Hi all,

I'm trying to work out how to translate the phrase "during the Covid-19 pandemic", and what I've come up with doesn't seem right to me:

i rith an phaindéim Covid-19

I know that in strings of genitives, in modern Irish at least, only the last noun takes the Genitive form. In this case, that's Covid-19, so no change. The other nouns in the genitive are, to the best of my understanding, typically lenited (with some exceptions? I'm not entirely clear on this aspect ). The difficulty here is that there's a definite article preceding paindéim, which would cause it to be lenited anyway if it's being treated as if it were nominative, and if we're going with the genitive form of the article, would require that the following word not be lenited (and take the genitive form?):

i rith na paindéime Covid-19

Can anyone clear up the details about strings of genitives like this for me please? Which of the above translations, if either, is correct?

It would also be great if anyone could suggest a good grammar book or resource which covers these more involved grammatical issues. The material I can get my hands on at the moment doesn't seem to cover it. Admittedly, my access to the library is somewhat limited by the lockdown, but I'm always looking for excuses to get more books for my own collection.

Thanks in advance.
Adrian.

There should not be an article before pandéim:

"COVID-19" is a definite term because it is the proper name of a disease (and grammatically because it is numbered: "COVID a naoi déag").
That's why "pandéim" is already definite: no article is needed.

The word pandéim is unchanged except for being lenited.

i rith phandéim COVID-19 - during the COVID-19 pandemic

Compare with:

i rith phandéim na Plá Móire - during the Black Death pandemic
i rith phandéim an Fhliú Spáinnigh - during the Spanish flu pandemic


http://www.braesicke.de/subst2.htm#doppgen (in German)

Got it. Thanks very much for the help, and for linked resources.

Better get working on my German.