The Pronunciation and Spelling of Modern Irish

Some initial observations:

• Spoken Irish has only a few sounds not found in some dialect of English.
• Irish has a unique spelling system, quite different from the English one.
• Irish spelling, although complicated, is actually much more regular than English spelling (!).

The following summary is intended to cover only the broad principles of spelling and pronunciation. The English sounds used to show the value of the Irish letters are sometimes only approximate, although they are always reasonably close. You should consult a textbook for the fine points, which vary somewhat from dialect to dialect.

I. Word Stress:

Except for a few common words with an unstressed prefix, all words are strongly accented on the first syllable.

II. The Vowels:

Irish has both short vowels and long vowels. The long vowels are generally indicated in writing by an acute accent.

The long vowels are:

• í as in sí pronounced “shee”
• é as in sé pronounced “shay”
• ú as in tú pronounced “too”
• ó as in bó pronounced “boe”
• á as in tá pronounced “taw”

(This is the same “a” as in the BBC pronunciation of “law” or “walk”. )

There are three combinations of letters that are always pronounced as long vowels, even though they do not have the acute accent:

• ae as in lae pronounced “lay”
• eo as in eol pronounced “ohl” (to rhyme with “hole”)
• ao as in lao pronounced either “lay” or “lee”, depending on dialect

The short vowels are:

• i as in in pronounced “in” (as in English)
• e as in te pronounced “teh” (more about the “t” sound below!)
• u as in rud pronounced “rud” (like the u in Enlgish “put”)
• o as in cos pronounced “cos” (o as in German “Gott”, or in English “goat” said without rounding the lips)
• a as in mac pronounced “mahk” (like the a in “father”)
• ea as in bean pronounced “ban” (like the a in “cat”)

Short vowels differ from long vowels in one important respect. They are given their full pronunciation ONLY in the first syllable of a word. In all other syllables, they are all reduced to the neutral “uh” sound of English “but”. The same thing happens in English, where “Benjamin” is pronounced “BEN-juh-muhn”. Thus the Irish word for Irish, “éireannach”, is pronounced “AY-ruh-nuhkh”.

There are two important diphthongs that you should recognize, both written using a combination of vowels and consonants:

The “ow” diphthong, as in “ow, I stubbed my toe”:

• abha as in abhann pronounced “own” (to rhyme with “clown”)
• amha as in samhradh pronounced “sow-ruh” (like a female pig)

...and the “eye” diphthong:

• agha as in aghaidh pronounced “eye”
• adh as in Tadhg pronounced “tiger without the -er”

III. The Consonants:

Except for “h”, all Irish consonants come in two flavors, called “broad” and “slender”. Basically, broad consonants are pronounced with a “-w” off-glide, and slender consonants are pronounced with a “-y” off-glide. Broad consonants are always written with the letters a, o, or u next to them. Slender consonants are always written with the letters i or e next to them. Examples:

Slender “b”

• beo (byoh)
• bí (bee)

Broad “b”

• bó (boh)
• buí (bwee)

In speech, the difference between “beo” and “bó” is only the y-glide heard in “beo”. Likewise, the difference between “bí” and “buí” is only the w-glide heard in “buí”. As a result of the need to show the broad or slender qualilty of all consonants unambiguously, a consonant in the middle of a word cannot be flanked on one side by an “i” and on the other by an “a”. For exmaple, if you wrote “misa” the pronunciation would be uncertain. Do you mean a word that sounds like “MISS-uh” or one that sounds like “MISH-uh”? If you mean MISS-uh, you need to write “miosa”, so the “s” is clearly broad. If you mean MISH-uh, you need to write “mise”, so that the “s” is clearly slender. (Slender “s” is pronounced “sh”, as in Seán, Sinéad, etc.)

English uses combinations of letters to indicate a single consonant sound, such as “ch” in “church” and “sh” in “shape”. Irish does the same sort of thing, only there are more of them. Here is a basic list of the values of these combinations, which can be either broad of slender, depending on the adjacent vowels:

• bh (broad) = w
• bh (slender) = v
• ch (broad) = ch as in German “Bach”, Scottish “loch”
• ch (slender) = ch as in German “ich”, or h
• dh (broad) = gh as the g in Spanish “abogado” or Greek “avgolemono” (this is the voiced equivalent of the “ch” in “Bach”); usually silent except at beginning of words; see a textbook on this!
• dh (slender) = y
• fh (broad) = silent
• fh (slender) = silent
• gh (broad) = same as broad dh
• gh (slender) = y
• mh (broad) = w
• mh (slender) = v
• ph (broad) = fw
• ph (slender) = fy
• sh (broad) = h
• sh (slender) = h
• th (broad) = h
• th (slender) = h

Irish also has another set of consonant combinations at the beginning of words that result from an initial mutation called eclipsis. These are pronounced as follows (with broad and slender versions in each case):

• mb = m as in “na mban” (nuh mahn)
• gc = g as in “i gcarr” (uh gawr)
• nd = n as in “i ndán” (uh nawn)
• bhf = w as in “an bhfuil” or v as in “a bhfile” (uh will)
• ng = ng as in “i ngairdín” (ng as in English “king”) (uhNGAHR-jeen)
• bp = b as in “na bplátaí” (nuh BLAW-tee)
• dt = d as in “i dteach” (uh dyakh)

In every case of eclipsis, all you do is pronounce the first consonant and ignore the second, except for “ng”, which is pronounced together as the “ng” in “thing”.

IV. Examples

Here are some samples of Irish words, some of which you may encounter in books or e-mail, to further illustrate the principles discussed above: