Irish Language Sites & Links

VERY- VERY IMPORTANT - READ NOTES BELOW BEFORE PROCEEDING

OK to print them out for future reference

Live Courses Information

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On Line Gaelteacht Courses

Gaeltalk - Cape Clear Island Course
Gaeltalk - Cape Clear Island Course

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Oideas-Gael.com
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Chat Rooms & Discussion Boards in Irish/Gaelic

Daltai Discussion Forums
Gaeilge-B (Beginner's Forum)
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Magazines, Radio, Songs & Stories
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Radio na Gaelteachta (Radio)
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Songs in Irish

Irish First Names

Putting Irish on First Names

Major Sites

Gaeilge ar an Ghreasan
Daltai na Gaeilge
Gaelic & Gaelic Culture
An t-1Eolaire Directory or Yellow Pages

An Focloir Beag
The Little Dictionary - An Focloir Beag

Dialects
Irish Gaelic Dialects
Comparison of Irish Gaelic & Scots Gaelic

Irish Book Store
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Gaelic in Scotland

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NOTES

The big problem with Irish Language Sites is that there almost too many of them. And while a tremendous amount of labour and dedication was put into most of them, they are hard to follow. So, we've tried to arrange the links in a logical order:

The best place to start is with Dennis Doyle's Irish Lesson. He gives the English, Irish and Phonetic. It is simple, well structured and phrases are very useful and everyday. The ones YOU want to know how to say.
Then we provide a key for making accent marks or fadas over the vowels on the internet.
Links to 3 pronunciation sites. Familiarize & skim over these, don't study or memorize.
Links to on-line dictionaries to look up individual words.
Phrase Books.
Internet courses.
Links to Irish Langage Discussion Boards and Chat Rooms.
Irish Radio Broadcasts, Magazines and Stories.
Some of the major sites, with all kinds of additonal links within those sites.
The Little Dictionary. An Focloir Beag. Enter the Irish word. If it is a noun, it will decline it; if a verb, it will give all the tenses.
Finally the dialects and differences between them.

When you see beside a link name it means you can hear sounds & words if you have sound.
If your browser cannot find a site, whenever you see the duplicate site underneath it marked "II", try that one instead. Some brwosers will take the one version but not the other.

BUT ISN'T IRISH A "HARD" LANGUAGE TO LEARN ?

You may have heard people from Ireland complain that Irish is a very hard language to learn. The fact of the matter is that 90% of the people who tell you this know very little Irish and it was taught very poorly to them. Irish is an Indo-European language. Irish is not Arabic or Hebrew, which are very "foreign" not only in alphabet and sounds but in language structure. Yet millions of European Jews have made ancient Hebrew a living active language, while Ireland has failed, many due to poor teaching techniques and government neglect. Ignore this "advice".

Try the discussion boards and chat rooms and, don't be afraid of making errors! Tell your friends meet in the chat rooms at a given time. If you have instant message capability ask someone to join you. Or try and "recruit" people from Irish discussion boards or chat rooms, to "meet" there at a time. Or, you can go "alone" to the discussion boards, great place to practice and ask questions or, for help,

Recommend that, at first you don't "surf" the links within the web site links we have provided here, at least, until you get to the major sites. You will find most of those same links within the major sites, surf there all you like.
Reason: There is much duplcation, many are not in logical order and you will get lost. There are a lot of inactive links in some sites also.

A Word to Beginners:

Don't scare yourself. You simply want to skim information on pronunciation, so you get the basic idea. Don't worry about dialects, the differences in dialects, or what some of the authors say. Irish is phonetic. The difference in dialect are not half as great as other languages. It is not a problem unless, say you learn Mnnster Irish and go to live in Donegal with old, native speakers. You will understand them, but may have to ask them to repeat three times. But your ears will get accomstomed, in time.

You will never learn to speak any language if you are afraid of making mistakes. In fact, making mistakes is HOW you learned to speak English or any language. The Christain Brothers gramamatical approach will not work if you want to learn to speak Irish. There was a time when I could write beautiful, perfectly correct, French paragraphs, but if I had to ask for a glass of water in Paris, I would have died of thirst!

Pronunciation will come. You obtain your "accent" by listening to others. It comes through your ears, not from your mouth. The best way to do this is to listen to RTE Radio na Gaelteachta. Do NOT listen to non-native Irish speakers trying to speak Irish on regular Television.

One course, Buntus Cainte, consists of three complete books and tapes, covering every verb tense, etc and. yet, there is not a single footnote of grammar in the entire course. It is fun and uses a lot of cartoons. (Even though this is a taped cassette course, before starting it you should familiarize yourself with aspiration and eclipsis in an Irish pronunciation link, so you won't get confused with some spelling changes).

You became adequately fluent in English, after the age of one and before the age of two. You spoke English fluently for at least 6 more years without knowing or studying "grammar".

It does not work to put the cart in front of the horse, by trying to learn grammar befofe you can speak. You need grammar to become a great writer, not to speak a language.

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