TheWilf wrote:
Hey,
Irish born and raised however lived in the UK all my life so never got to learn Irish, I am however trying to self teach so that I can start communicating with some of my Irish only speaking relatives (well choose to only speak Irish).
I am having a celtic cross tattoo on my arm with a claddagh built into it to represent my kids who's names are going to be in there as well. I would like to include Éirinn go Bráth however also wanted to change it to Family and Ireland Forever, can anyone help?
Thanks
Will
... family who only speak Irish? Fair play to them. That's a tough thing to accomplish in this day and age.
As for your request...
TL;DR:
"Family and Ireland forever" would be something like
Clann agus Éire go deo or
Muintir agus Éire go deo, but you need to tell us what you mean by family so we can translate it properly for you (see below).
The long explanation:
Firstly, there are several words in Irish for describing for different types of family. None of them are direct translations of the English "family".
Clann means something like "descendants" or "offspring", and would be appropriate for referring to your children specifically, but not really to your siblings, parents or partner.
Muintir means "people" as in "the people of Ireland", but it can take on a familial sense when you say something like
mo mhuintir "my people". This could mean people you are personally close to, your local community, or your countrymen and women, but notably, in the sense of people you are close to, this would include your family. Finally, you could use a word like
teaghlach, which means "household". This, of course, means family in the sense of "people who live together under one roof" but can't really extend to include family members not living in the one place, or deceased family members. We would really need you to be more specific about what you mean by "family" in this sense before we could help translate.
Next,
Éirinn go Bráth, is a popular nationalist cheer for Ireland (one which may be likened UK chants and phrases like "God save the king" or "Rule Britania"), and it is often translated as meaning "Ireland forever", as you have suggested. Unfortunately, it isn't very good Irish, and strictly speaking, doesn't actually mean anything.
It is grammatically problematic because the word
Éirinn is in the dative case, which means that it can't generally be used except following a preposition (like "in", "to", or "from"). So, if you wanted to say something like
in Éirinn go bráth "in Ireland forever", or
is as Éirinn mé "I am from Ireland", you could correctly use the form
Éirinn there. However, without a preposition before it,
Éirinn is kind of meaningless.
If you just want to say
Ireland forever, this should instead use the nominative form of the word for Ireland,
Éire. The nominative is the standard form of the word, which can be used without prepositions. Therefore, the correct way to say this in Irish would be
Éire go bráth. This, of course, is distinct from the popularly used phrase, incorrect though that may be, and is not commonly used as a cheer. So, it is up to you whether you would like to use this grammatically correct form.
There is a dubious claim on the wikipedia article for the anglicised phrase "Erin go Bragh" that the term
Éirinn is an acceptable nominative form in two Irish dialects. It doesn't specify which two dialects, however, and I've never encountered this myself in any dialect, so I am sceptical at best. I can't personally recommend using it, but maybe someone else on the forum can come in here and provide more information about this.
As for the origin of the popularly used phrase,
Éirinn go Bráth, as far as I can tell it can be traced back to Early Irish. At this point in its development, a distinct and productive accusative case used to exist in the language. The earliest example of a similar phrase which I have come across can be found in one of the preludes to the Early Irish epic, the
Táin Bó Cúailnge. In this story the young hero, Cú Chulainn, takes up arms for the first time and is given a chariot. He is warned that anyone who is given a chariot for the first time on that particular day will live a short life, but
for-biad a ainm Hérinn co bráth (lit.) "his name would be upon Ireland until doomsday/the end of time", or more idiomatically, "his name will be famed and revered in Ireland forever". In this early example the form
érinn is used. This is in the accusative case, but looks kind of like the modern Irish dative. My suspicion is that Irish nationalists who were familiar with this Early Irish text adopted the phrase from the early source, perhaps because they liked its military connotations of achieving fame or glory through taking up arms. I would conjecture that this modern adoption was thereafter clumsily misinterpreted as the modern Irish dative being incorrectly used to express "Ireland forever".