a couple of days in Gweedore
I arrived in Gaoth Dobhair (anglicized as Gweedore) last Friday, and the week that has followed has been overwhelming in the best way. The first thing I noticed was, of course, the beautiful scenery in this Gaeltacht. My host family’s house is surrounded by mountains, hills, green grass, and sheep.
The language course has been challenging so far, but it’s a good level of challenge. Since our class has a mix of intermediate and advanced speakers, I fall towards the bottom in terms of language acquisition–there’s a lot of Irish that I don’t know yet! However, this just means I have a lot that’s available for me to learn, and I’m already making great progress with it. For example, some phrases that I’ve heard native speakers use are commonly seanfhocal, literally translated as “old words”. The most interesting ones have been taught by my professor.
For example, the phrase “Tús maith leath na hoibre” has come up in conversation more than a few times, both with my professor and with a guest speaker. The phrase means “a good start is half the battle” (very applicable to the challenging start of my course here!). Another phrase that I’ve learned is “Tá saol an mhadra bháin aige”, translating directly as “he has the life of the white dog”. This meaning is less clear, but it’s similar to the English saying “he’s living the dream”.
Both of these phrases have been used by people born in Ireland who have been learning the language longer than I’ve been alive. It’s quite clear from the prevalence of such seanfhocal that the rich history of Irish permeates into the daily lives of modern speakers. I think that, as I continue learning Irish, I’ll pick up some great seanfhocal along the way and work it into my vocabulary.
Here’s one more picture from this past week:
Go raibh míle maith agat, and slán go fóill!