With thanks to the Bram Stoker Festival, the Motherfoclóir Podcast was resurrected for one afternoon in October 2022 to discuss the translation of Dracula into Irish by Seán Ó Cuirreáin. In this recording of last year's live show Darach is joined by Peadar and Siún as they consider the different motives of the politicians who commissioned the trans…

Motherfocloir is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network and there are lots of other shows on the network we think you might like. Words To That Effect is a show that tells stories of the fiction behind popular culture and if you're a fan of Motherfocloir we think there's a very good chance you'll like this show too. Here's a full episode, all about …

Thank you for your support over the last four years. Thank you for inviting us into your headphones and into your head. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Thank you to Brian and Kirsten for making each episode look and sound amazing. Thank you to Éimear, Clodagh, Caitlín, Siún and Ola, and all the members of the extended Motherfoclóir family…

If you follow Darach's Word of the Week project with the Irish Arts Center in New York, you'll have seen the artwork of Amy Louise O'Callaghan - @amylouioc on Twitter, Instagram and Etsy - who reimagines Irish mythology in the style of Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli. More recently she has reimagined the iconography of tarot cards using well…

Join us for the final episode of Motherfoclóir, live on Zoom tonight: https://www.patreon.com/posts/55377967 --- Every artistic/visual representation of Cúchulainn presents him as a hulking, ultra-masculine figure. But is this interpretation justified by the text? In the Táin, Cúchulainn is frequently described as a small lad, girly in some ways, a…

The re-release of Professor Terence Dolan's Dictionary of Hiberno-English didn't happen by accident, but was nudged into existence by a writer who also happens to be one of the most seminal and relevant voices in Irish podcasting. And he's our guest this week! Before we folded the podcast forever, we are delighted to bring you this conversation bet…

In terms of literary prestige, romance novels don't get no respect, ranking lower than sports biographies and screenplay novelisations on the scale of respectability - according to people who don't read them, anyway. But what about people who do? Since Covid, sales of romance novels have shot through the roof, largely on account of the #BookTok has…

Four years ago we started this podcast off with a discussion of the letter V. There’s been much water under the bridge since then and while we always meant to give the other seven “forbidden” letters their own episode, there was always something a bit more urgent to attend to. Like translating smutty novels and so forth. But on today’s episode, Dr …

Everybody is talking about Twitter sensation Séamas Ó Reilly and his hilarious yet moving memoir "Did You Hear Mammy Died?" And rightly so - it's a sensational telling of a remarkable story of a boy with ten siblings losing his mother far too young and being reared by one of the most memorable Irish Dads in the history of memoir. Can a movie be far…

When we say that a child is full of divilment, are we saying that they are possessed by Satan? No, we are not. In today's episode, Darach, Gearóidín and Peadar consider the concept of the devil in the Irish language. Why does diabhal scéal (devil a story) mean no story? What's the deal with the devil being buried in Killarney? Were politicians awar…

Well, it couldn't last forever; Motherfoclóir will be ending forever before this autumn. Before we go on our separate ways, we'd like to bring you some topics and guests that we always meant to, but put on the long finger because we wanted "do more prep" or "wait until X was available" or some other excuse. Anyway, there's no time to procrastinate …

Darach chats to Katy and Dominic, the hosts of popular podcast "The Europeans". To hear the full episode and much more visit https://www.patreon.com/darach The Europeans podcast can be found at https://europeanspodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesद्वारा HeadStuff Podcasts

Darach is joined by Mira Adama (@LostWolfling), along with a cast of other contributors, to discuss a cult classic of Irish cinema. Watch Fatal Deviation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPne3Wh0lqk This is our last episode of the season! You can join us on Patreon for bonus content throughout the break. --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: h…

Recently, Yiddish became the fortieth language to join Duolingo, an achievement that followed hot on the heels of Harry Potter being translated into Yiddish. And would you believe that a brother and sister were responsible for these separate accomplishments? Well, when we found out about it we were struck by how many of the same kinds of conflicts …

Watch this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsORJSesv48 In 2017, Irish Sign Language (ISL) was officially given legal recognition in Ireland. Of course, it has a long history prior to this and in today's episode, Darach and Gearóidín meet Caroline McGrotty (@CarolineMcTweet), an ISL translator and presenter, to find out more. Where did ISL …

Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the Wee Donkey. Everyone is hooked on “Line of Duty” at the moment, the latest reinvention of the cop show genre - and, fittingly, a reinvention of the “Irish cop” trope which is even older than television. But why did this format - a legacy from the era of segregation and McCarthyism - survive when westerns, Elvis movies…

When he’s not beavering away at this very podcast, Darach does a bit of work with the Irish Arts Center in New York as part of their word of the week project. This allows him to collaborate with some exciting and talented artists, such as today’s guest Louise Ní Chuilinn (as known as Selkies). Louise, an Irish speaker living in Brussels, tells Dara…

There’s a song in the Mincéir tradition (made famous among settled audiences by Luke Kelly) called the 40 Foot Trailer which ends with the line “There's a bylaw to say you maun be on your wayAnd another to say ye can't wander” The implication is clear: the Traveller Community are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Despite the visibility of…

One of the finest new accounts to join Twitter during the pandemic has been @EnyaComments, a deceptively simple twitter handle that shares comments written under Enya videos on the YouTube.These range from the ridiculous to the sublime. But what is it about Enya that draws such a wide fanbase from around the world? Why do her fans feel such a close…

Every few weeks, a story goes viral in Ireland: a letter, addressed to someone like "that lady with the yellow baseball cap who owns a cat the size of a dog and a dog the size of a cat" is posted and finds its intended recipient. It's a tribute to the affection and esteem with which Irish people regard their postal service. It hints at one of a num…

Are things holy because we need them or do we need them because they're holy? This is something that we consider on this week's episode when holy wells are discussed. Are the legends and myths about holy wells just a roundabout way of explaining what their purpose is? Why are there so many in Limerick? What does Ryan Tubridy's surname mean? We also…

Back in 2015, the Paris Review ran an article on Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken” and concluded that it is - by some distance - the best known and most widely referenced poem of the twentieth century. Nothing else comes close. And yet, it is as misunderstood as it is famous. Many poems, or extracts from poems, are misread outside their ori…

Whether it's Flann O'Brien, the Book of Kells, Dindsenchas or An tOileánach, the Irish literary and literary historical traditions respect the idea of the digression - the idea that knowledge information, truth itself does not respect the artificial categories that limited human minds try to trap them in. Just as crabs think that eels are flying be…

At the end of February, the CSO released the 2020 baby name statistics and after a long run, Emily is no longer the top girl name in Ireland. How should we interpret this? What does it mean for existing Emilys, especially the ones who rejoiced in the name before it became so popular in the noughties? Grace is the new top name, but how much of that …

Greetings agus Salutations, I am Motherfoclóir, prince of words, Irish, Irish words and words from Ireland. I have a very special request to make of you. If you listen to this podchraoladh about spam as Gaeilge, I will send twenty millionty squillion US Dollars in gold bullion into your earphones. Please send me your bank details by WhatsApp voice …

In Thin Lizzy's tune Emerald, Phil Lynott tells a tale of marching men who wish to overthrow overlords, fighting a fight they believe to be right. But they bring horrible destruction in their pursuit of this goal - children never playing again, for example - as they seek The Emerald, a talisman not unlike Tolkien's ring. Lynott never explains what …

We've spoken about fairy forts before. However, in the context of our recent discussion of placenames and bearing in mind the widespread incidences of Ráth and Lios in towns across Ireland, we decided to bring an expert in. Sinéad Mercier, co-author of "The Men Who Eat Ringforts", drops in to tell Darach and Peadar all about these structures which …

Could the word slíbhín - a sly, sneaky so-and-so - possibly come from the word sliabh, meaning a mountain? Are mountain folk really that cunning, or do the people from counties with many a sliabh (counties where more Irish was historically spoken) just happen to have more fire in the belly when they move to the lowlands in search of work? In the th…

When is an island an Inis and when is it an Oileán? In the second of our look at recurring words in Irish placenames, Darach, Gearóidín and Peadar consider islands. Why do some inland locations have island-based names? Why are there three places in Ireland called Lady's Island, each with a different name in Irish? What about the island that Charles…

A lot of placenames in Ireland begin with Kil-. Sometimes this is a reference to a church, sometimes it refers to a woodland. Sometimes both. What's going on? Did the early Christians steal holy sites from the pagan druids or something? In the first of a set of episodes, Darach, Gearóidín and Peadar look at some of the recurring features in Irish p…

2021 has gotten off to a fairly spicy start and yet again the spotlight has been shone on online communities in light of events in America But what makes one community a supportive safe space but another a radicalising echo chamber? Unrelated, perhaps, are a number of recent viral tweets where learners have told of disappointing experiences using I…

You may have see promos for Nicholas Cage's new show on Netflix all about swear words. Well, we had the idea first. While Darach was slaving over Christmas dinner, Peadar and Gearóidín sat down with Dr. Megan Figueroa from the Vocal Fries Podcast to discuss the history, politics and even the gendered nature of dirty words.Be warned this podcast con…

As we take a break for Christmas and New Year, please enjoy this bonus clip from our recent Patreon discussion on all things Irish whiskey. For the full video and more visit https://www.patreon.com/darach Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesद्वारा HeadStuff Podcasts

And so this is Christmas, and what have you done? Not much if you've been in lockdown, lad! Go easy on yourself and remember that getting this far has been an achievement in itself. This week Darach, Peadar and Gearóidín reflect on the year that was - highlights and lowlights online and offline. Will Wild Mountain Thyme be mentioned? Will there be …

As December staggers towards the manhole of time and we all wait for it to fall in, a lot of linguistically minded people around the world consider what the word of the year is. All the big dictionaries do. What word best describes these past twelve months? What words have people been using most frequently? And what new words have been added in thi…

Multinational companies like to appear somewhat local in each of the countries they are present in. This can take many forms, especially in the advertising that the business uses to communicate with the wider community. What do these ads say about the parties in that relationship? The sociologist Erving Goffman, in his influential research, wrote a…

Bookshops and their proprietors thrive on browsers, on customers asking for recommendations,on book launches and on all the little interactions which the pandemic has robbed us of. So what's it like to run a bookshop in a pandemic? As well as being a Galway institution for eighty years, Kenny's Bookshop is a family business for three generations an…

The Irish for chess is ficheall (wood wisdom). A gambit is fiontar…. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, or so they say. But what do we learn when we learn history? How do we interpret the change in a country like Ireland between two given dates and what to we attribute that change to? One of the prevailing theories is that…

She's the woman of the moment: after a sequence of acclaimed and award-winning poetry collections in both Irish and English, Clare poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa has delivered a sensational non-fiction book, "A Ghost In The Throat", nominated in two categories in the Irish Book Awards. In today's episode, Doireann joins Darach and Peadar to talk about he…

The romantic comedy, as we understand it, is a Hollywood form as specifically American as the Western, especially in how it shapes and exports America’s image of itself. Although romantic comedies were the favoured form of some of Hollywood’s most acclaimed writer-directors (like Frank Capra and Billy Wilder) in the mid 20th century, the genre has …

Louise O’Neill, Clonakilty’s literary superstar, has never been content to limit her phenomenal writing skills to a single genre. Her latest work, “After The Silence”, sees her apply her gift for world-building, Swiss-watch plot intricacy and clear-eyed empathy to the crime genre. Agatha Christie set her murder mysteries in spaces where a range of …

It’s that time of the year again when Darach, Gearóidín and Peadar turn out the lights, hold torches under their chins and tell spooky stories from around Ireland. Horror is, of course, often more about what you don’t see than what you do. What memories or untold dreads stir in your subconscious, woken by our tales of black rabbits, the League of I…

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.Arriving there is what you’re destined for.But don’t hurry the journey at all.Better if it lasts for years,so you’re old by the time you reach the island,wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.Without her you wouldn't have set out.She has…

Peig Sayers (1873 - 1958) is one of the most remarkable figures in twentieth century Ireland. Her journey to publication is a story of beating the odds. An outsider from the Dublin literary scene by geography, language, gender, education and even literacy (she could write in English but not Irish), she gives a glimpse at the multitude of stories th…

Ever notice how Halloween is a month long nowadays? Darach and Peadar discuss the Irish names for months of the year and days of the week, as well as Halloween songs, whether we should rename January, working in a chocolate shop and the ancient Celtic festivals. And the word is poioumenon. Trust us, you'll get it later. If you're still reading this…

It’s not often that an eighteenth century poem finds itself in the news, but thanks to the rave reviews and public demand for Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s “A Ghost In The Throat”, this is the situation we are now in. Ní Ghríofa’s work is a memoir in which she considers her relationship with the masterpiece “Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire” and tries to discov…

Every human society has a tradition of bereavement and a tradition of language which, while technically bespoke to its particular needs, changes at a different speed to that society. So it goes with mourning as an immigrant or minority and so it goes with the condolences we pass on to the bereaved. As America and the world mourns the passing of Rut…

In this week’s episode, Peadar and Darach are visited by Manchán Magan, the creator of the Gaeilge Tamagotchi project, Gaeilge Amháin and author of “Thirty Two Words For Field”, his new book about the Irish language and the ecological and social wisdom contained in its precise vocabulary, wisdom that would be lost if the language is lost too. Manch…

Once upon a time there was a young woman from Derry called Emma who loved dogs, baking and movies. She didn’t think about politics very often. Then she met a Californian called Jake and fell in love. She had no idea that she was about to find herself in the middle of a half-decade-long legal battle which would open a can of worms at a time when Ang…

Earlier this year when AOC guest starred in a Donkey Kong Twitch stream in which she declared trans rights to be human rights (while batting off criticism from greying 90s pop culture warhorses like Aaron Sorkin and Graham Linehan), it felt for many that a generational Rubicon had been crossed. Computer games. Físchluichí. They've come a long way s…