Beannachtam na Femle Padraig

March 17th, 2005

Filed under:
Mixed Bag

Beannachtam na Femle Padraig

That’s ‘Happy St. Patrick’s Day’ in Irish. Apparently. I don’t speak any Irish, except for a couple of curse words (’pogue mahone’ being one of them). In trying to find the spelling of one of them, I turned up this cool Irish Curse Engine. For example, ‘Go n-ithe an diabhal do chuid caloga arbhair!’ which means ‘may the devil eat your cornflakes’.

A happy St. Patrick’s Day to you, my dear readers. Especially the Irish ones, but, as I mentioned earlier in the week, you can’t throw a bodhran in any country without hitting an Irishman.

Comments: 4 Responses so far

double-plus-ungood
March 17th, 2005
4:42 pm

Pogue mahone would be a curse phrase, not a cussword.

My grandfather was once visiting his son (my uncle) in the British military force in Germany in the 1970s. During a meal, some German officers demanded that he toast them in Gaelic (we’re Scottish, and are therefore supposed to be fluent, I guess). “Pogue mahone” was the only gaelic he knew, so he used that. They all stood, raised their glasses, and recited the “toast.” (He made up a lie about it meaning “good health” or something when asked what it meant).

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Olaf
March 18th, 2005
7:25 am

We took our two-year-old son to an ale house. His first, though neither of his parents drink anyway. Fortunately, pubs like this were having family events all day in light of the celebration. An Irish pub is probably the last place you want to be on St. Patrick’s Day in case you’re wondering - despite this, we all enjoyed our brief stay.

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