Gaeilge briste is well known to be better than Bearla cliste.
But with the Irish now taking first place in the Áras, as new Uachtarán Catherine Connolly pledged in her inaugural speech this week, how is the quality of her caint?
In an ominous preview of what the next seven years of Park-watching are going to be like for well-meaning non-Honours Irish students, Connolly prompted some confusion when she uttered in her Dublin Castle speech her rousing “Ligimis don Ghaeilge bláthú”, or “let us allow Irish to bloom”.
Because when the Áras issued the official transcript, an F had wormed its way into one of the words, rendering it “Ligfimis don Ghaeilge bláthú”. This F, inaudible though it was, made the word possibly future tense, or conditional, but certainly grammatically unusual.
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Despite appearing in the official text of the speech, the more Gaelic end of the media, including Tuairisc and the Conradh na Gaeilge X account, left the F out of their reports. Overheard would have a tendency to be sticking to the simpler tenses in most languages, but our curiosity was piqued as to what the correct answer was.
So we asked Dr Aidan Doyle of Roinn na Nua-Ghaeilge at University College Cork, a linguist, translation expert and author of texts including “Covert and Overt Pronominals in Irish” and “Split intransitivity in Irish and the syntax-semantics interface”. It seemed like he might know.
Without the F, said Dr Doyle, we have “the 1st person plural of the imperative”, which is used “very rarely”. With the F, it would be the modh coinníolach, or conditional tense – “but this would be dependent on a preceding main clause – for example, Ba cheart go ligfimis don Ghaeilge bláthú”, in which case the sentence would mean “It would be right that we should allow Irish to bloom”.
The imperative – “let us allow” – would seem, in Dr Doyle’s view, to be correct, meaning red pen for the Áras’s homework on the very first day of the new regime.
“I would classify the official error as a very minor one, given that the two forms are very close in native speech and completely identical in the speech of even advanced learners like the President,” he said.
“If I got something from a student and they were even trying to use the imperative, I’d be so astounded that I wouldn’t notice a spelling error, [and would] probably give them first class honours.”
This is a good start, on balance.
Calendar issues
Emma Little-Pengelly, the DUP Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, was not there to witness this grammatical rarity first hand, opting instead for Remembrance-related activities in Belfast and Windsor Castle.
She also missed Connolly’s invocation of Article 3 of the Constitution, which is to say, given all caveats about identities, traditions and consent, we want a united Ireland, thank you very much.
It never had a great chance of working out for Little-Pengelly. Ireland finds itself in a situation where the presidential inauguration could well clash with Remembrance Day, when Britain remembers its war dead, forever.
The Constitution mandates that the president “shall hold office for seven years from the date upon which he enters upon his office” (the gendered language is De Valera’s fault, not Overheard’s). Not “up to seven years” or “around seven years” but for seven years, barring death, removal or resignation.
The inauguration didn’t fall on November 11th in the past, but between the jigs and the reels (the timing of Mary Robinson’s resignation, primarily), it landed on November 11th for Mary McAleese in 1997. And then stayed there in 2004, 2011, 2018 and 2025.
If Catherine Connolly serves a full term, the next inauguration will be on November 11th in 2032. And so on in seven-year increments until the end of time, until scandal or plague should strike. This does make scheduling difficult for devolved deputy FMs, should the office persist.
The worst job in Ireland
Do not say you weren’t warned if you apply for what Ryanair describes as “the worst job in Ireland”. The company, fresh off the news that they will bin paper boarding passes to reduce the number of frills to a record-low level, advertised such a position on LinkedIn with an ominous set of warnings.
“Reporting directly to ... you guessed it ... Michael O’Leary,” according to the post, the job is that of financial assistant to the opinionated marketeer. Are you “thick-skinned”? “Brave”? “Caffeinated”? “Slightly mad”? Can you take the plain speaking that O’Leary likes to dole out on talk radio appearances and presumably in the office? It might be the gig for you.
The post by the airline’s HR head Mark Duffy suggests that Dublin, Leinster or Manchester United supporters need not apply, so Overheard is ruled out on three grounds, but you may not be. In spite of the hard talk, Ryanair is bound by the same employment legislation as all other Irish businesses, so it can’t be that bad.
The salary is given only as “competitive”, but you can get the bike to work scheme – and several top Ryanair executives have made their leaps to corporate high office after holding the position in the past.
Christmas resurrected
Some weeks ago, Overheard declared Christmas in Limerick cancelled as a result of the decision by directly elected John Moran to put a stop to a Christmas market he felt wouldn’t be up to scratch.
Christmas, however, endures. That market was pencilled in for the O’Connell monument, and it won’t be going ahead, but another market will be going ahead as usual: Christmas at the Milk Market, a pre-existing market not subject to mayoral approval.
Overheard may, while posing a philosophical puzzle regarding the relatively desirability of a bad Christmas market versus no market at all, have implied that there was no market in Limerick at all, which is very much not the case, as several Limerick people helpfully highlighted.
The Milk Market’s festive bonanza kicks off on December 5th, with main dates every Friday to Sunday up to Christmas Eve, incorporating an art fair, a record fair and an antique fair in the run-in. Santa will also be present. There will be food and drink, craic and crafts, and undoubtedly much, much more.
