Irish English

A variety of the English language that is used in Ireland.

See also:

• Dublin English
• Notes on English as a Global Language

Examples and Observations:

• "Irish (or Hiberno-English) has distinctive varietal features of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, although patterns vary considerably between North and South and East and West. In grammar, for example, . . . I do be is a habitual present tense and the form 'after' is used in Irish English to record a completed act or to express recency: thus, they're after leaving has the meaning of 'they have just left.'"
  (R. Carter and J. McRae, The Routledge History of Literature in English, 2001)



• "[A]lthough the knowledge of Irish among the majority is, in general, very poor, there is a curious habit of flavouring one's speech by adding a few words from Irish, what is sometimes called using the cúpla focal (Irish 'couple of words') . . ..
  
  "Sugaring of one's language with Irish words must be distinguished from genuine loans from Irish. Some of these are long attested such as colleen 'Irish girl,' leprechaun 'garden gnome,' banshee 'fairy woman,' all part of sentimental Irish folklore."
  (Raymond Hickey, Irish English: History and Present-Day Forms. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007)



• "I’m afraid rural dialects in the south carry a stigma of being unacceptable to educated people, whereas in the North I have heard doctors, dentists, teachers and lawyers lace their speech with either Ulster Scots or Northern Irish English.
  
  "Examples of Northern Irish English: Seamus Heaney has written of glar, soft liquid mud, from the Irish glár; glit, meaning ooze or slime (glet is more common in Donegal); and daligone, meaning nightfall, dusk, from 'daylight gone.' I have [heard] daylight-falling, day-fall, dellit fall, duskies and duskit, also from Derry."
  (Diarmaid Ó Muirithe, "Keep Your Ears Open and You'll Have a Sonsy Holiday." The Irish Times, Aug. 26, 2009)