Gaelic - Blog Posts

rip chibs telford you would have had a love hate relationship w the band kneecap

there is no reason for “sean” to be pronounced “shawn”

EYO, I GOT SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK YOU

Hello friends,

I’m curious about something—and I love collecting empirical data (maybe it’s the autism/j 🤔). I wanted to do something about it,

So, I have some questions:

1. How many languages do you speak? (You can include ones you’re not fluent in, but please specify)

2. What are they?

Follow up: how many of your friends speak the same language(s)?

3. Where did you grow up (Country, state, province or whatever)?

Follow up: Describe your neighborhood to me, was it nice, bad, expensive, cheap, etc.

4. How financially well off were you as a child?

Follow up: If you feel comfortable sharing, what was the income your parent(s) made?

5. What ethnicity are you?

6. What job do you have now?

Follow up: And if you feel comfortable sharing, how much money do you make? (Also, please add if your pay is salaried or hourly)

Finally, what are some interesting facts about your language?

This is for a little project of my own that I’m doing. I know there are some issues in the school system (I’m an American, what do I expect) and I got curious. I want to see how many factors play in to the amount of languages someone speaks.

Most of the time, education is expensive—at least in the U.S it is (our public school system is shit). Yet, languages seem to be an outlier. The prissy rich white kids that can barely speak English, let alone a lick of Spanish, present an exception to the rule (education is expensive).

Also, a lot of my friends speak more than one language, but the American school system requires them to learn two while *in school*. Also, a lot of them speak languages that aren’t taught at my school— like Tagalog, Hindi, Gujarati, German, Russian, etc.— and I’m wondering if there’s a pattern to it.

Bíodh lá maith agat a chairde agus Que tengan buen día amigos

Does anyone else on the pagan community feel genuine love for their deities? Not in the romantic sense, but more in the way you love a family member. It's especially strong coming from a religion where you never felt a genuine connection to "your" God. You felt fear, obligation, confusion, curiosity, and maybe love on some level, but this love is different.

It is finally understanding the feeling people around you described from being in church every Sunday. It's growing up finding the congregation's hands in the air, the singing and crying, the raw emotion to be... unusual, strange. What were they feeling? How can I feel this way? You try to forge that connection, but you're never successful. You start to doubt the God you grew up with. You wonder if he hates you, or if you're not trying hard enough — if you're broken.

...Then, one day, you find what you've been searching for all this time, somewhere else. You experience the feeling of finally meeting your soulmate, finally finding your place or your tribe. You experience the pure joy, the peace, the childlike wonder, the longing, the wisdom, the bond, the reverence, the admiration. You experience an unfamiliar tightness In your chest when you pray to them or make offerings.

I've never felt more in love than I am with my gods. Ive never felt more at home, more at peace.

I hope to feel this way for the rest of my days, because what is life without the gods? What is life without something beyond this world, yet at the same time, an integral part of understanding the meaning of existence on this physical plane — on this planet?

Winter vocab in Irish ❄

geimhreadh: winter

sa gheimhreadh: in winter

Nollaig: December

Eanáir: January

Feabhra: February

fuar: cold

aimsir fhuar: cold weather

sioc: frost

gaoth: wind

báisteach: rain

sneachta: snow

fear sneachta: snowman

liathróid sneachta: snowball

oighear: ice

geansaí: jumper / sweater

cóta: coat

lámhainní: gloves

scairf: scarf

This was a home once - Part I

Winter ball Alyx

The Origins of Fairies

Fairies are magical creatures, and all manners of children are obsessed with just the mention of them. Not to mention the Disney-ified version of fairies like ‘‘Tinkerbell’’. But where or what was the was the origination of ‘fairies’? How did people come to call these magical spirits ‘fairies’? And where did the word ‘fairy’ come from, and how has the meaning change over the centuries?

Well, the first question, what are the origins of fairies, or ‘fairyland’? Fairies are most widely mentioned in Gaelic literature, meaning Ireland, and are vastly integral to the people and culture. ‘Ireland is the country of Fairies. Fully to understand the Irish temperament, therefore it is necessary to know Ireland’s Fairy lore. Since the Fairies are mentioned first and most frequently in the literature written in the Irish languages of centuries ago, we must turn for information to the great mass of poems and stories from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. The Fairies of ancient Ireland belonged to a race known as ‘Tuath De Danaan’ came to Ireland, legend says from the ‘northern isles of the world, where they had been learning lore and magic and druidism and wizardry and cunning until they surpassed the sages of the arts of heathendom.’ ’’

Why then, have the mention of fairies been connected to the feminine, and feminine ideals? Because beauty standards rely heavily on gender, and ‘fairies’ with their magical art forms, have become twisted and their original ‘conquering form’ forgotten, and what better way to reinforce this than by using children’s fairy tales, which emphasizing women’s beauty and passivity, which serve to legitimize the dominant gendered system. ‘‘Research since the early 1970s has shown that children’s literature contains explicit and implicit messages about dominant power structures in society, especially those concerning gender. Fairy tales written during the eighteenth and nineteenth were intended to teach girls and young women how to become domesticated, respectable, and attractive to a marriage partner and to teach boys and girls appropriated gendered values, and attitudes.’’

Finally, where did the word ‘fairie’ come from? ‘‘They were at first, as established up above, called the ‘De Dannans’, who came to conquer those who were already in possession of Ireland, but were overcome with the ‘Mileasans’, a mythical race said to be the ancestors of modern Irishmen, and settled in a seperate part of the island, retiring into the green hills, where they required a new name: People of the Fairy Mound, or Aes Side (Ace Shithe, or Shee). As clouds are shot through with lightning, so is early Irish literature with accounts of invaders who became the Fairy Folk. ‘In Ireland, the Fairies have never been forgotten’: Brian Merriman, the last Gaelic poet of prominence, speaks of them as the treasure of his country in time of trouble, and Patrick MacGill, the Donegal poet, expressed the same idea when, amid the terrors of the battlefield, he wrote, ‘If we forget the Fairies,

And tread upon the rings,

God will perchance forget us,

And think of other things.

When we forget you, Fairies,

Who guard our spirits’ light:

God will forget the morrow,

And Day forget the Night’’.

.

Rose Betts - Take This Body Home (Lyric Video)

Rose Betts voice is Sunday morning angelic.

Ed Sheeran - The Parting Glass (Studio Version) + lyrics

This is a beautiful & eerie song. 🎶☘️🍀