SÉADNA

these words are chosen on the basis of picking out words of particular interest, phrases that are particularly colloquial, or where the pronunciation is unexpected, or where the words would be hard to find in the dictionary.

Chapter 1

ait b’ait liom san [pronounced: b’aith liom san]	queer, strange, pleasant I’d like that
níl aon mhaith inti	she’s no good at it [literally, there is no good in her]
dein [Cork form of déan]	do! [imperative]
dá insint [pronounced á insint]	being told. This passive construction with the verbal noun is often found in older literature with dá, rather than á, but the pronunciation in Cork Irish is á, and this convention represented an assumption about the etymology of á. By contrast, the construction of the verbal noun and a pronoun object (eg á insint, “telling it”), was often written ’ghá insint in older literature. The two pronunciations are identical.
mar sin (ní stadfadh Cáit ach am priocadh)	it’s like this, it’s because...
am priocadh	pinching me [lenition is sometimes lost between labial consonants]
thugais d’éitheach	you are lying!
á ligint uirthi [pronounced leogaint in Cork Irish]	pretending it
is dóin [a Cork colloquial form of “is dóigh”]	indeed
a thoice bhig!	you little hussy!
mara mbeadh tú féin [mara is the Cork form of mura]	were it not for you
is é ainm a bhí air ná Séadna	his name was Séadna [the construction is: is é...ná..., where ná picks up the thought and completes it]
ar thaobh na fothana	on the sheltered side
cé acu?	which? [followed by a set of choices to choose from]
lá dá	a day when
thug sé fé ndeara	he noticed. Fé ndear or fé ndeara has two distinct meanings, either “noticed”, as here, or the cause of something (cad fé ndear é? what is the reason for it?)
sara [the Cork form of sula]	before
tabhair dhom [pronounced “trom”]	give me
tar cheann [also: thar cheann]	on behalf of
bhuail bean bhoct uime	he met a poor woman [note: Standard Irish recommends “buailim le duine”, but Cork Irish traditionally had “buaileann duine umam” for “I meet/bump into someone”]
cosnochtaithe	barefoot
rud éigin le n-ithe [Standard Irish: le hithe]	something to eat. [Cork Irish has le n-ithe and le n-ól, as exceptions to h-prefixation]
tigh ósta [the traditional pronunciation of tigh in noun phrases is ti, dropping the gh]	inn, public house
d’athraigh a dhealbh [deilbh in Standard Irish]	he changed his form
ceannacha	features, face
scanradh [pronounced scaura]	terror
níl fasc agat	you haven’t an iota of sense
fé dheireadh thiar thall	at long last
os a chomhair amach	right in front of him
meigeall	goatee beard
i gcionn tamaill [=i gceann in Standard Irish, where cionn is an old dative of ceann]	after a while
ar tí do dhíobhála	intending to harm you [ar tí, intending to, about to]
greadadh trí lár do scairt	may thy entrails be scorched! [a curse, utterance of annoyance]
feiceam an t-airgead [feiceam is a variant of feicimís]	let’s see the money
a dhá ladhar [ladhar – the space between the fingers]	his two spread hands
go réidh	hold on!
dar bhrí na mionn	by all that is holy! [literally, by the meaning of the holy relics]