Articles on the Irish language, folklore, history and place-names — from anglicised surnames and Ogham to fairy forts and the festivals of the Celtic year.
A free, friendly home for learning the Irish language and falling for the culture behind it. Here's what Love Irish is, and how to begin.
As September arrives, its Irish name places you exactly in the year: Meán Fómhair, “the middle of the harvest”. A look at the Irish September — its name, Michaelmas and the turn of autumn.
For four centuries, Irish was written in Cló Gaelach — the flowing Gaelic type with its séimhiú dot and its little symbol for “and”. Here is the story of the old script, and why the ‘h’ was once a dot.
Most Irish town and townland names are anglicised Irish words hiding in plain sight. Learn a handful of elements — baile, cill, dún, cnoc — and you can read the map of Ireland.
Before it was Halloween, it was Samhain — the Irish festival that opened the dark half of the year, when the door to the Otherworld stood ajar. Here’s where our Halloween really comes from.
Irish spelling looks intimidating but is remarkably regular. Learn the fada, broad and slender consonants, séimhiú and urú — then hear every sound in a native Munster voice.
On 1 August, Lúnasa opens the harvest — the assembly of the god Lugh, the Tailteann games, and the hill-climbing pilgrimages that survive as Reek Sunday.
Opposite Samhain on the wheel, Bealtaine lights the fires of summer on 1 May — driving the cattle between the flames and opening the bright half of the year.
On 1 February, Imbolc marks the first day of spring and the festival of Brigid — goddess, saint, and now the namesake of Ireland's newest public holiday.
The old Irish year turned on four cross-quarter festivals — Imbolc, Bealtaine, Lúnasa and Samhain. Here is the wheel of the year, and how its four spokes still shape the seasons.
The Irish names for the months and seasons carry the old Celtic year inside them — where spring begins in February, and four ancient festivals still mark the turning of the year.
A Smith and a McGowan can be the very same Gaelic family. Here's how English law and English-speaking clerks turned Mac Gabhann into Smith — and how to trace your own name back.
Those grassy rings no farmer will plough through are 1,500-year-old ringforts — and many hide a secret souterrain underground. Here's what they are, and the folklore that kept them safe.
Ogham is the earliest writing in Ireland — strokes carved into standing stones over 1,500 years ago. Here's how it works, why the letters are named after trees, and how to write your own name in it.
You don't need fluent Irish to support a child in a Gaelscoil. A free printable sheet of 41 everyday phrases — questions about the school day, praise, and greetings for the múinteoir — each with simple pronunciation.
The Irish language, Gaeilge is one of the oldest living languages in Europe. If you're learning it, you're connecting yourself to a linguistic tradition that stretches back over 2,500 years. To put that in perspective, Irish is more than a thousand years older than English as we know it today.
The Irish call proverbs seanfhocail — "old words." Here are five of the most loved, and the quiet wisdom tucked inside each one.