For nearly two centuries, we have been told that English is the language of commerce and industry and that the Irish language sits outside this world, peeping in. Could a company from Ireland ever use Gaeilge in its product branding the way Ikea uses Swedish?

Osgur Ó Ciardha is one half of the team behind Pop Up Gaeltacht (the other half being Motherfoclóir regular Peadar Ó Caomhanaigh). In today's episode, he chats to Darach about whether PUG has identified a market for an Irish language bar, the uses of Irish in advertising, the Euro Gaelach and the gravy train myth.

Today's episode is swear-free.

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The Irish for Stradbally is an tSráidbhaile, which means village (or street-town if you want to be very literal about it). For a weekend at the end of summer every year, Stradbally hosts the Electric Picnic festival and this year the Motherfoclóir Podcast was invited to perform a live show for the revellers. This was a double honour for the show as it allowed local gal Gearóidín McEvoy return from Finland to Strad in triumph, basking in the jealousy of all the townsfolk who ever doubted her superstar status. She is joined on the live show by Éimear Duffy and the pair of them - finally free from the tyrannical hosting of Darach – talk festivals, feminism, skincare, strong Irish women from old and recent history, accents, Laois and even take some questions from the audience.

Then the gardaí turn up.

Today’s episode contains some cussin’. The views of Dr. McEvoy and Dr. Duffy are not the views of HeadStuff, its staff, contributors, owners, sponsors, affiliates or clients.

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The breakthrough star of Irish twitter in 2018 must surely be @ruthiefizz – while other tweeters have hurled poorly-cogitated stock arguments at each other, her “Other Ireland” account has used the possibilities of the format to explore important ideas like consent, misogyny and mental health while also sharing informative and fancy facts about (and pictures of) wildlife. What her thousands of followers may not know, however, is that Ruth Fitzpatrick has a solid academic background in Celtic Civilisation and a special interest in Breton, medieval Welsh and Manx Gaeilge.

In this week’s episode, Ruthie and Motherfoclóir regular Peadar terrorise Darach has he tries to do a serious interview about these serious topics in an absurdist subversion of the authorial voice worthy of Flann O’Brien himself. Having said that, there are still some animal names in Irish and insights into being sound and changing minds in an online world full of berks.

Find cute animal names in Irish here:

https://twitter.com/i/moments/796746870123102208

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The Irish for tax is cáin… not to be confused with caoin, which is crying. In life the two great certainties are death and taxes, which is fitting given that many forms of taxation were first introduced to pay for wars.

Today’s Vatican City is a fragment of the Papal States, a temporal political entity that governed a portion of Italy larger than Ireland for a thousand years – from the era of Brehon Law until the age of the Home Rule movement. Records of taxes levied by the Papal States represent a uniquely continuous archive of Ireland during this period of economic, civic, political and linguistic change. This week’s guest is Chris Chevalier, a PhD candidate in Trinity whose research uses these records as a source for measuring the distribution of wealth in Ireland in the medieval period. He chats to fellow medievalist Éimear and fellow tax nerd Darach about who had cash to splash in the 14th century, papal audits (and punishments) and the Spielberg-esque adventures involved in chasing research materials from one European city to the next.

You can find out more about Chris’s work here: https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/researchers-use-papal-tax-assessments-to-map-medieval-economy-of-ireland/

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Michael Flatley has been in the news again with his new film “Blackbird” (possibly named for an Irish set dance) and his questionable choice of followed Twitter accounts. No matter how successful his foray into action movies is, it is certain that he will be mostly remembered for and associated with Irish dancing. Irish dance, with its distinctive costumes, moves and tunes, is this island’s most recognisable unique cultural export and the point of greatest overlap in the experience of people who live in Ireland and the global Irish diaspora. Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of the first performance of Uisce Beatha/Riverdance, the show that was critical in stirring interest in set dance across the globe. But why isn’t there a Bolshoi or La Scala academy of Irish dance in Ireland? Why are some dances for watching and others merely for participating? And how much of the emphasis on presentation in this female-dominated field is justified?

In this week’s episode, Motherfoclóir regular Clodagh McGinley tells Darach all about a youth spent in wigs and pumps that were two sizes too small. It’s a tale of high kicks, nits, injuries, vomiting, inter-school rivalries, stage mams, baffling VAT rates and moments of sheer artistry.

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**"If I were a boy /Even just for a day /I’d roll outta bed in the morning /And throw on what I wanted and go"**

**Beyoncé Knowles, If I Were A Boy, 2007**

Welcome to our 50th episode! If you're a regular listener you may have heard us mention the Modh Coinníollach before… but what is it?

As with Peig who we chatted about last week, the Modh Coinníollach has become a kind of mascot for those who have bad memories of Irish from school. This has become a tired cliche in need of a good shake.

In order to get a good handle on the Irish conditional mood, Darach summons German-speaker Peadar and Spanish-speaker Éimear to compare it to the arrangement in other European languages. Is our conditional really so bad on a global scale?

The gang also chat about Muppets, Haribo, Fatal Deviation and Beyonce, and Peadar gives a cheeky tip for spoken Irish.

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"Peig passes the Bechdel Test".

Sparklingly witty, unfailingly honest, sometimes misunderstood and with a grá for the Gaeilge, Tara Flynn and Peig Sayers are two women who have been unfairly criticised a lot in recent years. Although Peig is sadly unavailable, Tara was kind enough to visit Darach this week for a chat.

Tara tells Darach about her iconic work on the Morbegs (and the attention to detail put into the Irish language content), reevaluating Peig as an adult and the simple joys of the offline life.

Tara's book "Rage In" published by Headstuff is available in bookshops now and her new podcast "Taranoia" is out now, go find it.

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Contact the show at https://twitter.com/motherfocloir or email us at [email protected].

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"Peig passes the Bechdel Test".

Sparklingly witty, unfailingly honest, sometimes misunderstood and with a grá for the Gaeilge, Tara Flynn and Peig Sayers are two women who have been unfairly criticised a lot in recent years. Although Peig is sadly unavailable, Tara was kind enough to visit Darach this week for a chat.

Tara tells Darach about her iconic work on the Morbegs (and the attention to detail put into the Irish language content), reevaluating Peig as an adult and the simple joys of the offline life.

Tara's book "Rage In" published by Headstuff is available in bookshops now and her new podcast "Random Acts" launches in September.

_The Irish word for a rat, francach, can also mean a French person (when capitalised)._

In their most recent media campaign, Vodafone have paid tribute to a long-standing tradition in Irish advertising; the French crush. Prior to this Ireland has had a history of taking cues from our Gallic pals - most famously the tricolour.

French is the most-widely taught foreign language in Ireland and comparisons between it and Irish are inevitable. But how apt and how valuable are such comparisons?

French exists as a successful minority language in Canada but France is one of the most most hostile jurisdictions to minority languages in the EU. How will Ireland, as the defender of Gaeilge and the custodian of EU English, get on with France after Brexit with regard to our two languages?

In this week's episode, Clodagh McGinley (who recently graduated from Trinity with a degree in Irish and French) chats to Darach about the two languages, loanwords, faux amis and the joys French Twitter.

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Famously, much is lost in translation. However, writing is a lonely calling, and the act of literary translation by one's peers presents an opportunity for literary intimacy. Two versions of a poem, presented side by side, can be more than the sum of the parts.

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill is one of Ireland's most brilliant and resonant poetic voices, and "Pharoah's Daughter" - a collection from almost thirty years ago - is still urgently relevant and accessible. Ní Dhomhnaill's dánta are accompanied by translations from a gathering of Ireland's finest English language poets (including Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon).

In today's episode, Darach, Siún and Peadar read and discuss some of the poems in this collection… opening the door to a world full of love, sex, hope, feminism, laughter heartbreak, politics and hard-won intimacy.

You can get "Pharoah's Daughter" at www.cnagsiopa.com or www.gallerypress.com

Adult themes this week. Seriously: ADULT THEMES.Ceo, Craiceann agus Cumhracht: An Introduction to Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

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