Tag Archives: irish

“Putting the Gay in Gaeilge! ;-) “

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Blag Shomhairle. If Irish is truly a living language, you have to be able discuss contemporary issues using it.

With a subtitle like that I was surprised to see picture of a clergyman in the Saint Patrick’s Day post. On closer examination the discussion appears to be about the Church of Ireland (Anglican), rather than the Roman Catholic Church. If I can find the time this weekend (hah!) I will try to figure out what it is saying. There a picture of a book with the title Leabhar na hUrnaí Coitinne. A quick look at my Irish Dictionary confirmed my guess that this was the Book of Common Prayer. Quite a change from when what was then the Church of England in Ireland was trying to eradicate the Irish language.

Brewing notes–Dry Stout

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I am brewing a batch of beer now, a dry stout in honor of the day. It is based on Northern Brewer’s dry stout kit. The kit uses 1 lb. roasted barley, a 6 lb jug of malt extract, and 2 oz Kent Goldings for bittering hops and 5 gallons of water. I am looking for about a 6 gallon brew, so I added another 1.4 lbs of malt extract. I also used a cup of chocolate malt that was just sitting around.

Here is where things get interesting: I replaced 1 oz. of the Kent Goldings by 2 oz. of homegrown Nugget hops from our 2005 batch (stored in the freezer). We harvested these a little too late in the season, so they were past their prime. Hence going up to 2 oz. This is the purest guesswork.

Just finished the boil. I filled the bathtub with cold water and put the pot in it to cool. This will take a while, during which time I will clean the primary fermenter.

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig!

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(Happy Saint Patrick’s Day)

Cosc ar bheoir uaine!

(Avoid the green beer)

We went down to the Landmark Center for the St. Patrick’s Day celebration, staying inside and avoiding most of the drunken crowds. We listened to a short concert of songs in both Irish and English by the Giggin’ Siles, an a cappella group of women from Gaeltacht Minnesota (they badly need a web site of their own). Afterwards we wandered around for a bit, saw some singing and dancing, and got a bit of lunch from an Italian place across the plaza–faster and better than the cliché corned beef inside. At 2 PM my shift at GM’s information table began. We were on the main floor, so we got a lot of traffic and some serious inquiries. We went home when my shift finished at 3, avoiding the worst of the drunken crowds.

The class geek

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From the web site of my Irish class

We played a game with Will’s students [the advanced class] as the quizmasters and the rest of the students worked in teams to answer the questions. Wes and Terri had an interesting way of working as a team that was very successful and fun to watch and Glenn was able to answer the question regarding what num pad combination on a PC was needed to make ‘é’ [Alt-0233]. It was a pleasant way to do some review and something we might do “anois ‘is aríst” [now and again].

A Small Connection

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In Irish you don’t count people in the same way you count things. In particular, “two” as in “two people” is beirt rather than dó or dhá. This came up in class last night, and for some reason it stuck in my mind.

On my way home from work I remembered that long (35+ years) ago at Carleton I had learned an Irish dance called Siamsa Beirte, which we were told translates roughly as “play for two”. A quick check in an Irish dictionary this evening showed that siamsa means “amusement”. Close enough.

So now I understand the name of the dance and the tune better than I did way back then. It has taken a while :-)> Still, I am pleased that I could make the association.

I have forgotten the dance–I don’t think I ever did it after graduation in 1972. However, I clearly remember that it was fun. I would like to learn it again.

Diet, Ethnicity, and Heart Disease

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Found at Scéala na Wombait in Irish and English. Here is the English:

The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans.

On the other hand, the French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans.

The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans.

The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or the Americans.

Conclusion: Eat and drink whatever you like. It’s speaking English that kills you.

Saturday

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As so often happens, I was quite tired from the work week last night, and went to bed about 9 PM, sleeping until 8 AM today. The forecasted snowstorm had not yet left much on the ground, so about 10 AM I drove into Minneapolis. As I wrote last month, Irish Books and Media was going out of business. Their lease expires at the end of the month, so today the owners were having a big move-out event. I have been involved in countless moves over the last 35+ years, including two previous bookstore closings. Most of the friends I have helped move have large collections of books, as do Mia and I, so I have a lot of relevant experience :-)>

This was one of the best moving sessions in my experience. There were plenty of people there to help, and lots of tools for taking down the shelves. I helped package several pallet loads of books to be trucked away, took down some furnitures, and hauled lots of boxes, bookshelves, and whatever. I also helped take a truckload of books to Irish on Grand in St. Paul. We got pizza for lunch, as is almost universal at such events. One of the pizzas was Pizza Lucé‘s “Pizza Athena”–the best commercial pizza I have had since we moved to Minnesota. The plan had been to work all day Saturday and Sunday. By 2 PM Saturday we were finishing up, and the owner was cancelling Sunday’s session.

So, with more of an afternoon than I expected, I drove down to c_nocturnum‘s, for colgaffneyis “camp drill”–a sewing and fabric work session today. mia_mcdavid and rillapins were there, along with a couple other members and haddayr, who had just joined. It was a pleasant time.

We are back home now. The much-heralded snowstorm seems to be finally here, but we have done our important weekend things. I am particularly pleased that the bookstore move went so well–they don’t need to worry about tomorrow’s weather. We hope to go to church and visit Tom tomorrow, but if we are snowbound we will be fine.

A day off

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….because of the Presidents’ Day Observance. I accomplished the first and foremost objective of any day off: Sleeping in. During the rest of the morning I helped mia_mcdavid with the process of “warping” her loom, for the Ulster tartan plaid she is weaving for me. Not difficult work, but it took a while. I am never going to be able to listen to Captain Kirk talk about “warp speed” in quite the same way again.

In the early afternoon the three of us ran a couple errands, then went for a two mile walk along Snelling Avenue. Bookstores at both ends gave this some additional definition and motivation, although I did not buy anything.

Over the course of the three day weekend I have done some organization of historical research materials that I had scattered about the house. They will be much more useful now, and in fact going through them I noticed a couple more references that are relevant to an ongoing discussion in colgaffneyis.

Lord Mungo’s Irish Counterpart

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Many of us in colgaffneyis know about John Michael Wright’s portrait, from c. 1680, of the young Highland aristocrat Lord Mungo Murray. I recently learned that the same artist also did a portrait of an Irish Jacobite nobleman, Sir Neil O’Neill, 2nd Baronet of Killeleagh.

There are some interesting points about this:

  1. Sir Neil is wearing trews, traditional dress known in both Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, but scorned by the establishments in London and Dublin. Similarly Lord Mungo is shown in a belted plaid, Highland dress that would have been considered barbaric in Edinburgh. It may not be a coincidence that the artist, like Sir Neil, was a Catholic. Perhaps this was a protest against the Protestant establishments that ruled England, Scotland, and Ireland.
  2. He is armed with traditional weapons, a shield (larger than a Highland targe) and a javelin (his servant in the background has some spares). These weapons were of course long obsolete: The Irish had been effectively using firearms for about a century. Their appearance here seems to be symbolic, showing that he is really an Irish nobleman.
  3. The doublet is very similar to Lord Mungo’s. Either it was quite the fashion in some quarters, or the artist really liked it.
  4. At his feet is an incomplete suit of Japanese(!) armor.