I need some help with the correct translations and pronunciation for some Irish words in a series of novels I am writing that takes place in Ireland. Specifically the Doolin/County Clare area. One of the books has a lot of focus on Kilronan, Inís Mór, Aran Islands. I am an American author and a majority of my readers will speak American English. I will have a glossary in the front of each book with Irish words, pronunciation and meaning as well as Irish slang and it's meaning. Here's the Irish names/words/statements I've go so far and the translations I've found. They're probably wrong, since every website I checked had a different translation. Please let me know if I got any of the symbols within the words wrong as well. I greatly appreciate any help you all can be!

Brigid - Pronounced Bridge-id

Eijit - Pronounced aye-git Meaning: idiot

Mo Grá - Pronounced muh-ghraw - Gaelic for ‘my love’.

Oisin - Pronounced oh-ee-shen - meaning ‘little deer’.

Niamh - Pronounced Neeve

Tuatha De Danann - Pronounced Two-ah-hah De Don-non - children of the Celtic goddess Danu.

Fomoire - Pronounced fwhem-id-ah

Falais - Pronounced Fall-eece - One of the four great cities of the Tuatha De Danaan. Associated with Lia Fáil

Lia Fáil - Pronounced Lee-ah Fail - aka - Stone of Destiny - One of the four Irish Treasures of the Tuatha De Danaan. The stone would cry out beneath the true king of Ireland.

Gorias - Pronounced Gore-us - One of the four great cities of the Tuatha De Danaan. Associated with Lugh’s Spear.

Lugh’s Spear - Pronounced Loo - One of the four Irish Treasures of the Tuatha De Danaan. No battle was ever sustained against it or against the man who held it.

Murias - Pronounced Mord-us - One of the four great cities of the Tuatha De Danaan. Associated with Dagda’s Cauldron.

Dagda’s Cauldron - Pronounced Day-Duh - One of the four Irish Treasures of the Tuatha De Danaan. Could satisfy any hunger and heal any wound or sickness.

Findias - Pronounced Fin-dee-us - One of the four great cities of the Tuatha De Danaan. Associated with the Sword of Nuada

Sword of Nuada - Pronounced Know-Dah - One of the four Irish Treasures of the Tuatha De Danaan. No one ever escaped from it once it was drawn and no one could resist it.

Sidhe - Pronounced Shee

Isle of Érie - Pronounced ay-rah

Tir na nÓg - Pronounced Teer - Na- Nug

Hy-Breasail - Phantom Isle

Bean mo chroi - Pronounced bann-muh-kree - meaning woman of my heart.

Sláinte - Pronounced Slawn-cheh - meaning health.

Na dean sin - Pronounced naw-dane-shin - Meaning Don’t do that.

A grá mo chroi - Pronounced ah ghraw muh kree - Meaning love of my heart.

Déithe thuas - Pronounced De-hih -thew-us - Meaning gods above

Álainn - Pronounced awl-in - Meaning beautiful.

Mo chroi - Pronounced muh kree - Meaning my heart.

Róisín Pronounced ro-sheen - Irish for ‘little rose’.

Níos láidre le chéile, le chéile i gcónaí Pronounced Niece lay-dreh lay shay-lah , Lay shay-lah ee go-nee Meaning ‘Stronger Together, Together Always’

Maeve - Pronounced May-v - name meaning brings great joy

Alban Eiler - Pronounced Ahl-bahn eye-lir - meaning Light of the Earth, for the Vernal Equinox, where day and night are the same length. Also celebrates the beginning of Spring.

Ocras - pronounced Ah-kris - meaning hunger

Sárálainn bean - Pronounced Sard - ah - lynn - Bhan - Meaning ravishing woman

Ceann óg -Pronounced Kyone Ug - Meaning dearest one

Some of the spellings and most of the pronunciations are wrong.

Here are the first few for ya:

Brighid – breed

eejit – EE-jit

mo ghrá – There's no English pronunciation for the "gh" sound; I'll leave it to other people to try to explain that one. By the way, if you're going to be using the vocative, you'll be saying a ghrá – just letting you know

Oisín – oh-SHEEN (this one will vary in different dialects)

Niamh – NEE-uv

There, that'll get you off to a good start

* edit: Oh, one last thing that I forgot to mention: If the folks in the story are native speakers from County Clare, the Aran Islands, etc., I recommend using the pronunciations in the dialects from those areas (or someplace nearby).

I just have to point out a few things:

"Eijit" (or, as WeeFalorieMan correctly has it, "eejit") isn't Irish, it's Hiberno-English (basically, a phonetic rendering of "idiot"). If you want an Irish term, use "amadán" for a man or "oinseach" for a woman.

It's "Éire," not "Érie." That said, it sounds odd to have the word "island" in English and then use the Irish name. I'd say either "Island of Ireland" or "Oileann na hÉireann."

You've got some misspellings too, which I'll correct.

Here's more, with a more or less standardish pronunciation, but again, WFM is correct in that, if your story takes place in a particular part of Ireland, you'd do best to get the pronunciation that natives of that area would use.

WFM already did some of these...I'm just including them here for clarification.

Corrections to the Irish in red. Notes in italics.



Definitely wait for more input on these.

Redwolf

I agree with most of the above by Redwolf and WFM.

Just a couple of points:

For "The Island of Ireland" I'd use Oileán na hÉireann ILL-awn nuh HEH-rhun /il´ɑ:N Nə he:r´əN/ with a síneadh fada on the a in oileán. This phrase is in Dinneen's dictionary (1927).

láidre LAW-jih-rih rather than LYE, especially in that area.

ocras OCK-russ (which might be the same as ah-kris in American English, but ah would be wrong for those English speakers who distinguish between a and o, so the OP might like to bear that in mind if she wants to keep the option of going international one day. )

Déithe thuas - as an exclamation/invocation the vocative would be required, i.e., "a dhéithe thuas !" uh YAY-heh HOO-us, or you can say Dar na déithe thuas ! "By the gods above" DAR nuh JAY-heh HOO-us

With regard to Bean shárálainn*, sár- tends to be prefixed to nouns rather than adjectives. The following might work instead:

Sárbhean álainn "beautiful excellent woman" SAWR-VAN AW-lin or
Bean rí-álainn "Extremely beautiful woman" BAN REE-AW-lin

These are descriptions. If the lady is being addressed directly, again you need the vocative case:

A shárbhean álainn "O beautiful excellent woman" uh HAWR-VAN AW-lin or
A bhean rí-álainn "O extremely beautiful woman" uh VAN REE-AW-lin

Ceann óg doesn't sound right. Duine óg DIN-yeh OHG maybe. Vocative = a dhuine óg uh GHIN-yeh OHG. (GH being the voiced equivalent of KH) An alternative might be:

a thaisce mo chroí "treasure of my heart" uh HASH-kih muh KHREE


Some missing from above:

Na Fomóirí - Pronounced nuh fom-OR-ee or nuh FOM-or-ee

Lia Fáil - Pronounced LEE-uh FAWL(y)


Await further input ...

_________________

---

WARNING: Intermediate speaker - await further opinions, corrections and adjustments before acting on my advice.
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Damn...knew I was going to forget a fada somewhere!

I was going to add (and forgot)...AuthorAmandaMeridith, in addition to considering region when looking for pronunciations (there can be considerable differences), you might also want to consider era. I mentioned in a couple of those above (Brighid and Sidhe) that the contemporary spellings differ from what you have there (Bríd and Sí, respectively, is the contemporary spelling). If your stories are set in modern Ireland, and not referencing older texts, you might want to use more contemporary spellings. What you have isn't wrong, but consistency is a good thing (which is also why I mentioned that it seemed odd to use the Irish spelling of Niamh and the Anglicized spelling of Méabh).

Also, as an alternative to the "sár-" issue, a common term for an extremely beautiful woman is "spéirbhean" (pronounced, roughly, "SPAYR-van"). That's used a lot in songs, so would be recognizable.

Redwolf

Happens to the best.


Just adding also:

Dagda DAY-dhuh, where dh is a soft th.
Nuada NOO-uh-dhuh, also with a soft th

_________________

---

WARNING: Intermediate speaker - await further opinions, corrections and adjustments before acting on my advice.
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Unless you are talking about two different sets of books, the Aran Islands are in County Galway these days, tho I don't know how the islanders would have viewed themselves years ago

_________________
__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

You are all being so very helpful and answering so quickly! I didn't expect to have this many answers this soon!

So to generalize to way you phrase a statement to someone: when speaking TO someone, the word á is used. When speaking OF someone, the word Mó is used?

And to clarify: All four books take place in and near Doolin Ireland. The third book, one of the main characters is from Kilronan so his dialect might be different? From what I've read, Inishmore is more traditionally Irish speaking? The book spends a majority of time in Doolin but the 2 main characters do visit Kilronan.

As for timeline: I didn't specify what year it was in any of the books but it does take place in modern day Ireland.

To answer your questions one by one:

1) Yes, pretty much. Specifically when you're addressing someone, e.g., when you're calling him or her by name, a nickname, an endearment, etc., you have to use the vocative case, which includes the vocative particle "a" and lenition of the initial consonant, as well as, occasionally, other changes. If you're speaking about the person, you do use "mo" (my), but where you place it depends on the phrase.

For example, if I'm just talking ABOUT Breandán, I use his name as-is:

"Duirt Breandán 'cad é mar atá tú?'" (Breandán said "how are you?")

But if I'm addressing Breandán using his name, I have to put it in the vocative case:

"A Bhreandáin, cad é mar atá tú? " (Breandán, how are you?)

Be careful, though: the vocative particle is "a," not "á." The presence or absence of an accent mark in Irish changes both the pronunciation and the meaning of some words, and constitutes a misspelling if it's placed where it doesn't belong (or left off where it DOES belong). If you look at my corrections of your Irish, you'll see that some of the changes I made involved accent marks (and Breandán corrected my lack of an accent in "oileán" as well). It really is an important detail, so you'll want to be extremely careful. Carelessness in this regard can change the name of the country (Éire) to a burden (eire)!

2) Your people from Doolin would speak Munster dialect, while your people from the Arans would have the Connacht dialect. Yes, there will be differences in pronunciation in some instances, as well as differences in usage and local idioms. Think of it as the English spoken in Alabama vs. the English spoken in New York...same language, but different pronunciations and expressions.

3) If you're in modern-day Ireland I'd use contemporary spelling, unless a character is referencing a historical text.

Redwolf

In the third book, the character from Inishmore only has a few words he uses in Irish. Most of the time he speaks English (learning a few words in Irish is already hard enough, lol) So when he speaks Irish it would be the Connacht dialect.

What's the proper spelling of Inishmore? Inis Mór? And is Kilronan right?

Here’s some of the the Connacht speaker uses:

Alban Eiler - Pronounced - Ahl-bahn eye-lir - a festival celebrated for the vernal equinox

Sárálainn bean - Pronounced Sard - ah - lynn Bhan - Irish for ravishing woman
I know this is a confusing one. I want to use a word that’s a little more sensual than just beautiful. Here’s the sentence it’s used in: “Or he did’na have a feckin’ clue what to do with such a sárálainn bean.”

He was referring to himself as an eejit when he did something stupid but i changed it to amadán. Would that word/pronunciation work for an Connacht dialect as well?

a dhuine óg-Pronounced uh GHIN-yeh OHG - Irish for dearest one. What would be a word used in Inishmore like sweetheart, my sweet, my darling, instead of this? The sentence I’m using it in: “Maggie… ceann óg. That almost feels too good,”

The Inishmore character’s name is Brendan, which is the common spelling here in the US. Would it be different in the Connacht dialect?


What’s the proper spelling/pronunciation when referring to the bathroom in Ireland? I have the Munster dialect speakers saying toilet or loo and the Connacht speaker saying jacks. Is that okay?


As for Brigid, it was originally Bridget but all the sites suggested Brigid as a more common spelling in Ireland. Should it be spelled Brighid? She is sometimes called Brig (said like the word bridge).


Ocras - pronounced ock - russ - meaning hunger - This one would be very old Irish pronunciation/spelling