Munster Irish

Munster Irish is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Munster. Gaeltacht regions in Munster are found in the Gaeltachtaí of the Dingle Peninsula in west County Kerry, in the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry, in Cape Clear Island off the coast of west County Cork, in Muskerry West; Cúil Aodha, Ballingeary, Ballyvourney, Kilnamartyra, and Renaree of central County Cork; and in an Rinn and an Sean Phobal in Gaeltacht na nDéise in west County Waterford.

History

The north and west of Dingle Peninsula are today the only place in Munster where Irish has survived as the daily spoken language of most of the community although the language is spoken on a daily basis by a minority in other official Gaeltachtaí in Munster.
Historically, the Irish language was spoken throughout Munster and Munster Irish had some influence on those parts of Connacht and Leinster bordering it such as Kilkenny, Wexford and south Galway and the Aran Islands.
Munster Irish played an important role in the Gaelic revival of the early 20th century. The noted author Peadar Ua Laoghaire wrote in Munster dialect and stated that he wrote his novel Séadna to show younger people what he viewed as good Irish:
Peig Sayers was illiterate, but her autobiography, Peig, is also in Munster dialect and rapidly became a key text. Other influential Munster works are the autobiographies Fiche Blian ag Fás by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin and An tOileánach by Tomás Ó Criomhthain.

Lexicon

Munster Irish differs from Ulster and Connacht Irish in a number of respects. Some words and phrases used in Munster Irish are not used in the other varieties, such as:

in aon chor or ar aon chor "at any rate" and ar scor ar bith
fé, fí "under"
Gaelainn "Irish language", Gaeilinn
ná "that...not" and nách "that is not" as the copular form
leis "also"
anso or atso "here" and ansan or atsan "there" instead of standard anseo and ansin, respectively
In both demonstrative pronouns and adjectives speakers of Munster Irish differentiate between seo "this" and sin "that" following a palatalised consonant or front vowel and so "this" and san "that" following a velarised consonant or back vowel in final position: an bóthar so "this road", an bhó san "that cow", an chairt sin "that cart", an claí seo "this fence"
the use of thá instead of tá in the extreme west of Corca Dhuibhne and in Gaeltacht na nDéise.
the preposition chuig "to, towards", common in Connacht Irish and Ulster Irish where it developed as a back formation from the 3rd person singular preposition chuige "towards him" is not used in Munster. The form chun, also found in the West and North, is used in preference.
Munster Irish uses a fuller range of "looking" verbs, while these in Connacht and Ulster are restricted: féachaint "looking", "watching", breithniú "carefully observing", amharc "look, watch", glinniúint "gazing, staring", sealladh "looking" etc.
the historic dative form tigh "house", as in Scots and Manx Gaelic, is now used as the nominative form
Munster retains the historic form of the personal pronoun sinn "us" which has largely been replaced with muid in most situations in Connacht and Ulster.
Corca Dhuibhne and Gaeltacht na nDéise use the independent form cím "I see" as well as the dependent form ficim / feicim , while Muskerry and Clear Island use the forms chím and ficim.
The adverbial forms chuige, a chuige in Corca Dhuibhne and a chuigint "at all" in Gaeltacht na nDéise are sometimes used in addition to in aon chor or ar aon chor
The adjective cuibheasach is used adverbially in phrases such as cuibheasach beag "rather small", "fairly small", cuibheasach mór "quite large". Connacht uses sách and Ulster íontach
Faic, pioc, puinn and tada in West Munster, dada in Gaeltacht na nDéise, ní dúrt pioc "I said nothing at all", níl faic dá bharr agam "I have gained nothing by it"
The interjections ambaiste, ambaist, ambasa, ambaic "Indeed!", "My word!", "My God!" in West Munster and amaite, amaite fhéinig in Gaeltacht na nDéise
obann "sudden" instead of tobann in the other major dialects
práta "potato", fata in Connacht and préata in Ulster
oiriúnach "suitable", feiliúnach in Connacht and fóirsteanach in Ulster
nóimint, nóimit, nóimeat, neomint, neomat. nóiméad in Connacht and bomaite in Donegal
Munster differentiates between ach go háirithe "anyway", "anyhow" and go háirithe "particularly", "especially"
gallúnach "soap", gallaoireach in Connacht and sópa in Ulster
deifir is "difference" in Munster, and is a Latin loan: níl aon deifir eatarthu "there is no difference between them"; the Gaelic word deifir "hurry" is retained in the other dialects
deabhadh or deithneas "hurry" whereas the other major dialects use deifir
Phonology

The phonemic inventory of Munster Irish is as shown in the following chart. Symbols appearing in the upper half of each row are velarized while those in the bottom half are palatalized. The consonant is neither broad or slender.
The vowels of Munster Irish are as shown on the following chart. These positions are only approximate, as vowels are strongly influenced by the palatalization and velarization of surrounding consonants.
In addition, Munster has the diphthongs.
Some characteristics of Munster that distinguish it from the other dialects are:

The fricative is found in syllable-onset position. For example, bhog "moved" is pronounced as opposed to elsewhere.
The diphthongs,, and occur in Munster, but not in the other dialects.
Word-internal clusters of obstruent + sonorant, +, and stop + fricative are broken up by an epenthetic, except that plosive + liquid remains in the onset of a stressed syllable. For example, eaglais "church" is pronounced, but Aibreán "April" is .
Orthographic short a is diphthongized before word-final m and the Old Irish tense sonorants spelled nn, ll.
Word-final is realized as, e.g. marcaigh "horsemen".
Stress is attracted to noninitial heavy syllables: corcán "pot", mealbhóg "satchel". Stress is also attracted to in the second syllable when the vowel in the initial syllable is short: coileach "rooster", beannacht "blessing", bacacha "lame".
In some varieties, long is rounded to.
Morphology

are characterized by having a mixture of analytic forms and synthetic forms in their conjugation. Munster Irish has preserved nearly all of the synthetic forms, except for the second-person plural forms in the present and future:
Some irregular verbs have different forms in Munster than in the standard :

Munster independent	Munster dependent	Standard independent	Standard dependent	Gloss
chím	ní fheicim	feicim	ní fheicim	"I see, I do not see"
chonac	ní fheaca	chonaic mé	ní fhaca mé	"I saw, I did not see"
deinim	ní dheinim	déanaim	ní dhéanaim	"I do, I do not"
dheineas	níor dheineas	rinne mé	ní dhearna mé	"I did, I did not"
chuas	ní dheaghas/níor chuas	chuaigh mé	ní dheachaigh mé	"I went, I did not go"
gheibhim	ní bhfaighim	faighim	ní bhfaighim	"I get, I do not get"

Past tense verbs can take the particle do in Munster Irish, even when they begin with consonants. In the standard language, the particle is used only before vowels. For example, Munster do bhris sé or bhris sé "he broke".
The initial mutations of Munster Irish are generally the same as in the standard language and the other dialects. Some Munster speakers, however, use as the lenition equivalent of in at least some cases, as in a rí "O king!", do rug "gave birth", ní raghaid "they will not go".

Syntax

One significant syntactic difference between Munster and other dialects is that in Munster, go is used instead of a as the indirect relative particle:

an fear go bhfuil a dheirfiúr san ospidéal "the man whose sister is in the hospital"

Another difference is seen in the copula. Fear is ea mé is used in addition to Is fear mé.

Notable speakers

Some notable Irish singers who sing songs in the Munster Irish dialect include Nioclás Tóibín, Elizabeth Cronin, Labhrás Ó Cadhla, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Seán de hÓra, Diarmuid Ó Súilleabháin, Seosaimhín Ní Bheaglaoich and Máire Ní Chéilleachair.
Four of the most notable Irish writers as Gaeilge hail from the Munster Gaeltacht: Tomás Ó Criomhthain whose most well-known book is the autobiographical An tOileáineach . Peig and Machnamh Seanamhná by Peig Sayers was a fixture on the secondary school Irish syllabus for several decades. The other two authors are Muiris Ó Súilleabháin with Fiche Bliain ag Fás and Eilís Ní Shuilleabháin's Letters from the Great Blasket.

Literature

Gaeltacht na nDéise, Co. Waterford]