There are some other minor issues with the book too:

• it doesn’t mention lenition of s after sa – it teaches only the non-lenited Kerry form sa seomra, sa samhradh, sa séipéal but not sa tseomra, sa tsamhradh, sa tséipéal – although sa tseomra does appear in Téacsanna breise after the lessons at the end¹ – interestingly it mentions possibility of either lenition or eclipsis after don in lesson 13,
• it uses the weird standard written form do mo, do do etc. in the progressive construction (but instructs to read them as /əm, əd/), but doesn’t mention delenition of labials after /əm/ (like in am’ bualadh, or lem báthair for le mo mháthair),
• it consistently writes Gaeilge (which wouldn’t be that bad, if that form changed between nom. and gen., but it doesn’t in writing – so there’s a change in pronunciation not reflected in writing, and even though the book uses this word in genitive contexts, I don’t think it ever mentions that genitive is pronounced differently, but the recording to lesson 27 does use genitive),
• it doesn’t mention many rarer (or not that rare!) synthetic verbal forms (like the plural -id ending in táid),
• it finally never tells you which exact dialect it focuses on – it just broadly states it’s teaching dialekt munsterski (the Munster dialect) and that it’s important it’s caint na ndaoine «mowa ludu», żywy język (‘«speech of the people», living language’).

But then, it also doesn’t attempt to teach you all the dialectal quirks. It’s an introductory course for beginners, and it’s still pretty comprehensive considering its target audience.

¹ there is a snippet from Ua Laoghaire’s Mo Scéal Féin there too, but weirdly edited to the textbook’s form, with do’n fhear changed to don bhfear, etc.

Yes, it is a very good book. Doyle and Gussman thought about the order in which things would be presented, and didn't leave anything out, I don't think. I learnt Irish from this book, in fact. My copy of the book is falling apart. Yes, the altering of Ua Laoghaire's Irish was a quibble I had - you just can't do this. Should I teach Shakespeare translated into some other form of English? You can't do that. But it is churlish not to admit that, apart from being in Polish only, this is very near to being a perfect textbook.

I agree that writing do do and saying ad is ridiculous.
What I've agreed to do in any books I publish (and I plan to publish) is to write:

'om bualadh
'od bhualadh
á bhualadh
á bualadh
ár mbualadh
úr mbualadh
á mbualadh

Any strong reason for choosing ’om, ’od over am, ad?

I feel that both ag and do were involved in older Irish, and so am, ad etc are valid. However, I'm taking advice from people with greater knowledge of Cork Irish, and they have told me that Ua Laoghaire's view on the distinction between 'ghá dhéanamh and dá dhéanamh was his own quirky view (he had a few of those) and that do was the original. As I haven't studied Irish before Ua Laoghaire, I can't insist on my point of view. But as long as the final texts can be read out in Cork Irish, the spelling can work. I've redone Mo Sgéal Féin for the umpteenth time and am happy with the text and could publish it now. But I've read there is a manuscript of this in the National Library in Ireland, and I want to go and consult that first, in case Norma Borthwick made unauthorised amendments in the 1915 text. But I don't want to go to Ireland and find myself under a 14 day quarantine on the way back because panicky Boris has suddenly imposed more restrictions. But the text is as far as I know finalised.

Silmeth, you seem to have sent me a private message:



Unfortunately, I have no access to my inbox on this forum, it says: "You are not authorised to read private messages." So If you want to contact me, please use my email instead: qrizz7@gmail.com

Klisz -

To deter spammers people have to have ten posts before they can send and receive PMs.
Check your inbox, you should be able to read it now. If not I'll have to get Breandán on it

It works now . Thanks a lot, Bríd

Abebooks has a copy:

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Search ... aeilge&kn=

The pdf also has "Téacs" for every chapter whereas it should read "Ceacht", according to Doyle's audio. There are a few other places that don't match up as well.