Motherfoclóir

“By fifth and sixth year, you’re dreaming in Irish”. It’s a little Coláiste Íosagáin reunion on Motherfoclóir this week as Darach is outnumbered by two past pupils: regular contributor Ola Majekodunmi and special guest Ailbhe Malone, who is Lifestyle Editor at Buzzfeed UK (after stints with NME, Nylon, Heat, the Irish Independent and many others). Ailbhe tells us about moving from an English langu...

Although it is regularly cited as the reason some people dislike Irish, Peig has been off the school curriculum for so long that we have adult Irish speakers wandering the streets and hills who were born after its removal. One such adult is the effortlessly cool catóg Clodagh McGinley, who you’ll remember from recent episodes. She tells Darach about the differences between studying Irish at school...

So here we are, at the end of another year, the 2017th year… can you believe there have already be 2017 years on this planet? Amazing really. Anyway, what we have compiled here is the best of The HeadStuff Podcast Network 2017, short clips from a range of our shows. If something piques your fancy, […] La entrada Best of The HeadStuff Podcast Network 2017 se publicó primero en Headstuff. Learn more...

Nollaig shona to all our listeners! In today’s very special yuletide special, Gearóidín tells the gang about Christmas in Finland, Peadar gets excited about wrens, Darach dwells on the practicalities of decorating with a toddler and Clodagh reminisces over Sylvanian Families. Please consider supporting one of the charities listed in today’s podcast. --- Contact the show at https://twitter.com/moth...

“Chomh ramhar le rón – as chubby as a seal” In Germany, BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke) is pronounced BMV. In Latin, Vs are pronounced as Ws. Humans have been switching these sounds with each other for some time. While neither V nor W are in the traditional 18 letter alphabet, W is so verboten that it is often replaced with a V in some loanwords – tvúit for tweet being a famous example. In Irish, t...

As the author of five YA novels and the presenter of HeadStuff’s Sweet Valley High podcast “Double Love”, Anna Carey knows a thing or two about teen drama. In this week’s episode, she joins Darach and Éimear to share her memories of being a cinnire (a camp counsellor at Irish college) during the 1990s. They discuss how mix tapes and graffiti were the ancestors of today’s social networking, the tra...

Language and music are strange bedfellows. A huge factor in our continental cousins’ proficiency in English comes from their consumption of English-language pop culture, especially pop music. However, while English speakers frequently enjoy music in other languages (Sigur Rós, Clannad, that Despacito song), the sung language can be taken merely as another instrument rather than as a piece of meani...

Mayo mirthmaker Clare Cullen, better known as Clisare, is the Queen of Irish YouTube. With a staying power not typical in the viral age, she has been delighting her thousands of loyal followers since 2012 with videos such as Stuff Irish Girls Say, the Irish Bucket List and Irish vs. British makeup. She has also produced some cracking Irish language content and tells Darach and Clodagh all about it...

One of the most recent Irish words to enter common parlance is Aisling – a sensible girl from outside Dublin with an aversion to notions. While the origin of other words based on names are lost in the mists of time, we can trace this one to a popular Facebook group, Oh My God What A Complete Aisling. The creators of this group, Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen, have written a book of the same name a...

After a ten episode absence, Louth Legend Siún Ní Dhuinn is back at her Motherfoclóir desk in HeadStuff studios. She tells Darach and Clodagh all about As An Nua (her bilingual feminist fashion blog) and Beo Ar Éigean – BAE for short – her fab RTÉ Irish language podcast. There’s laughs, chats, poetry and the occasional burn. --- Contact the show at https://twitter.com/motherfocloir or email us at...

As former British colonies with lots of green on their flags, where St. Patrick is the patron saint and where Guinness is hugely popular, Nigeria and Ireland are countries with plenty in common. In this week’s episode, Ola Majekodunmi talks to Darach and Gearóidín about being a Gaeilgeoir of Nigerian heritage, her favourite words in Irish and Yoruba and much more. You can catch Ola’s show, Seinnli...

It’s the spookiest night of the year, so what better time to share some eerie Irish words? Darach, Ola, Gearóidín and Peadar discuss the ancient roots of Samhain, the mysteries of brack and monkey nuts… and discuss regional traditions on this, the Motherfoclóir Spooky Halloween Special! If you’re listening with the smallies, be aware that there’s a few cuss words in today’s episode. --- Contact th...

National anthems – and the manner in which people observe them – are controversial (linguistically and politically) most of the time, but especially so in 2017\. Amhrán na bhFiann is the Irish National Anthem and the world’s best-known Irish language text, even though it was originally written in English. In this week’s episode, Darach chats with Peadar, Gearóidín and Ola about the history of this...

Regular listeners will be acquainted with team Motherfoclóir member Gearóidín McEvoy by now – ex-translator, constitution buff, Lawyers for Choice volunteer, minority language rights champion, Scandi-phile, Laois woman. What you may not know is that Gearóidín is one of the thousands of Irish people with dyslexia. In this episode, she tells Darach all about dyslexia and Irish, school-life and how I...

Neal Ó Riain is the boy across the road who your Mam compares you to. He literally has a PhD in Astrophysics, a fine job in London and – of course – fluent Irish. However, Neal is sweeter than his native Carlow’s sugar refineries, and gave the world @antainbot (The best bot on Twitter) and Aireamhan, a coding language based on Irish. He tells Darach and Gearóidín all about it on today’s episode, a...

Pop-Up Gaeltacht is PUG for short. The Irish for a pug is smutmhadra. The Irish for smut is salachar, which is an anagram of “ah rascal”. Darach goes down a wormhole with Peadar Ó Caomhánaigh, one half of the duo behind Pop-Up Gaeltacht. They discuss safe spaces, Gaeltacht bangers, getting the wear, euphonic phonemes and the global pug phenomenon. --- Contact the show at https://twitter.com/mother...

The letter A (and her saucy sister, Á) are the subject of today’s episode, a pronunciation masterclass with Darach, Peadar, Éimear and Ola . We’ll be meeting cats, boats, cakes, bad weather, terrible puns and showing you where a fada makes all the difference. --- Contact the show at https://twitter.com/motherfocloir or email us at motherfocloir@headstuff.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visi...

The Irish for Passport is pas, which can also mean an episode in time or a fit (of rage or madness, for example). This week Darach is joined by journalist Naomi O’Leary, who has written extensively about EU matters and co-presents “The Irish Passport” podcast. They chat about Ireland and Europe, the politics of language, national identity after Brexit and the joys of multilingualism. --- Contact t...

The power of words touches all our lives, never more urgently than when those words form laws. In the first of an ongoing series, Darach talks to Eimear (Brehon Badass) and Gearóidín (Constitution Connoisseur) about how differently an area of law is treated in old and modern Ireland. Is it all progress? * * * Contact the show at https://twitter.com/motherfocloir or email us at motherfocloir@headst...

Surnames, a relatively recent invention, are done differently from language to language. In Irish, conventions exist to include gender and marital status identifiers in female surnames, but choices are still available. Darach talks (but mostly listens) to Siún, Éimear and Gearóidín about how this quirk of the language and how it dovetails with attitudes to Irish names – and women’s names – in gene...

The computers are coming after our jobs – are translators next? It’s a piece of technology straight out of science fiction – a website tool that translates text between any two of a range of languages (many of them less widely spoken than Irish). However, Google Translate is the bane of many Irish teachers’ lives. In this episode, Darach chats to Gearóidín, Peadar and Siún about the do’s and don’t...

The People Vs. The Letter V The traditional Irish alphabet had 18 letters, but in the 20th century, there was a gradual thawing of attitudes to the other eight, such as V. However, a very vocal vanguard view V as a villainous visitor to the vernacular vocabulary. In this episode, Darach is joined by Gearóidín, Peadar and Siún and they discuss the controversial letter. It’s a tale of political intr...

Behind the wall of grammar homework lies the amazing world of the Irish language, and Darach (that @theirishfor guy) wants to take you there. With a crack team of the internet’s soundest Irish speakers, Darach will explore topics like differences between the Irish and English versions of the Constitution, silent letters, Gaeilge and technology, how new words get added to the dictionary and which o...