Motherfoclóir

In this week’s episode, Peadar and Darach are visited by Manchán Magan, the creator of the Gaeilge Tamagotchi project, Gaeilge Amháin and author of “Thirty Two Words For Field”, his new book about the Irish language and the ecological and social wisdom contained in its precise vocabulary, wisdom that would be lost if the language is lost too. Manchán tells the lads about his travels, his encounters and even those plays he wrote. It's pure wild stuff so be sure to subscribe! --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Once upon a time there was a young woman from Derry called Emma who loved dogs, baking and movies. She didn’t think about politics very often. Then she met a Californian called Jake and fell in love. She had no idea that she was about to find herself in the middle of a half-decade-long legal battle which would open a can of worms at a time when Anglo-Irish relations were already being tested. On today’s episode, Emma De Souza joins Darach and Gearóidín to talk about how applying for a residency card for her husband before the Brexit referendum led to a battle for the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement. Emma and Jake’s courtcases for the rights of all Irish citizens in the North have led to a significant legal bill - you can help them at their GoFundMe page here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/Defend-right-to-be-Irish-against-Brit-Govt-appeal --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Earlier this year when AOC guest starred in a Donkey Kong Twitch stream in which she declared trans rights to be human rights (while batting off criticism from greying 90s pop culture warhorses like Aaron Sorkin and Graham Linehan), it felt for many that a generational Rubicon had been crossed. Computer games. Físchluichí. They've come a long way since Darach was playing Pole Position on his Atari. In recent years games have reached a new level of technical sophistication such that ideas like storytelling and character development can be taken seriously. So how has this new medium expressed ideas like Ireland and Irishness? Like language and colonialism? Darach doesn't know, so he asked two experts to explain it to him. Úna-Minh Kavanagh (@unakavanagh) and Sarah Maria Griffin (@griffski) are bestselling authors who happen to also be massive gamers. In today's episode they talk to Darach and Peadar about games and the world that surrounds them - and how Irishness turns up in it. --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's summer again. You know what that means. In this episode, Darach, Peadar and Gearóidín look at this year's hot takes about the Irish language --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Darach chats with musician and writer Thom Dunn about how perceptions of Irish America have evolved rapidly in his and his father’s lifetimes, and what he hopes Irish America will be like when his newborn is old enough to understand it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you stood on Henry Street with a big smile and asked a hundred Dubliners who it was named after, it’s unlikely you’d get a single correct answer. If you walked into a history tutorial in one of the city’s finest universities and asked the students who Westmoreland was, you’d definitely get a few blank stares. And what’s the significance of Nassau Street - does Dublin have a Caribbean connection to celebrate? Is it unusual that Dubliners are so ambivalent about the origins of these street names and, in light of the recent passing of John Hume (surely a candidate to have a boulevard or a town square named in his honour) is it time to consider renaming some of them? In this week’s episode, Darach and Peadar look behind the true meaning of some of Dublin’s well-known streets, the red tape associated with renaming and consider if the positive civic engagement that led to the Rosie Hackett and Mary Elmes bridges can be built upon and turned into a way of engaging citizens with history. --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the week that saw the world said goodbye to civil rights hero John Hume, today’s guest and topic feel especially apt. Maev McDaid is a Derry woman in London, completing a PhD on retired Irish people in that city, as well as being very active in Clapton Community FC. On today’s podcast she talks to Darach and Peadar about the problems with “the UK” as a concept, and how the confusing term raises issues for researchers, policy makers and discussion of local and national issues. When a young woman like Medb leaves Derry to go to London, is that considered migration, immigration or not considered at all? Is it the same as a woman from Nottingham moving to London? If so, how do we measure the size of Irish communities in English cities? In the era of BLM when countries consider the relationship between citizens and the police in their state, referring to Britain or the UK can have significant differences. And yet, Britain and the UK are used interchangeably, to much frustration and distress. The gang also talk about football, much to Darach’s delight. --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eid al-Adha shona daoibh! Why are some bilingual teenagers seen as a triumph of aspirational middle-class parenting, but others are treated as a problem to be solved? This is a matter that strikes to the heart of discussions around the Irish language as it forces us to think about what monolingualism and multilingualism really tell us about intelligence, culture and community. In today’s episode, Darach talks to writer and law student Fadilah Salawu. She talks about balancing her Muslim, Nigerian, Dublin and Gaelach identities. She tells Darach about Ireland and Nigeria’s shared colonial heritage and the conflicts with colonised people articulating their experiences with an imposed language. She shares the experience of Yoruba-speaking parents using English in the home with their children in Ireland, and watching Catholic rites of passage from the outside (but also from the inside - inside the classroom). She also tells Darach about her enjoyment of learning Irish and why Islam cautions against translating the Quran. https://medium.com/@fadilah --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Taylor Swift broke the Irish Internet today when she wore a geansaí. It launched a thousand versions of the same joke - she looked a bit like one of the Clancy Brothers. In today's BONUS episode we look at the history of the Aran sweater, what knitters know that the others don't, diddly-eye erasure and much more. --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back in episode #74, Darach and Clodagh discussed Scots Gaelic in general and a book of transgressive verse called “An Leabhar Liath” in particular. One poem they shared - Bhruadair mi leat a-raoir - got a particularly huge response from listeners and the wider twitter community. Nearly eighteen months later, Motherfoclóir has finally managed to track down the poet who created it. Niall O’Gallagher/Niall Ó Gallchóir is a journalist for BBC Alba by day and a poet by night, as well as being Glasgow’s poet in residence (Bard Bhaile Ghlaschú) In today’s episode, he talks to Darach about his decision to write in Scots Gaelic and not to translate his own work. He describes the process of having his work translated and translating the work of others. He talks about the different issues faced by artists creating in Irish and those creating in Scots Gaelic, the enduring relevance of folklore, placenames and plant names… and the importance of having a correctly-stocked bookshelf when broadcasting from home during a pandemic. You can find out more about Niall here: https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/niall-o-gallagher/ And you can check out his poems and essays here: https://www.clar.online/artist/niall-o-gallagher --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tea. It’s a national obsession - just ask Irish emigrants to America about the first time they tred to get their hands on a kettle. While the infusion of tea leaves in hot water might unite the city dweller from her country cousin, the tiny differences in the way it’s prepared can speak volumes. This week Darach chats to Sligo’s Laura Gaynor, formerly the tea critic with Raidió na Life. She tells Darach about how she landed in Dublin’s hippest radio station and the doors it opened for her, how learning Irish prepared her for learning Greek, the power that comes with being a critic and how to find something close to Barry’s tea when you are abroad. --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back in 2003, a schoolboy sitting at his home computer was messing around on the internet and, without fully realising it, opened a window for the Irish language. That window was Vicipéid, and seventeen years later it is still letting light and air in. But who was that boy and what did Gaeilge and Ireland mean to him? Well, that boy was Gabriel Beecham and he is the guest on today’s show. He chats to Darach and Ola about taking the first step of creating the Vicipéid frontpage, the long space between taking the first and second steps, and watching the Wikipedia volunteer ethic form at this very time. It was the start of a journey which took him to the most famous green owl in linguistics. He talks about his relationship with languages in general and Irish in particular - a relationship which led him to becoming a Duolingo contributor. A doctor by day, he also gives the gang some insights from the frontlines of Ireland’s fight against Covid-19. Featuring: Gabriel's favourite Vicipéid entries https://ga.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9alteola%C3%ADocht Gaeilge i mo chroí - Is DUOLINGO GOOD for IRISH? https://youtu.be/CVSG4bFdKto Ciaran Duffy’s astronomy prints as gaeilge. https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/hellociaran/ --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been another normal and sane week on the internet. It feels like only yesterday that we were chuckling about the Kardashians asking what the Debs was and Gucci were producing rip-off GAA shorts. Well, last Friday a bit of distinctly Irish culture yet again crossed over into the mainstream when talented midlands hunk Niall Horan was savagely roasted by a puppet of a turkey. For Irish people, no further explanation is needed. And yet… In this week’s episode, Darach and Peadar consider the legacy of Dustin, the Dublin puppet who emerged from children’s television (originally introduced as part of a weirdly dark running gag) to become a very Irish kind of satirist, preparing the stage for Ross O’Carroll Kelly and the Rubberbandits after him. The lads talk about his musical career, his famous interviews, his chronicling and creation of Hiberno-English terms, the artistic possibilities of a mask (or puppet, in this instance) and his influence on spoilt votes. --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the participants in “Women in Harmony”, a charity single for Safe Ireland (which tackles domestic abuse) is Eve Belle, a singer songwriter from Donegal. While still in college, she signed with the influential Rubyworks label - the very same people who discovered Hozier and Rodrigo Y Gabriela. In today’s episode she tells Darach and Clodagh about the creative process, moving from the songwriting process to live performance. She talks about how quarantine times have made people conscious of the role of the arts while also presenting new challenges and opportunities for musicians. She talks about supporting Hozier after performing one of his songs in the Leaving Cert music exam. And she talks about Irish, and how her experience of moving to the Gaeltacht as a child shaped her feelings for languages. You can find her music here: http://www.rubyworks.com/eve-belle Find out about the Safe Ireland “Women In Harmony” single here: https://www.safeireland.ie/irish-women-in-harmony-release-single-in-aid-of-safe-ireland/ --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most of us have a very clear idea of what an Irish American is and have an overview of the community's journey from the Famine to the White House. The Irish community in Britain is a different and far more complicated story, however. And since 2016, it has become even more complex. In this week's episode, Darach is joined by Niamh Lear, a PhD candidate at the University of Newcastle. Niamh tells Darach about her research on hybrid Irish identities since Brexit and how a combination of protest and realpolitik have led to a surge in interest in Irish passports. She also talks about the subtle and not so subtle ways in which Irish identity is policed. You can find out more about Niamh's research here: https://prezi.com/v/z6ncemdbpk9z/hierarchies-of-irishness-the-passport-paddy/ Follow her on twitter at @niamhlear. --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meet John Hyland, an Irish NGO worker whose career took him to Brussels where he fell in love with a French woman. A perfect European love story which led, as these things do, to a perfect European family. But what happens when this most European child, born in one of the world’s most proudly multilingual cities, has a name with a fada? In today’s episode, John tells Darach about his journey to Belgium and gives a whistle-stop tour of a country of contrasts, where divided communities are held together by a labyrinth of bureaucracy. He tells the story of how important it was that his daughter have an Irish name and the lengths he had to go to just to get that recognised. The book John mentions in this episode is “King Leopold’s Ghost” by Adam Hochschild: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/adam-hochschild/king-leopold-s-ghost/9781509882205 Find John on twitter at @JohnHyphen --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week saw the final episode of Normal People, the hit TV show based on Sally Rooney’s novel set in Trinity College. Rooney’s book is just the latest in Ireland’s long tradition of novels set primarily on university campuses, and in today’s episode, Darach chats with Éimear and Peadar about some of the other ones. Were all the great UCD novels written before the construction of the Belfield campus? Which college novel has a bar named after it? What tale of student life was the first novel in Irish to hit the bestseller lists? This episode also features Clodagh and Kirsten sharing extracts from the works cited. --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Friend of the pod Póilín Ní Géidigh (@poilination) is back on the show! Since she last joined us (in one of 2019’s most popular episodes of the show) she has taken up quill with the wonderful Irish language website, nos.ie. In addition to her Tuesday lunchtime painting sessions, Póilín is the site’s social media critic, casting her gimlet eye on the mysterious otherworld of online Ireland. In today’s episode, she tells Darach and Peadar about Reply Guys, cancel culture, TikToks, the Gaeltokt and the dangers of a mobilised fanbase misunderstanding the thing they’re a fan of. Check out Póilín every week at www.nos.ie ! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Irish for bilingual is dátheangach, which literally means two tongued. When Clodagh McGinley isn’t contributing to this podcast, sneaking off to be a guest on other podcasts (hello, “I Love This Band”) or curating her photography on instagram, she’s producing her bilingual zín In the social media age where so much creativity is chopped into chunks of content designed to go viral, zines are prepared in a way that resists this, inviting the reader to look at the entire issue as the “unit” rather than the article or headline. And when seeking comfort in pandemic times, maybe something viral isn’t the right answer? Clodagh tells Darach all about zines, their origin and legacy, finding the bilingual content sweet spot and how Gaeilge loves Twitter but Irish dancing loves TikTok. Have a look here: http://bit.ly/zineagran10 --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ireland’s relationship with wine is unusual - we drink a lot of it but we do not produce it ourselves, and historically we fall between the stools of Europe and the post-colonial “New World” which divide the wine business. These factors allow us to be completely neutral in deciding which ones we like. So what do we like? And what do we talk about when we talk about wine? Conversations about wine - like conversations about Irish - often heave under the weight of gender roles, social class, geopolitics and money. But if we let our guard down they can lead to wonderful places. In this week’s episode Darach and Peadar talk to Shamim De Brún from MItchell & Sons WInes in the IFSC. She tells the lads about Irish connections to the vineyards of Bordeaux, licking volcanic rocks to understand wine better and how the history of wine importing goes back to Brian Boru. What wine goes best with a spice bag or a bag of Tayto? Do “Cork Dorks” suffer an unfair negative reputation comparable to gaeilgeoirí? Are men scared of rosé? They all get a look-in too. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the past decade, certain subcultures have been identified in social media. Fiat 500 Twitter, FBPE and Scottish Twitter have all been documented to some degree as having their own implied sets of rules, values and norms which are distinct from whatever mainsteam or “normal” is. And then there’s Irish Twitter. Whatever about Ireland itself and wherever you consider its borders to be, Irish Twitter is widely taken to be activist, feminist, outgoing, left-leaning, pop culture hyper-literate and saltily hilarious. And few individuals encapsulate these qualities as much as today’s guest. Ciara McShane (@ciara87c)’s twitter feed is a wild diary of the experiences of an Irish woman in a Brexit era London which cannot figure out its nearest neighbour. Her observations on topics from Tinder to politics to Ulster Irish have won her over 29,000 followers. Recently she has talked movingly about homesickness during Covid19 and has been involved in raising money for community groups. She tells Darach and Éimear all about it in today’s episode, as well as her favourite Irish words and historical figures. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We had some very fine plans for Season 3, but, like the best laid schemes of mice and men, they have “gang aft agley” (been ruined) by external events. We have been fortunate that the team is all doing well and we send our best wishes to our listeners around the world and their loved ones at this time. In this week’s episode, Peadar and Darach consider how rapid change and displacement are represented in Irish mythology. The story of Tír na nÓg is one of the best known in the Irish canon, one which hinges on loneliness, homesickness and how people and places quickly change. What was the deal with Oisín’s mother? What monk snuck the religious conversion in? And how many Niamhs did you know growing up? Welcome to the quarantine sessions. We’ve missed you. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To keep you all going during these strange times, here is Motherfoclóir's own Darach Ó Séaghdha in conversation with Sam Blake on another HeadStuff Podcast, Behind the Bestseller. Stay safe and well. .. Non-fiction is a different beast to fiction, and in this episode Sam Blake chats to Darach Ó Séaghdha, the Irish writer, podcaster and Irish language activist. The author of Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language (Head of Zeus, 2017), and Craic Baby (Head of Zeus 2018) Darach won Ireland AM Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year in the 2017 Irish Book Awards with Motherfoclóir. Revealing how his Twitter account @TheIrishFor grew into a book, driven by his personal journey and relationship with his father, a gifted linguist, Darach reveals the key issues with taking an online presence into print. Sam Blake delves into the writing process and deciding what exactly goes into a book. Brought up in an Irish speaking household, Ó Séaghdha’s father and mother used to speak Irish together but spoke English to their children. When Ó Séaghdha’s father became very ill, Ó Séaghdha became interested in learning Irish and used Twitter to share interesting Irish phrases and words he came across. Ó Séaghdha describes Irish as “the amazing buried treasure”. In his writing he wants to show people how they, through Irish, can make sense of the world around them, through words and phrases that do not exist in the English language. He runs the popular Irish-language-trivia Twitter account The Irish For. He is also the main host of the podcast Motherfoclóir, part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network, a fascinating podcast focusing on elements of the language. The follow-up to Motherfoclóir, published in 2018, Craic Baby: Dispatches from a Rising Language, explores the very new and very old parts of the Irish language from a personal perspective, covering the topics multilingualism, Brehon Law, Gaelscoils and especially lexicon. Check out all the Behind the Bestseller episodes here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Basic Structure of an Irish Fairytale: Don’t do the thing Does the thing Death” Do you understand what mythology is, and its role in the way all stories are told and heard? Do you understand what TikTok is and why teenagers are spending hours preparing nine-second one-person plays in their bedrooms? How could these two things possibly be linked? Fortunately today we have a guest who can explain both. Donegal’s Róisín McNally is an accomplished TikTok-er with a degree in Celtic Civilisation. She tells Éimear and Darach about how Deirdre of the Sorrows is just your typical goth teenager surrounded by disappointing adults, how Irish mythology is full of women discovering their potential when they are left alone by men, and the influence of Celtic Woman and Enya on Gen Z cosplayers. This is the final episode of Motherfoclóir’s Season 2 - we’ll be back soon! Thank you for all your support. You can find Róisín on TikTok and Insta at @roro_the_terrible --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s a new year and Gráinne Ní Mhuilneoir from An Siopa Leabhar is here to tell us all about the new and upcoming books as Gaeilge in 2020. ====Translations now available==== Asterix agus na Cluichí Oilimpeacha Asterix i gCoill na Cinsealachta Tintin: Ciste Castafiore Tintin: Slat Ríoga Ottakar Asarlaí Oscartha Oz (The Wizard of Oz) Ar Luch agus ar Dhuine (Of Mice and Men) Nioclás Beag (Le Petit Nicolas) ===Original works/Grammar texts=== An Diabhal Déanta, Joe Steve Ó Neachtain Sa Teach seo Anocht, Mícheál Ó Conghaile Cití na gCártaí, Réaltán Ní Leannáin An Litir, Liam Mac Cóil I dTír Strainséartha, Liam Mac Cóil Bealach na Spáinneach, Liam Mac Cóil Modern Irish: A Comprehensive Grammar, Nancy Stenson Understanding Irish Spelling, Nancy Stenson & Tina Hickey Basic Irish, Nancy Stenson Intermediate Irish, Nancy Stenson ====Coming in 2020==== Cuisle an Chósta (adult learner) Mise do Mhamó (adult learner) Ní bheidh fuath agam oraibh go deo (adult learner) An Garbhán Óg (The Gruffalo's Child) --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a way, a band like the Pogues had to form in London rather than on the island of Ireland itself, where they would’ve been primarily associated with their town or county rather than the entire Irish community, as they are. London’s anarchic punk scene in the late 70s and early 80s created an exciting opportunity for the Irish identity to express itself and Shane McGowan’s band ran with it, creating a body of work about exile, colonialism, injustice, war, love, toxic masculinty and loneliness. To this day póg mo thoin remains one of the best known Irish expresssions in the world, a tribute to how many people have connected with the band’s music. In this week’s episode, Darach and Peadar are joined by Jennifer Quigley, the host of the I Love This Band podcast. She brings her rock historian skills to the table as we discuss the world that the Pogues emerged from, McGowan’s gradual and unlikely elevation to national treasure status, London Irish hybrid identities and some brilliant songs. You can check out Jennifer’s own podcast at https://podtail.com/en/podcast/i-love-this-band/ --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Talent. Does it actually exist, or is it just an invention that takes credit for the cruel mix of hard work and good luck (or good work and hard luck) which decides our fate? Maybe we can find out by watching a talent show. Or maybe we can ask Síomha Ní Ruairc, presenter of TG4’s An Ríl Deal and Réalta agus Gaolta. She tells Peadar and Darach about how Gaeilge opened doors for her on her route to television work, growing up with Irish in the home and the right amount of boldness. Plus, Darach admits to an act of youthful delinquence. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. That’s a quote attributed to the Roman senator Publius Syrus, who also said that a good reputation is more valuable than money. We hear a lot on the radio and in the news about how much Irish costs. But what do costs mean outside the context of value? We know that a car or house might be insured for one amount, sell for different figure and be taxed based on a third value. If value is so uncertain for something so physical, how do we measure it in something as abstract as a language? Placing a value on intangible assets - goodwill, a brand name, the difference between a print and an original - is tricky but not necessarily impossible. In today’s episode, Darach, Clodagh and Peadar welcome Osgur Ó Ciardha back to the Motherfoclóir studio. He explains some of the valuation concepts used in business for such intangibles, especially when they are linked to the unique selling point of another entity, such as tourism or the existence of the state. And as the concepts of cost and value are intimately connected to the idea of private ownership, we ask if Irish belonging to all of us actually makes it more precious. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we in Ireland think of Irish-America, our minds tend to rush towards rivers died green, New York cops and maybe even a Massachusetts political dynasty. But there’s a lot more to the story than that. In particular, the Appalachian region, crossing multiple states, has its own culture and identity distinct from its neighbours in the South and Midwest, of which Irish music and language have made a significant contribution. In this week’s episode, Darach and Peadar chat to Rebecca Wells, a singer in Nashville, Tennessee. She tells the lads about her Appalachian roots, the influence of Irish music on bluegrass and other musical traditions, the overlap between accents and dialects and the way what you call a can of carbonated drink is an indicator of where you are from. She also tells the story behind her Twitter handle @faoiltighearna and her favourite Irish word. Rebecca’s band Paper Ravens are on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3IDMk7CcFgOyFIgN69Qkj8?si=lrULNBjWSUGxbHDugXVzVw --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen. Sure lookit. Na Daoine Uaisle. The fairy folk.. We wouldn't want to be bothering them. In this week's episode, Gearóidín, Peadar and Darach tiptoe around the delicate business of addressing the folk of the otherworld. What do those beautiful weirdos want? Síofras? Sex? Gold? We also consider which Irish people might actually be from the faerie/sí community. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What a year. What a week. What a decade! It’s Christmastime again and Darach, Peadar and Gearóidín have met up to reflect on the passing of time. In this week’s episode they look at the 2010s as the decade when the Irish language and social media became acquainted with each other, starting with the #sneachta hashtag and ending with an election in our neighbouring state that has made hitherto hypothetical questions about identity and Irishness more urgent. We consider the memes and Irish words of the decade, the beginnings of @theirishfor and Pop Up Gaeltacht and the traditions of activism, community and dialogue that informed the big changes of the decade in this island, which have been a part of Gaeilge all along. We also remember Iris Robinson and the men who surrounded her, the first viral story of a decade bookended by DUP humiliations. And Niall Horan, who our Laois Legend may have met and completely forgotten. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If this episode of Motherfoclóir is exactly as long as your psychotherapy session, maybe that’s not a coincidence. Poor old Podcast Dad Darach is on the couch this week, whining like a man-baby about his terrible, afflicted adolescence at a Jesuit school. The experience gave him a lifelong suspicion of the order and their academic output, up to and including the jewel in the crown of the Irish Texts Society - Foclóir Gaeilge Béarla by Father Patrick S. Dinneen. In this week’s episode, Peadar and Darach discuss the Rathmore priest’s game-changing foclóir, a marvel in publishing with two first editions (one on either side of the formation of the Free State). They share some best-loved entries, consider his Brubdignagian feud with Padraig Pearse and reflect on the influence of the Typewriter-Stenography School industrial complex on the content of subsequent dictionaries. Oh, and there’s kissing. A whole lot of kissing. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After five years of preparation and development, the RIA have released “A History of Ireland in 100 Words” in 2019. The book looks at the stories behind words found in the Academy’s Dictionary of the Irish Language (www.dil.ie) in an accessible way. Naturally, it was ony a matter of time before the Motherfoclóir team hunted them down! In today’s episode, Éimear and Darach chat to Sharon Arbuthnot, one of the three authors of this book. She talks about the collaborative writing process, how people in the middle ages were not so different from ourselves and about putting herbs in your ears when you go for a swim. You can buy “A History of Ireland in 100 Words” at good bookshops and see their word of the week at www.dil.ie --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maynooth holds a special place in the heart of this show. Two of the core crew - Éimear and Peadar - are Maynooth graduates, and our most popular episode to date is a sensational live show at the Maynooth Students’ Union featuring a difficult rooster. Today we’re considering another aspect of that university’s gift to the world - specifically, its gift to Irish hip hop. Tebi Rex, one of Ireland’s most exciting hip hop groups, formed in the hallowed halls of the Big Kildare Priest Factory and on today’s episode, Darach, Gearóidín and Peadar are joined by Dafe Orugbo, one half of the dynamic duo. Dafe tells the gang about how Gaeilge played a role in the band forming. He has plenty to say about the world within the Maynooth campus as well as their influences, his love of Kate Nash, the terror of writing sexy songs that your Mam might hear… and his favourite Irish word. Tebi Rex’s new album “The Young Will Eat The Old” is out now. https://twitter.com/TebiRex/status/1174828612584972288 --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s Dublin Podcast Festival time again! This year the Motherfoclóir gang appeared as part of a double bill with The Irish Passport at The Button Factory on November 17th. This episode is the live recording of that show, edited for brevity and clarity. In a world where so many TV and movie franchises have grinded to a halt or are on hiatus, Darach wanted to alert Hollywood to the fact that Irish history, literature and mythology has a wealth of untapped source material for them to consider for the Next Big Thing. In this episode, he talks to Peadar, Gearóidín and Éimear about the blockbuster potential of An Táin (served two ways), Georgian Dublin and the race against time that was the drafting of the constitution. The common link between all these stories appears to be a bunch of ‘rock lads absolutely sending it on their holiday in Thailand. A new epic poem, perhaps? The Motherfoclóir gang are joined by Tim McInerney and Naomi O’Leary from The Irish Passport for the Q & A at the end of this episode. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 2010s will go down as an extremely significant decade in Irish literature in both of our official languages. The bailout and its aftermath affected the country heterogeneously and the literary scream in response to this uneven scourging was delivered in uneven voices: younger, more rural, less aspirational, more accented. While the Celtic Tiger wrote about the recent past with the smugness of a returned backpacker dropping off a year’s worth of laundry, these new voices had a distinctly different sense of the past, the present and the future… and everything in between. It was in this environment that Lisa Coen and her business partner Sarah Davis-Goff set up Tramp Press, an independent publisher which has released two Books of the Year in the past three years, as well as clocking up a dizzying array of other prizes. In today’s episode, Lisa talks to Darach about the circumstances that gave birth to this publishing phenomenon and the mission that drives them forward. She explains the significance of the company’s name and of tramps in Irish literature. She schools Darach’s big jackeen head on the secrets of Shoe Corner and the nearest ATM and tells of the urgent relevance of the outsider’s stories. And yes, they talk about Irish too! You can find out more about Tramp Press at https://www.tramppress.com --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Support for this episode comes from Foras na Gaeilge - https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the most talked about, well loved and critically acclaimed TV shows of the past year has been the second season of Fleabag, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s titular character finding an unlikely connection with an Irish priest. The pressure put on their mutual attraction by his vow of celibacy is a rich source of comedy and drama. This is not the first time such a topic has been examined by a long shot, however. In today’s show, Darach chats to Peadar and Clodagh about Cúirt an Mheán Oíche by Irish literature’s favourite one-hit wonder, Brian Merriman. The Midnight Court is satirical in both form and content, and Clodagh explains how conventions of Aisling poetry are taken and turned on their head in this masterpiece. Peadar tells how the social issues complained about in the poem such as late marriage and clerical celibacy are still relevant today, and Darach predictably does a bit of name-dropping. This week’s episode is sponsored by Foras na Gaeilge, celebrating 20 years of promoting the Irish language. Is í ar dTeanga Féin í! #Foras20 --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to our annual spooky Samhain episode! Darach is joined by Peadar and Gearóidín to share their best Irish haunted house stories. Hear all about Mag from Laois, mischievous Gertrude Curran from Rathfarnham and the terrifying secrets of Lep Castle. Please mind your pets this Hallowe'en. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Order from www.dropchef.com using the code “MOFO” mentioned in this podcast for a €15 discount --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is a lovely morning in the village, and you are a horrible season. That's the view of Motherfoclóir's Clodagh McGinley, who is unimpressed by the golden leaves, soft sweaters and pumpkin spice lattes that mark the autumn months. In today's bonus episode she joins Darach to discuss some autumnal words, plant names and vegetarian vocabulary…. and that annoying ad with the guitarist at the laundrette. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Order from www.dropchef.com using the code “MOFO” mentioned in this podcast for a €15 discount --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Darach, Ola and Peadar are joined by bilingual broadcasting superstar Hector Ó hEochagáin. Since his breakout success with the Amú series in the early 2000s, Hector has become one-name-famous and one of Ireland’s best loved broadcasters. In this week’s episode he tells the gang how he found his way into the television world, how TG4 is like a family and the importance of making a simple human connection in a world of extremes. He also talks about his travel through America’s Deep South for his new show, “Hector USA - Ó Chósta Go Cósta”. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Order from www.dropchef.com using the code “MOFO” mentioned in this podcast for a €15 discount --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every few months on the Irish side of the internet, a certain debate pops up about the spelling of a word. The word refers to convivial merriment, especially in an Irish context. But should it be spelled crack or craic? The reason this discussion can withstand multiple rounds of debate hinges on the way that the word and the stories of its origins overlap with other recurring debates: on Irish identity and smugness, on Gaeilge and if/when it stopped giving new loanwords to English, and on contrarianism itself. This week, Darach and Gearóidín are joined by Senior Film Critic of the Irish Times, Donald Clarke, who has written about this phenomenon on more than one occasion. He tells the gang about his own lived experience as an Irish migrant in London during Italia 90 when he noticed a change in the spelling and frequency in the term’s use. The gang consider the pivot in Irish identity and perceptions of Ireland around this time and consider if feelings towards the word reflect feelings on this transition. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Order from www.dropchef.com using the code “MOFO” mentioned in this podcast for a €15 discount --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The changes in Irish self-identity in the 2010s hinge on the rise of social media, especially how those networks completely altered the way two perennial features of Irish society - emigration and Gaeilge - fed back into the national conversation. A generation of young people who left Ireland after the bank bailout were able to stay in touch with developments and debates in Ireland, culminating in #hometovote but also feeding into other discussions, such as “the way it's taught”. For many abroad, the Irish language connected deeply into feelings of identity and homesickness, leading to them reconsidering their relationship with it. One such fáinleog was Kirsten Shiel, a Dublin artist who found herself in Bolton and Manchester before her heroic return home. In today’s episode, Motherfoclóir’s artist talks about how she returned to Irish and to Ireland, the business of being an artist and the complicated geopolitics of the animation business and the role of translation. She also tells Darach about her work process for illustrating every episode of the podcast you love so much, and how every Gael online wants a Shiel original portrait. --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Order from www.dropchef.com using the code “MOFO” mentioned in this podcast for a €15 discount --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Switzerland is one of those countries that doesn’t pop up in the news very often but appears to be ticking along nicely. In this regard it is not unlike Norway, another country that has chosen to keep an arm’s length relationship with the European Union. Now, as Brexit approaches, these two countries are among the models of post-divorce custody being considered by Britain and the EU. But what is Switzerland really like? In particular, what can this multilingual, neutral, financial powerhouse teach a country like Ireland? Clare O’Dea should know; she’s an Irish journalist who has been living there for years and is the author of “The Naked Swiss”, a book which dismantled myths and cliches about that country. Her new book “The Naked Irish”, seeks to do the same about Ireland. In this week’s episode, Clare chats to Darach about Switzerland’s love of referenda, the differences between Swiss German and German-German, Johnny Logan, Anglo-Irish relations as seen from a safe distance… and her favourite Irish word, of course. Find out more about Clare and buy her books here: https://clareodea.com --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Order from www.dropchef.com using the code mentioned in this podcast for a €15 discount --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s a tale as old as time - boy meets girl, boy is married, girl wants to break boy’s wife’s legs. Or maybe it’s the simple story of a girl in love with a cobbler, forbidden to go to the fair and waiting for a fairy godmother who will never come. Or maybe it’s the entirely relatable fable of an utterly livid goat? Hibernophile and occasional Mary Black backing musician Steve Martin once said that talking about music is like dancing about architecture. But Steve has never seen Darach’s sensual rhumba representing the construction of Georgian Dublin. But as you cannot hear this dance on the podcast you must listen to a discussion of music instead. This week Darach is joined by executive producer Peadar Ó Caomhánaigh and Donegal diva Póilín Ní Géidigh. The topic for discussion is the treasury of lyrics in traditional Irish music and how their expressiveness is lost in translation to mere English. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Order from www.dropchef.com using the code mentioned in this podcast for a €15 discount Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Only a game designed by nerds would have charisma as a fantasy power” Gravity Falls A few weeks ago, Orla Ní Dhúill wrote a blogpost that got tongues wagging across the internet. The issue she wanted to address was the phenomenon of the Irish language being used as a kind of public-domain Klingon or Dothraki across fantasy novels and roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons. Naturally, we had to have her on the show! In today’s episode, Orla chats to Peadar (the others are “resting”) about how jarring it is to see Irish text used as narrative Polyfila, as well as how half-understood Irish mythological entities turn up in such storytelling formats. It’s a journey that goes from Tir na nÓg to America and back, involving the elf IRA, the salmon of knowledge and highy practical armour bikinis. You can find out more about Orla here: https://naturallyorla.com --- Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/ Order from www.dropchef.com using the code "MOFO" mentioned in this podcast for a €15 discount --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is our hundredth episode! We are delighted to still be here and even more thrilled that you, are listeners, are still here. To mark this august occasion, Darach, Clodagh and Peadar have dipped into the mailbag to see what’s vexing ye all this week. Expect unusual chicken salads, terrified Slovenians, language learning tips and maybe even the occasional non-glottal stop. --- Please visit www.dropchef.com and use the promotional code given in today’s episode. Dropchef match your order with meals donated to children in need. --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When German-Morroccan DJ Mousse T recorded the song “Horny” in 1998, he surely had no idea that he was creating a Pompeii-like cultural artefact, one that preserved evidence of what a world was like minutes befoe it changed forever. The local slang of a town or of a neighbourhood is part of its cultural treasury. Are new words - be they loanwords of neologisms - an addition or a subtraction from this treasury? What makes some neologisms catch on (text, the verb) and others flounder (talkie)? What makes some slang words break out of their linguistic communities and go national (like shift) or global (like woke)? If languages are the currencies of the mind, what is the exchange rate of words? In today’s episode, Peadar and Darach consider Ireland’s affectionate loyalty to certain regional slangwords (langer, shift, gowl) and HibEng’s openness to certain global English trends. Does saying “men are trash” mean we’ve accepted trash as a fitting replacement for rubbish? If we ask for “ballpark figures”, have we conceded to refer to Croke Park as a ballpark? Most importantly of all, does the transfer of vocabulary from one community to another represent a submission to the values and objectives of the donor culture? These questions and more are considered in the context of how the internet, mobile phones and pop music have impressed themselves upon English dialects since 1998. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the 2010s draw to a close, we’ll be looking back at one of the most significant decades in the Irish history since the Civil War. It is a decade that began and ended with wēijī (crisis-opportunity) moments for Ireland’s relationship with the European Union, as well as two landmark referenda that sparked a wave of activism. So who better to chat about all this with than Lisa Nic An Bhreithimh? Lisa works at European Movement, an NGO promoting the work of the EU in Ireland. She was also involved in the Irish language flanks of the referenda on Marriage Equality and on the Eighth Amendment. She tells Darach about being a critical friend to the EU, the opportunities Irish has created and its role in campaigning and the importance of language in creating tolerance and understanding. You can find out more about the European Movement at https://www.europeanmovement.ie and about ShoutOut at http://www.shoutout.ie --- DropChef is the number one fresh ingredient & recipe delivery service in Ireland. Check out this week’s menu by going to https://dropchef.com/?utm_source=mofo and use the code ‘mofo’ to get €15 off your first DropChef delivery --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Irish for a Prime Minister is Príomh-Aire; Taoiseach is specifically the title of the Prime Minister of Ireland and it comes from the old word for a tribal chief. This word is still used on the Nuacht on those occasions when an African tribal chief is in the news - older listeners might remember references to “An Taoiseach Bhutelezi”. This isn’t the only time that Irish and African imaginations have dreamed the same dream. When Chinua Achebe set about to write his great novel, Nigeria was not yet an independent state and gripped by a debate on language not unlike that in Ireland. He chose a line from a poem by W.B. Yeats to name his story about the collapse of a social order. What inspired him to do so? In today’s episode, Ola Majekodunmi chats to Darach about “Titeann Rudaí as a Chéile”, Irene Duffy Lynch’s Irish language translation of “Things Fall Apart”. She tells Darach about the place of the novel in Nigerian culture in contrast to European novels set in Africa, the positive and negative lessons that Achebe took from Ireland and considers other African novels she’d love to see translated as Gaeilge. Today’s episode also includes a contribution from the lads at “Pints of Malt”, Headstuff’s Nigerian-Irish podcast, on Achebe’s masterpiece and their experiences with Irish. --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The concept of the “silly season” is arguably a dated one in the era of 24 hour news and social media; it dates back to a time when daily newspapers had to fill gaps created by the closure of houses of parliament, higher courts and lulls in the sporting calendar. In some ways, the silly season is all year long now. But in another way, Ireland’s national obsessions with Leaving Cert results, social class and our self-image reaches fever pitch in August, culminating in some terrible hot takes about the state’s policy of access to Irish through the education system. Are Gaelscoileana elitist? Is Irish ableist? Are photos of Peig next to articles about the 2019 curriculum relevant? Are Irish language activists a menacing influence on innocent, harmless, agenda-less policymakers? In today’s episode, Darach, Peadar and Gearóidín look at the key recurring points and try to address them as succinctly as possible. Do you have strong feelings too? Please email us at [email protected] and keep the conversation going. --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices