• [short stories, Connemara]
• [short stories, Aran Islands]
• [autobiography, Ros Muc]
• [folklore, memoirs, autobiography, Connemara]
• [autobiography, Connemara]
• [novel, Aran Islands]
• [novel, Aran Islands]
• [journalism, Aran Islands]
• [local history, Southern Mayo]
• [lexicon, expressions, Connemara]
• [history, Connemara]
• [short stories, Connemara]
• [novel, Connemara]
• [novel, Connemara]
• [novel, Connemara]
• [novel, Connemara]
• [novel, Connemara]
• [Northern Mayo]

• [memoirs and folklore, Ros Muc]

• [folklore, Achill Island]

External links

• Boston and the Irish Language: Fifty Years of Cultural Connection in Oral History
• Gaeilge Chonamara - An Ghaeilge mar a labhraítear i gConamara í
• Irish language in Mayo