Monday’s Irish class was a change: Instead of the usual program, all three classes (I am in the lowest level) got together for a single large meeting. The first thing we did was a name match exercise: Given an English name, find the Irish equivalent. We had both first and last names to work with. Some are well-known, e.g. Mary=Máire. Others called for more thought. Thus you get Sweeney=Mac Suibhne because the Mac was dropped in the process of Anglicization. I realized that Rebecca=Riobhca by thinking of the Hebrew form Rivka. Sometimes there is a full translation: Daisy=Nóinin. In some cases there are multiple possibilities, and in others there may be no obvious answer. A Polish name was simply rewritten using Irish spelling rules. Looked a little odd, but it came out the same when pronounced correctly as Irish.

We were working in groups on this, and, as always here, nothing was turned in, let alone graded. The point of the exercise was made clear afterwards: Gaeltacht Minnesota has a table at the St. Paul summer Irish Fair. There they provide Irish name tags for anybody who asks. So this evening they were looking for volunteers, and were trying to convince us that we could do this. With the Twin Cities becoming more multi-ethnic this requires increased imagination and creativity: The visitors may be Chinese, Indian, Hmong, Somali, etc. I said I was interested, schedule permitting.

Later a couple people talked about their experiences at Irish language immersion workshops in the Gaeltachts (Irish speaking areas) of Ireland. Very intense, but by all accounts a great experience. These are always in small villages, so there is a lot of contact with the people and the culture. The only evening entertainment is the local pub, but nobody complained. In fact, it was a chance to practise their Irish. Much more fun than a language lab!

Somebody passed around some Irish books, one of which was the bilingual 500 Mallacht Ort (500 Curses). Friday at colgaffneyis Night at the Pub someone asked about Gaelic cursing, so this seemed like something I should have. So yesterday I searched for a place to order a copy. As you might have expected I ended up buying it from Ireland. For the sake of cosmic balance I also ordered 500 Beannacht (500 Blessings). Yes, I know, this is Irish rather than Scottish Gaelic, but the two languages are still quite close.

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to find two e-mails from the store. One was an automated notice, in English, that my order had been shipped. The other was signed Caitlín, saying thank you for the order (in Irish), and that they had considerably lowered the shipping charge (in both Irish and English).