Most typically, it means ‘to close in, to close upon’, but it can also mean ‘to shirk away from, to move away’, if an appropriate preposition is used (a famous example is the motto of the 69th Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard, Riamh nár dhruid ó spairn lann, ‘ who never shirked armed conflict’ – note the way the word riamh, ‘ever’, is placed in the beginning – this is because it’s poetry, obviously that word should come last, or at least after the verb, if it was prose). Remember though that it is very emphatically an Ulster expression – I think I have seen it only in Leaslaoi Lúcás’s vocabulary of Ros Goill words ( Cnuasach Focal as Ros Goill, published in 1986 by Royal Irish Academy/Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann, Dublin/Baile Átha Cliath), as well as in Cosslett Ó Cuinn’s translations of Wild West adventures originally written in Spanish (Ó Cuinn was known to have picked up much of his Irish from the last remaining speakers of the East Ulster dialects he spelt the expression in achmaireacht, which even according to Leaslaoi Lúcás is more like the actual pronunciation in the dialect).ĭruid!/druidim means for most Irish speakers ‘to move towards’ or ‘to move away’ – but always in the sense of movement relative to another position (had Einstein been a native speaker of Irish he might have said that according to his theory all gluaiseacht is some kind of druidim). However, if you still want to avoid them, you can use in achomaireacht for translating ‘before long’. These loan translations, although at variance with Irish grammar, are so entrenched in native spoken Irish that I don’t think it is realistic to get rid of them. In achomaireacht: Many non-natives are unhappy with the way how the English ‘before long’ has been translated into sul i bhfad, roimh i bhfad or sara fada in Irish. Note that the noun trust can be used in similar constructions as muinín: ní bheadh mórán trusta agam as or ní bheadh mórán muiníne agam as ‘I wouldn’t put much trust in him’. Trust is a transitive verb as in English: ní thrustfainn é ‘I wouldn’t trust him’ (if you don’t like Anglicisms, feel free to use ní dhéanfainn muinín ar bith as instead). Of old, you use the preposition as with it: níl muinín ar bith agam as an ruifíneach sin ‘I don’t trust that ruffian’, but under the influence of English, the use with i has made inroads into the language, so such usage as ní chuirfinn muinín ar bith sa ruifíneach sin ‘I wouldn’t put any trust in that ruffian’ is common and acceptable today (although I would prefer ní bheadh muinín ar bith agam as an ruifíneach sin or ní dhéanfainn muinín ar bith as an ruifíneach sin). Trust!/trust ‘to trust’ is an old borrowing in this dialect, probably originally felt to be necessary because people are unsure of the correct use of muinín with verbs and prepositions. However, this differentiation seems not to be based on genuine dialectal speech, although it is possible and thinkable that writers have tried to introduce the distinction – such things often happen in the history of standard languages.) Another specifically Munster word for ‘accident’ is tionóisc. Before I became acquainted with Ulster Irish, I tended to think that timpiste was used of an accident in the sense of a calamity, and taisme of an accident in the sense of something unplanned – my native language uses different words for the two concepts. (Other terms for ‘accident’ include timpiste, which is the most mainstream one, and taisme, which is more typical of Ulster. It is one of the quintessentially Déise words. Cian says that it is Déise and East Cork Irish, and indeed I remember it from books in Waterford and Tipperary Irish. Chún for chomh is specifically Déise Irish.Ĭiotrainn is a word for ‘accident’ that Cian mentioned in the comments (how stupid of me not to have remembered to mention it!).
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