I imagine that transcriptions such as this must already exist in Irish, but I'd be grateful if someone could show me how it's done. Here is the 'English' transcription of it that I have made -

Dowty day dee, dumpty day dee
umpty didity, dumpty didity
dumpty day dee, dumpty day dee
umpty didity do dim day

This port an bhéil is just "make it up as you go along "
the welsh Composer Karl Jenkins specializes in this sort of thing the "words" are non - existant
they are just made up to suit the melody
Port a' bhéil are just "sound" to match the flow of the melody

Yes I realise that - what I'm asking is how would you accurately transcribe what I've put here into Irish spelling ? It's part of the recording of a story I'm attempting to put back into Irish.

B'fhéidir:

Dabhtaí dae dí damptaí dae dí
amptaí didití damptaí didití
damptaí dae dí damptaí dae dí
amptaí ditití do dim dae

Depends on the quality of the d; dae (broad) or dé (slender), daí or daoi (broad) or dí (slender) and so on.

Go raibh maith agat - that's an interesting question that - knowing how to make explicit the distinction betwwen broad and slender consonants. Is daí the same sound as daoi, and how do you make the distinction between them and dí ? For example, if I'm not mistaken, mín is similar to the English word 'mean' whereas maoin has a glide to it and sounds like mween.

daí /di:/, same as daoi /di:/ There's a glide between broad /d/ and /i:/, so it is exactly [d̪ɰi:] ([ɰ] is the same as [w] but with unrounded lips)
dí /d´i:/

Broad /d/ is dental, slender /d´/ is alveolar (or even an alveolo-palatal affricate /dʑ/ in some northern dialects)