Motherfoclóir: Dispatches from a Not So Dead Language

by Darach Ó Séaghdha

A humorous investigation of the Irish language.

Genres: Nonfiction, Ireland, Irish Literature, Language, Linguistics, Humor, Reference

225 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Darach O'Séaghdha is the author of popular twitter account @theirishfor whose followers include Dara O'Briain, Ed Byrne, Marian Keyes, Colm Toibin, and Gerry Adams.

Reviews

[Hazel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beatha teanga í a labhairt.

This book, and the Motherfoclóir podcast, are singlehandedly responsible for reigniting my interest in gaeilge. Aside from the handful of words that I use in everyday life (like bainne for milk), my Irish skills have rapidly declined in the decade since I sat my Leaving Cert Irish paper. This book is a brilliant introduction (or reintroduction) into the language for anyone.

Motherfoclóir is not a dictionary or a language guide. You may pick up a few words here and there, but don't expect to finish the book and be speaking Irish. What it is is a meander through the intricacies of an ancient language, beautifully interwoven with personal anecdotes and interesting facts. Motherfoclóir aims to instil a sense of curiosity and a respect for the language in the reader, and it succeeds. Darach's love for the language is both infectious and inspiring, and the anecdotes sprinkled throughout are warm and humourous.

"When I, as a teenager, complained about the difficulties of the Modh Coinníollach to my dad, he said that its difficulty was the whole point – the MC is a grammatical form for whingers, moaners and procrastinators. It is used for making excuses."

I initially read this on my Kindle, but half way through I was enjoying it so much that I also went out and also purchased a hard copy. It's compelling, charming and insightful. This book really is an Irish introduction not only to the Irish language, but also to the Irish mindset. Relevant political and cultural topics are touched upon without interrupting the flow and without pontification.

A highly recommended book for any lovers of language. It inspired me to restart learning Irish via the excellent Duolingo app.

[Deirdre · Rating 4 out of 5]

reader, I bought it... Actually I bought two, on the basis of the library copy. One for me and one as a Christmas gift for my dad who loves Irish. That was after getting about half way through and realising that I had a load of pieces of paper to mark the interesting words.
 
When I was a kid I remember the green dictionary that was written in the older script (cló Gaelach) - which, by the way, I can read, that had regular blank pages for you to add in words and meanings and it was covered by notes by both my grandfather and father and a few other hands.  Words have always fascinated me and I loved the idea of words that needed explaining in other languages. This book is a meandering stroll through a variety of words, sometimes words that sound like them and the usages. There's also a chapter about neologisms and a section on Irish pronunciation.
 
It's a very very geeky book but I enjoyed it hugely, I listen to the podcast, despite the terrible rendition of the national anthem either end.

[Ella · Rating 5 out of 5]

YES. This is what the Irish language needs. I even cried a little at the end.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointingly uneven.

There is about 25% of a 5-star book here: the writing really shines when the author is discussing their personal relationship with Irish, their memories and experiences and the way Irish life and Irish language intersect.

Sadly, the rest of the book has less substance than that. It is mostly a long series of vaguely related words: that sound similar, or look similar but mean different, or a funny-sounding idiom. Sometimes there are interesting observations around these words, but it wears thin very quickly. There are pages and pages of "here is one word with a fada, and another word without"

The best parts of the book are really gold, and I just wish it was more of that and less of the word lists.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a hard book to characterise. Part autobiography, part dictionary, the book explores the Irish language, its history and its quirks. The book is easy to read, and avoids bogging down on technicalities or becoming too academic. Instead, it dwells on interesting and amusing homophones and etymologies.
By dealing with words ranging from commonly used to archaic, it would appeal to audiences with only a "cúpla focal" of Irish through to native speakers.
I personally found the authors obvious love of the Irish language to be infectious, and the book has served as inspiration to continue my study of this beautiful, poetic language.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't expect to cry while reading this book, nor to find so many suitable and propitious words to describe people who annoy me. But that's what this is. I've followed the Twitter account for a while, but this book is a handy and well-organised compendium of some of the highlights (all I'd change would be to add an index).

Quick, funny, moving and a unique insight into Ireland and the Irish of the current moment (there's even a hipsters section!)

[clarachen · Rating 4 out of 5]

had me laughing out loud in public.

I loved Darach’s humour and approach to Irish - like it’s actual living language! Who knew?? -, but this work still has the same problem as 99% of books related to the Irish language that aren’t schoolbooks: a pronunciation guide at the beginning WILL NOT make the reader able to perfectly pronounce Irish for the rest of the book.

So while I had a lot of fun and the book is definitely written for generally English-speakers - you don’t need to know a single thing about Ireland, Irish culture or folklore -, it is more like a curiosity book about the Irish language. It is the kind of thing you might give someone as a gift, but it won’t be taken seriously.

If I hadn’t set my mind to studying Irish, this book wouldn’t necessarily have sent me in that direction. It is fun, and Darach’s personality contributes a lot to it, but it’s not a book that should be considered seriously when it comes to trying to make a case for keeping the language alive (in my humble opinion).

[Richard Mullahy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this for my gaelscoil-attending daughter but ended up reading it myself. The author provides a great service to the Irish language here. He evidently has a great love for the language and through this work the reader can see why. I certainly have more enthusiasm for it after reading this. And as someone who suffered the Irish education systems method of teaching the language that's something.

This is a very pleasurable read in general. The author displays a lightness of touch and humour in what is as much a cultural and personal memoir as a history and study of the language. He's very good on modern Irish culture and captures it in a way that brought a smile to my face at least. He captures something of the beauty of the language and how it came to be.

The pace does flag in parts as he describes long lists of thematically-linked Irish words and those parts do tend to drag after the first few such passages, but those passages are necessary and it doesn't detract too much, even though I found myself speed-reading (ie glazing over) some of those sections in the latter half.

This is also a call to arms in terms of reviving the use of Irish as an everyday language and makes imaginative suggestions as to how it should be learned. I hope people in the Dept. of Education and the teaching unions are reading this, taking on its message, and statr to put self interest aside to do what they have the power to do and make people love their native language.

[Grace Tierney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend gave me this book knowing I had an interest in unusual words, word history and dictionaries (because I blog about such things at wordfoolery.wordpress.com). What she forgot was that I do so about English words, in part because Irish was a struggle for me in school. However she's my oldest friend and she was right to give me the book because I truly enjoyed it.

It's a gentle meander through Irish both ancient and modern with detours for Brehon Law (hilarious) and elegiac references to the author's relationship with his father. His love for the language and country of his birth is clear and far more engaging than I expected. Personally the chapter about how to pronounce Irish names was overlong but I imagine it would be useful for a non-native.

I think this is one for those who fell out of love with Irish in school and for those who aren't born in Ireland but want to learn it anyhow (a large number of those about and although this isn't a text book, it will help inspire).

With house space at a premium now, I only keep the books I will read again or refer to. I'm keeping this one.

[Alicia Winokur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mé grá this book, so, so much. Like many Irish-Americans, I don't speak a lick of Irish but have at least one aunt with a cheeky póg mo thóin pillow somewhere in her house and at least one cousin named (of all things) Aisling. I started following @theirishfor a little over a year ago, right after I got back from a trip to Ireland, and fell in love with the linguistic puzzles of this not-so-dead language. So this book was the natural next step. It's true, it is part foclóir (dictionary), and some parts of that do drag on, but Ó Séaghdha does a masterful job of keeping the English-only speaker engaged with personal tales of his summers in the Gaeltacht, little quips, and just downright interesting facts about a language with an almost mythical quality. Which is all to say: even if you're not an Irish-American looking to take a speedboat back to where your ancestors came from, even if you don't speak or know any Irish, all that's needed to love this book is a little interest in language.

[Mary Quigley · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I had 3 wishes I'd wish that I never lost my Irish (or maybe that I could learn everything instantly, Matrix style) I've been reading this book in chunks alongside other books and I feel like I will always keep coming back to it for brilliantly apt Irish words and the lovely humour of it. No Irish is required to get full enjoyment out if it, it's full of charm and hilarious in parts and you'll definitely pick up a useful phrase or two to keep in your back pocket in case you ever get into an argument in the Gaeltacht!

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can really learn to speak some Irish from this book! But at the very least you will learn something about language and love and may consider why you have chosen particular words when speaking to certain people. The reason may have deeper and more tangled roots then you think. This book was a keen reminder of the Indigenous langauges of Canada its people who are fighting desperately to carry them back from the brink.

[Ruaidhri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Motherfoclóir is a fun little book. Worth it if you're trying to revive your basic and forgotten Irish from school, or if you're more fluent, or even if you have none of the language and want an insight into it.

Not really a phrase book or a grammar book - it's just fun words and phrases. Say you want to know how many words in Irish there are for seaweed, this is the book for you.

[Deborah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book but I didn't. It's a very patchy read (presumably because the source material is a Twitter account?) While it would be churlish to complain that a book that contains the word foclóir in its title has too many lists of words, it was the tenuous (or ostensibly humorous) links between the words that wore me down.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really really enjoyed this. It’s an excellent companion for anyone learning Irish, providing insights and laughs that increase the joy of that particular education. I loved it.

[Eva Müller · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has some very very interesting parts, but unfortunately also a lot of very very boring parts. I loved Ó Séaghdha's musings about the Irish language, its history and the special challenges a language that is not the mother tongue of a majority of the people in its country faces. The way he talked about his own experiences with Irish - falling in, out and in love with it again - were also beautifully written. Unfortunately, that's only around half of the book. The other half are ... word lists. Irish words that sound a lot like other Irish words, but mean something completely different. There's pages and pages of Here's a word that means this, here's another word, where the only difference is a fada, which means that. Which, for a book that very specifically states, that it's not a language learning textbook, is ... quite useless. And dull.

[Robin Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clever, funny and personal look at some of the strangest words of the Irish language. (14+)

*Please note: this review is meant as a recommendation only. If you use it in any marketing material, online or anywhere on a published book without asking permission from me first, I will ask you to remove that use immediately. Thank you!*

[Alisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

An actual dictionary may have been more interesting

[Joseph Barber · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good cultural revisitation. Interesting tidbits and a more than surface level look into a not so dead language.

[William Justus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don’t be fooled by the popularity of this book; it is still a dictionary. Like any dictionary it can be dull to the extreme, but Darach has succeeded in making it interesting in points. He chooses to define many words in Irish for which English is sorely lacking, and many of these are rather poetic. He also peppers in his personal experiences with the language, adding a sense of weight to the book. He has also addressed some of Ireland’s history with its language, which helps to inform the definitions. I will saw that his pronunciation “guide”, if it can even be called that, is the most unhelpful I have ever seen. I have been learning Irish for nearly a year now and I would have been ever more lost without that education. This is NOT a book for someone who knows nothing of the language. I also found issue with the unnecessary inclusion of Darach’s own political leanings when discussing words pertaining to the government. Granted, it is a light dose, but ultimately beside the point. If you are Irish and grew up speaking Irish, I’m sure this is a great book. For the rest of us, it’s just a kind of odd dictionary.

[Feargal · Rating 3 out of 5]

On pg 211, Darach Ó Séaghdha promises the reader he will not deviate from his "brief" in discussing his personal views on the subject of abortion as he understands the purchase of the book has been motivated by an interest in the Irish language.

Unfortunately, he fails to take a similar position with regard to various subjects throughout the book. Interesting and amusing etymological insights are dispersed between a very particular narrative interpretation of modern Irish history - banal, but bearing the status of dogma, among Ireland's liberal twitterati.

That said - I would give the book 3 stars rather than 2 based on the humorous etymology.

[Miriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was unexpectedly beautiful, touching, funny & thought provoking. Its the kind of book you can dip into and come away with something wonderful each time. I wasn't too bad at Irish in school but unfortunately I've forgotten most of it over the last 20 years. This book, the constantly entertaining Motherfoclóir podcast and Darach's twitter account have given me a new appreciation of the unique beauty of the language. It helped the language come alive to me as more than just a school subject or secret language to use (badly) when travelling abroad. I've even been brushing up on my cúpla focail since beginning the book. A great read!

[David Cowpar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not the usual type of book I would buy. But I loved it. My Irish is, sadly, abysmal, which is one of my big regrets in life. So I’m hoping to improve it a little. And this was a great way to start. What a fun, real, moving, and authentic book full of great vocabulary and phrases. The author is brilliant and I’ve been learning Irish without it being a chore. I’ll have to read this book again to get more words from it once I’ve learned the ones I picked out from this reading and I’d say it will be more used than mo fhoclóir for a little while!

[Shona · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful and fascinating read. Borrowed from the library but I will be buying my own copy so that I can refer back to it again, and again, agus arís.

[Siobhán · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining and educational

[Orla Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

ar feabhas! Bíonn a lán craic ann😍😍😍

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting insights into the Irish language but just too much randomness, random tables here and there and random debates or discussions about topics with very little Gaeilge.

[Fionnuala · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've just recently started getting back into learning Irish after falling out of practise when I left Ireland to go to university, and this book genuinely reminded me why I'm putting myself through it. Learning a language can often feel like a thankless task, and while there are brief flashes of encouragement along the way -- recognising a new word, realising you can understand/reply to a sentence -- very often it seems like a hopeless endeavour. This book really made me remember why I love the Irish language so much, and definitely made me all the more eager to bring speaking Irish back into my every day life.

This is exactly the kind of trivia that I love -- lots of anecdotes about the author's own relationship with the Irish language, and lots of interesting bits of information about the language itself. Throughout the book are countless interesting words: rare words, interesting translations, new words, words that sound similar but have vastly different meanings, and countless other examples of how diverse and strange the language can be. It's fun and humorous and often touching, and there's even the briefest of crash courses in pronunciation for those readers who speak only English. It also stresses the importance of fadas, illustrating in several lists how a fada makes all the difference in a word -- something I of course appreciate, having an oft-neglected fada in my own name.

My only criticism would be that on occasion, the book seems a little choppy. Sometimes the links between words are stretched a little, and other times the book seems to be heading towards a point that it never reaches or seems to abandon. There were a couple of moments where something was mentioned and then the subject abruptly moved on, which was a little frustrating, but honestly it doesn't detract from how interesting and often amusing this book is. It's worth reading, especially if you suffered through Irish in school and you're looking for a reason to give it another chance.

[Aine · Rating 4 out of 5]

An absolute delight.

Part memoir, part guide to the oddities of Irish, Motherfocloir is Darach Ó Séaghdha’s attempt to free the Irish language from the expectations of those who wanted it to be something other than what it was and is: a means of communication. Of a particular type of Irish teacher Ó Seaghdha says “The Irish language was never and end in itself for men like him; it was a talisman to protect us from modernity, technology, liberalism and change.”

Motherfocloir is about confidence. It’s about feeling confident enough not be afraid that speaking a language will make you seem like a terrorist or a snob. It also brings a sense of worldliness - a knowledge of other languages makes certain parts of Irish grammar familiar rather than bizarre. In that way it places Irish within a broader family rather than in constant opposition to each other.

Most importantly, Ó Séaghdha does much to dispel the idea of ownership of the language; no one has any more or less of a claim to the language because of their background or turn of phrase. It’s a language. We speak it, we own it.

“It’s my fervent wish that the Irish language never becomes a part of a Tea Party movement in Ireland. For all the thrills of Cúchulainn’s adventures and the delights of Brehon law, for all the exquisite poetry and wordplay Locke’s into the simplest sentences, treating the Irish language as a perfect place just out of reach does it a disservice. It tells us a lot about the way we were, but it’s still telling us about the way we are. All the good old stuff is still there but it’s still flexing and picking up new material.”

[J.A. Ironside · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was brilliant. I have so many new words now! I learned Irish from my Grandmother as a very small child and after she died, I only got to practice it occasionally. Of a necessity it was geared towards the practical and while I could read Irish with a bit of push, my written Irish was atrocious. In addition I was taught the Munster dialect which meant that there was a vocabulary gap on some things as well. This is not a how to book about learning Irish. This is more 'why?' I completely agree with the author that there are things you can say in Irish that just don't translate well to other tongues. The language itself is a piece of history and tells us a lot about the Irish mindset and identity. In fact it's fair to say that all languages carry markers of their evolution and it's valuable to more than just a hobbyist linguist (like me) to study those markers. We are not free to really 'be' unless we know who we are. If you're someone who learned Irish at school and hated being forced to learn it, you'll fin this book a refreshing change. The author delivers his musings with wit and doesn't get bogged down in politics or religion. Language can do many things - tell a story, record legalise, recite facts; it's never just one thing. Highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Irish.