Hello to all! I'm brand new here, and I am seeking your help in translating a phrase recently sent to me. Unfortunately I don't know enough to be more specific with my post (from your "Welcome" info). My "educated" guess is that it came from a novel, or a poem(?). I'm not sure if there is a bit of misspelling as well. Anyway here is the phrase, verbatim. I would like to know the translation and if you know the Book, poem, etc, I would appreciate that as well. I thank you all for helping me to understand better.

Imtheochiaidh soir is siar ..A dtainig ariamh...An ghealach is an ghrian...

It’s got a couple of typos; it’s supposed to be:

Imtheochaidh soir is siar, a dtáinig ariamh an ghealach is an ghrian

It’s the first couple of lines from Clannad’s song Theme from Harry’s Game (from the album Magical Ring, 1983), which—as the title suggests—was made for the soundtrack to the BBC (?) tv series Harry’s Game. It was the first song in Irish ever to make it to Top of the Pops.

This line means, “I shall go east and west, whence once came the moon and the sun”. You can find the full lyrics with translation here

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

Doesn't it mean "All that ever came/was, the moon and the sun, will go 'east and west'"?

Huh, I never really thought of it like that. I got the translation (once upon a long time ago) from somewhere that had some kind of comment from the band about it, confirming that the translation usually given (the one above) is right.

It’s kind of formulaic and not really standard anything (dialect or otherwise), but the a here is ‘short’ for as a or óna … and imtheochaidh is probably supposed to be a pseudo-classical synthetic form for the first person singular, though I don’t think such a synthetic form has ever existed (if anything, it ought to have been something like imreagh). Poetic licence, I guess.

But yeah, if you just look at it from a grammatical viewpoint and the forms that are actually there, you’d get something like what you said.

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

Hello, and Thank you so much for the translation. I find it interesting that you would mention "Clannad" since I have listened to some of their music recently. The link, and the breakdown was also quite helpful, and quite interesting. And here I was thinking that it may have came from James Joyce. Kudos to you!!!