Greetings from the Cottage
Just when you think the world cant get any crazier….
Hello everyone,
I hope all is well with you and yours in these mad times.
I regularly get emails from readers (I read them all and try to respond but apologies if I don’t always, I get a lot of mail) and it is one of the happy hours of my day. I read them usually first thing, and it cheers me up for the day.
Sometimes, readers have queries, or very occasionally are unhappy about something I’ve written, but in general it is encouragement or interesting bits of information about them or their families. Often though, people ask that I offer pronunciation guides for Irish words or explain a phrase I use, or to correct something they perceive as wrong.
When I was a tour guide, leading groups from the US mainly around Ireland people would often remark on the peculiar syntax and vocabulary of us Irish, and there are several reasons for it I think.
We speak very quickly, especially among family and friends, and I do think this is a habit formed in the eight centuries we were under British occupation. To communicate incognito was a valuable skill. The British rule in Ireland meant the outlawing of our language, Gaelilge, or Irish as we call it. (Insider Tip: Nobody calls our language Gaelic here!) So we developed a way of speaking English that could be unintelligible to outsiders if needs be.
The other reason our sentence structure sounds a little different is because we developed English usage translating directly from Irish. In that most lyrical and beautiful of languages, the sentences are constructed differently.
For example.
Fear amadach a bhí sé, chun an doras sin a oscailt.
(Phonetically pronounced
Far am-ah-dack a vee shay, khun un dor-ass shin a uskilt)
Directly translated that means. Man foolish he was, to open that door.
Common parlance would be, A foolish man he was, to open that door.
There are millions of examples, but that’s why our sentences sound a bit backwards.
‘It it fooling me you are?’ is another typical one.
So while I definitely am not above correction, and my books, despite rigorous editing, will sometimes go to print with an error, oftentimes it is just a matter of my usage of Hiberno-English, or English as it is spoken in Ireland.
I made the decision when I wrote my first book to use Hiberno-English, and so sometimes it is a sticking point, but I will always fight against the homogenisation of language. We are all different, and though we might all speak English each place in the world has its own colour and flavour, I hate to see it eroded in favour of one accepted norm.
As well as sentence structure, there are many phrases in common usage that originate from here. They litter my books I know. One such is the phrase to ‘chance your arm’.
It means to take a gamble not knowing the outcome.
It originates here in Ireland with a feud between two families, The Butlers of Ormond and the Fitzgeralds of Kildare in 1492 – as Columbus was sailing the ocean blue. 
The two families got into a ferocious battle and the Butlers had to run into St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin for safety. They were hiding out in the Chapter House, when the Fitzgeralds came in seeking peace. The Butlers refused to come out fearing it was a trick, so Gerald Fitzgerald ordered a hole be cut in the door and into the hole he thrust his arm. This gesture of good faith, knowing that he could have had his arm chopped off, showed the Butlers he was serious about ending the feud and they kissed and made up.
I try to sprinkle in some Irish history to my books, I love to learn history through fiction, and I know many readers appreciate it, so that’s just a little snippet for you to share over the dinner table tonight!
In other news I have made The Homecoming of Bubbles O’Leary, Finding Billie Romano and Kayla’s Trick – books 3-6 in The Tour Series available as a box set this week. They normally sell at $6.99 for an ebook so three for $9.99 is a great bargain. Unfortunately the boxed set is only available as an ebook not in paperback.
You can get it here:
Click here for Tour Box Set – Books 3-6
So that’s all I have for you this week, I am busy writing my book set in Cobh, or Queenstown as it was known. The story opens in 1912, the day a very famous ‘unsinkable’ ship is at anchor in Cork Harbour, and goes from there. I can’t wait to get it out.
Meanwhile, the fourth book in the bestselling The Star and the Shamrock series, called The World Starts Anew is available for preorder here:
Pre-order The World Starts Anew Here
Take very good care of yourself and your people, we live in peculiar times.
Le grá agus buiochas
Jean xx