Dear All,

For some reason I have been asked to give a blessing at an upcoming wedding for two dear friends.
The blessing will be given in Irish, then Dutch and then English.

I looked online and in a smattering of books I have for a suitable blessing but nothing really captured the personalities of my friends, so I made one up.

I tried to keep it fairly simple knowing that it would need to be translated not only into Irish , but into Dutch as well.
I would appreciate any help that you could give me with the Irish translation.
Thank you.

The blessing:

For Shane and Lee

May you always have food for your table.
May you always have turf for your fire.
May you have love for each other.
May the love that you share never tire.

May you always have friends 'round about you.
May you always have drink and a song.
May Creations abundance surround you.
May you always live loved and live long.


Once again,

GRMA.

Mise la meas

Garth

_________________
Please feel free to correct any and all mistakes in spelling, grammar etc.
I am very much a beginner and need all the help I can get.

Sorry folks,

The third line of the first verse should read,

May you always have love for each other.

Thanks

Garth

_________________
Please feel free to correct any and all mistakes in spelling, grammar etc.
I am very much a beginner and need all the help I can get.

I'll have a try, just to get the ball rolling - but wait for confirmation, I'm just an awful beginner -

Go raibh bia ar bhur mbord go deo
Go raibh móna i bhur dtine go deo

Franc's suggestions for the first two lines look pretty good, except that go deo usually means "forever", while i gcónaí means "always". Here is an alternative way to do it, with some changes:

Go raibh bia ar an mbord agaibh i gcónaí.
Go raibh móna i dtine agaibh i gcónaí.
Go raibh grá agaibh ar a chéile i gcónaí.
's go maire an grá agaibh go deo

May you always have food for your table.
May you always have turf for your fire.
May you always have love for each other.
And may your love endure forever [I'm not sure love not "tiring" makes sense in Irish).

Go raibh cairde i bhur dtimpeall i gcónaí.
Go raibh deoch agus ceol agaibh i gcónaí.
Go raibh flúirse an cruthú i bhur dtimpeall
's go maire sibh i ngrá go deo

May you always have friends 'round about you.
May you always have drink and music.
May the abundance of Creation surround you.
And may you live forever in love.

_________________
I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

A Caoimhín,

GRMA for the fast response and translation.
I was a little concerned about the last lines of each verse as to how the meaning would translate in Irish.
You seem to have come pretty close.

I will wait to see if anyone else would care to give it a go.

Garth

_________________
Please feel free to correct any and all mistakes in spelling, grammar etc.
I am very much a beginner and need all the help I can get.

His version is much better than mine, of course - but I see that you meant 'drink and music' in the second verse, so I rather think that that would be 'deoch' rather than bia. (in my humble opinion)

franc 91,

Thanks for pointing that out.
Am I correct in thinking that
deoch is a drink
and ól is to drink.

Also if ceol is music, is amhrán a song?

As I will be saying the blessing to the whole assembly at the wedding I would like to get the pronunciation correct.
Here are some words that I am having trouble with.
I have put my attempts in italics.

raibh - ruh or rev
agaibh - ag-iv
gcónaí - cone-ee
dtine - jeen-e
chéile - hay-la
maire - mare-a
cairde - card-a
bhur - wur
dtimpeall - jim-pahl
flúirse - flursh
cruthú - cru-who

I know that there may be dialect differences but any help would be appreciated.

GRMA

Garth

_________________
Please feel free to correct any and all mistakes in spelling, grammar etc.
I am very much a beginner and need all the help I can get.

Franc is right, and I've corrected it. I actually wondered why you were talking about food twice, but it was my own misreading which caused the error.

_________________
I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

May I suggest that you have a look (and a listen to) the on-line dictionary, where there's a complete section on pronunciation as well as the pronunciations that accompany many of the individual entries in the dictionary.
breis.focloir.ie/en/fuaim - access is also available at the bottom of the page of Pota Focal.

You can also use the following link to get to a site where you can type in Irish words or phrases and hear them pronounced, but note that it seems to work better word by word or in small chunks, and thus far they only have the Gweedore (Ulster) and Conamara dialectical choices for pronunciation: http://www.abair.tcd.ie/?page=synthesis&lang=eng

Note that Irish words usually have a strong emphasis on the first syllable, with the other syllables often having very brief, almost schwa-like vowel sounds. Even if you see an accent (a fada) in a syllable, that usually only affects the pronunciation of that vowel, and does not usually draw the stress to that syllable, except in some places in Munster.

_________________
I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.