I have a copy of a two page letter from 1771 that I received from the Royal Irish Academy, but it is in Irish and I'm having a very hard time reading it. Any suggestions on a reputable service in the U.S. that can help me with this problem? Thank you for your time.

Are you able to post a copy of it?

Sass

A university Irish department (there are only a handful in the US) may be able to help. Otherwise, scan it and post it here and I wouldn't mind taking a crack at it myself!

Yes, I have it scanned. The copy was not great, but it is legible. I will have to figure out how to upload it here for both of you to view it. Let me work on that or I can email it to you. Thanks for your offer of help.

Hi, camburn25, you won't have access to private messaging or PMs until you've made a few more posts.

I think you can still use the [ img ] or [ url ] codes but you would need to have the file uploaded to the net and point these codes to the URL.

Please e-mail the scanned file to "bw1 at awyr dot com" (where " at " and " dot " are "@" and ".", respectively, and I will upload it to our server and post it here for you.

Brendan

_________________
Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
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), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Thanks Brendan. I'll send an email to the address with the subject line "1771 letter."

Cáil tú uainn, a Bhreandáin? Tá muid ar bís leis an tseanlitir bhreá seo a fheiceáil....

Seo dhaoibh iad (Here yez go):





There's a bit of overlap between the two scans.

_________________
Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
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), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Oh my.

I don't want to be inconvenient, but camburn25, is there any way you could re-scan these either at a higher resolution (sometimes there'll be a drop-down menu for resolution in your scanning software) or in greyscale instead of black-and-white? If you have access to a digital camera, photographing them (zoomed in, in several sections) might also work.

If not, don't worry about it. I'll try to make some sense of this as it is, but it won't be possible to guess every word.

Yours truly
Caitríona Pháidín

Agreed. It'll be tough as it is, as that Irish is over 200 years old! I may be able to chip in, but this is likely for the more leaned members of the site. Good luck, OP!