676
AN GAOḊAL.
In the fourth column of the portion of my letter
in the last GAEL, line 26, between the word writed
and the, the following clause should be inserted, —
yet according to the rules of English Grammar,
Yours,
P H O'DONNELL, O S A
The letter continued, —
In the July number of the Gael p 601, Mr. Pat¬
rick McEniry * of Kansas City writes to say that he
learned Irish in his youth, and that he always
understood the words to be olfaḋ sé
"he will drink,” and d'olfaḋ sé he
would drink, deunfaḋ sé "he will do".
and d'eunfaḋ sé "he would do," etc.
In the August Gael Mr. Crean * of
Philadelphia says that he asked some Irish people
from different parts of Ireland to translate the sen¬
tence he would drink, and they invariably rendered
it d'olfaḋ sé (not d'oloċaḋ sé) and Mr.
Crean continues to say that for his
own part, though not opposed to oċoḋ.
yet he would prefer to use faḋ simply
because it was the form used in the locality from
whence he came and that it is the form still used
by the majority of all Irish speakers with whom he
he comes in contact. How, then, are you going
to reconcile this written testimony of Messrs Mc¬
Eniry and Crean with your assertion † that Irish
speakers without exception use oċaḋ
in the conditional?
Again in page 572 of the GAEL, Prof Lovern of
Scranton writes an Irish song in the last stanza of
which the
1st sing, cond. of beirim "I give," is
written do ḃeirfainn, which in the 3rd
sing. cond. would be, do ḃeirfeaḋ sé
(1, ḃeirfainn 2. ḃeirfea 3, ḃeirfead sé).
In page 576 the conditional of taḃair
and laḃair are given as ṫaḃarfaḋ and
laḃarfaḋ. In the third stanza of Cap¬
tain O'Mailly's song as supplied by M.
P. Ward, p. 577, the 1st sing. cond. of
deun is written go n-deunfainn, ‡ which
in the 3rd sing, would be go n-deunfaḋ
sé; because verbs which have the 1st
sing. conditional in fainn will have
the third sing, cond. in feaḋ or faḋ;
just as verbs with oċainn in the 1st
sing. cond. make oċaḋ in the 3rd sing.
for example, 1. ṡoillseoċainn, 2. ṡoillse¬
oċa, 3. ṡoillseoċaḋ sé. In page 624,
Mr. J.M. Tierney of San Juan, Argen¬
tine Rep., gives one of Denis McNa¬
mara's songs in which the 3rd sing.
conditional of glac, fág and taḃair are
written ní ġlacfaḋ, ní ḟágfaḋ, ní ṫaḃ¬
arfaḋ. I could quote hundreds of oth¬
er instances from the columns of the Gael in which
the termination faḋ is used by your
correspondents * in the 3rd sing. conditional, but
I do not wish to trespass further on your space by
quoting too many of them
In all our ancient manuscripts the
termination faḋ is invariably used in
forming the conditional of verbs with monosyllabic
roots, and all modern writers whose works I have
come across have carefully followed the same rule.
In King Malachy's description of the battle of
Clontarf, written by McLaig, Brian Boru's chief
bard, a copy of which I have before me, I find the
3rd sing. conditional of the verb tigim
I come. written d-tiucfadh. Owen
Mac Ward, that talented and gifted poet of the 17th
century, lamenting the death of O Neill and O-
Donnell, princes of Ulster, in the 6th stanza of his
elegy writes do ṫiocfaḋ &c., and again
in the 31st stanza we have goilfeaḋ
and g-cuirfeaḋ and in the last line of
the "summing up" appended to the
elegy we have do ċúġanfaḋ. Through¬
out all the publications of the Ossianic
society the 3rd singular cond. of all
verbs of this class is written with faḋ
or feaḋ. For instance in Vol. V. page
12, the conditional of the verb iarr,
ask, is written d'iarrfad † . I have al¬
ready stated that though the Munster
Irish speakers seem to make the 3rd
sing. cond. of all verbs in oċ or oċaḋ,
yet the Irish writers ‡ of that historic
province have carefully observed the
grammatical rules regulating the cor¬
rect use of the terminations faḋ and
oċaḋ I have already given examples
from Denis MacNamara (Donaca Ru¬
ad) a county Clare man, a poet and a
scholar, who throughout all his beau¬
tiful pieces, as well as that given by
Mr. Tierney uses faḋ or feaḋ in the
3rd sing. cond. of all monosyllabic verbs. So does
( * Irish grammarians state that the sound of the
f is never heard? Mr Crean gives the sound as
dhol-hoo and that is not the sound of f: Yourself
in next column, lines 36 8 admit it
† All grammarians without exception support
our assertion, Canon Bourke, O Donnovan, and
yourself in regard to Munster
‡ This is not the conditional and is not pertinent
to the matter in issue — Ed)
[ * A large number also write it aċ,
which is the sound given to oċaḋ.
† That is the first person future
‡ Hence we say the writers took liberties which
custom did not warrant; Two men who cannot
speak a word of Irish revised (?) a Gaelic book in
Dublin the other day, which book may possibly
be quoted as authority a hundred years hence — Ed
