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The Days of the Week in Irish

The Days of the Week in Irish

There’s a great little song in Irish (based on a folktale) called “Dé Luain, Dé Máirt,” in which a crippled man called Donal Bocht Cam (Poor, Twisted Donal) rescues a group of fairies from the monotony of singing “Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday” in Irish over and over by supplying the Irish word for Wednesday.

The fairies reward Donal by removing the hump from his back and sending him on his way healthy and sound (not a typical result of encounters with Irish fairies, which tend, on the whole, to be rather unpleasant creatures!).

You may never encounter a group of fairies stuck on repeat, but, if you’re learning Irish (or thinking about learning it), it’s always useful to know the days of the week (and how to use them properly).

First, the basics

If you simply need to recite the days of the week, here is what you would say:

Dé Luain (Jay LOO-in): Monday

Dé Máirt (Jay march): Tuesday

Dé Céadaoin (Jay KAY-deen): Wednesday

Déardaoin (JAY-ar-deen): Thursday

Dé hAoine (Jay HEEN-yeh): Friday

Dé Sathairn (Jay SA-ha-rin): Saturday

Dé Domhnaigh (Jay DOH-nee): Sunday

Not quite the dictionary thing

If you were to look the days of the week up in a dictionary, however, you might be a bit confused. A typical dictionary listing for, say, “Monday” would look something like this:

(An) Luan (pronounced “un LOO-un”)

What gives? What’s that “(An)” doing there? What happened to “Dé”? And why is it spelled “Luan” instead of “Luain”?

A very Irish mode of expression

Irish expresses days of the week in a very unique way. “Luan” does, indeed, mean “Monday,” but you’d never just SAY “Luan.”

Instead, you literally say “The Day of Monday,” “The Day of Tuesday,” etc. You do this by using an old Irish word for “day”: Dé. You then follow “Dé” with the genitive case of the name of the day (the genitive of “Luan” is “Luain”).

If you don’t know what the genitive case is, here’s a brief article about it:

The Genitive in Irish Grammar

Bitesize members can access more in-depth explanations in the following lessons:

Possession – Part 5: The Genitive Case

Nouns: The Genitive Case – Part 1

Nouns: The Genitive Case – Part 2

For now, it suffices to say that the genitive case is a special way of writing and pronouncing a noun (aka “an inflection”) that, among other things, includes the concept of “of.”

Luan: Monday

Dé Luain: The Day of Monday

This is the form you use when simply reciting the days of the week, or when referring to a specific day of the week, for example:

Feicfidh mé thú Dé Luain: I’ll see you on Monday.

Or…

Chonaic mé é Dé hAoine: I saw him on Friday.

So what about that “(An)”?

“An” is the definite article…equivalent to “the” in English.

Remember how I said that you would never use “Luan” (or any of the other days of the week) by itself in Irish?  When the days aren’t preceded by the “Dé,” they will have “an” in front of them, and will be in the nominative case (that’s the case you find in the dictionary).  You literally say “on the Monday” or “on the Tuesday.”

You use this form when you’re speaking of a day in a more general sense, for example:

Téim go dtí na siopaí ar an Luan: I go to the shops on Monday (the assumption being that this is your regular practice…you’re not talking about next Monday, but any given Monday).

 Of course, there’s always an exception!

This is Irish, so you know there will always be at least one exception to the rule, right? In the case of the days of the week, that exception is Déardaoin: Thursday.

Because the “Dé” is an integral part of the day’s name, it never goes away:

Chonaic mé Seán ag an siopa Déardaoin: I saw Seán at the shop on Thursday (Here we’re speaking of a particular Thursday).

Téann sé ann ar an Déardaoin: He goes there on Thursdays (Regular practice implied).

 So where did these names come from, anyway?

If you’ve studied a language such as French or Spanish, some of these names may have a familiar feel.

We don’t know if the ancient Irish had special names for each day of the week, but the names in use today came from Latin.

Some of the names come from ancient Roman pagan practice:

Dé Luain = Moon Day (From the Latin “luna”: Moon).

Dé Máirt = Mars’ Day (From the Roman god Mars).

Dé Sathairn = Saturn’s Day (From the Roman god Saturn).

Other names come from early Christian practice, and were almost certainly brought to Ireland by the monks:

Dé Céadaoin = Day of the first fast

Déardaoin = Day between the fasts

Dé hAoine = Day of the [primary] fast

These three came from the monastic practice of fasting on Wednesday and Friday.

Dé Domhnaigh = Day of the Lord (from the Latin “dominus”: lord)

So now you’re armed with enough knowledge to satisfy any fairy!

Did you find this article helpful?

Did you already know all this about the days of the week in Irish? Let us know your thoughts below!

45 thoughts on “The Days of the Week in Irish”

  1. Mac

    “Irish expresses days of the week in a very unique way.”

    Not really. In English we have “Thursday”, or Thor’s Day, or Dé Túir if you will.

    Reply
        1. Mac

          It always amazes me how many words are the same in Irish English and English French, the only difference being we say them in a different accent. torann/thorn, lá/light/lu(meniferous), dia/day, were(wolf)/fear/vir(ile), mo/my, thou/tú, … … …

          Reply
  2. Mac

    “Irish expresses days of the week in a very unique way.”

    Not really. In English we have “Thursday”, or Thor’s Day, or Dé Túir you will.

    Reply
  3. Aifric

    I know this is quite a while after the article has been published, but I’m hoping that my comment will be seen. In the article you mention Dé as being an old Irish word for day, it’s also the Irish word for God, is there a link? With regards to the word dialann – it seems odd that the word lann is used as that normally means some kind of centre e.g. sportlann, leabharlann, linn snámha. Was the diary originally or religious use and a centre of God or what exactly is the etymology and are God and day linked here? Thanks!

    Reply
    1. Emma Bitesize

      Aifric, a chara
      I just did a little digging on the Internet.
      It seems Dia stems from the Proto-Celtic *dēwos or the Proto-Indo European *deywós, meaning God.
      Another Etymology for the word Dia is Proto-Celtic *dīyos and Proto-Indo-European *dyew- meaning ‘day’.
      See here for that etymology.

      Dialann would derive from the idea of Dia – day and yes anything with lann is a centre or enclosure.
      They have 2 entries in the dictionary as well as apparently deriving from 2 different words https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/dia so I can’t confirm that the idea of Dé for a day is anything to do with God.

      Go raibh maith agat!
      Emma

      Reply
  4. Sinikka

    So, I’ve been wondering for a while if Irish really uses abbreviations. I’m wanting to theme my 2021 bullet journal/planner “as Gaeilge”, and part of that is to write out a calendar with the Irish names of the months and days, etc. I’ve found out that it’s common practice to have Monday be the start of the week rather than Sunday, but I’ve yet to find any info from my internet searches for using abbreviations in the calendar (Feb.=February, Mon.=Monday, etc). Is that not a thing, or is my search engine just pathetic at reading my mind? 🙂

    Reply
  5. una walsh

    I am a primary school teacher in my 50s. I have always wanted an explanation for this and have asked a number of fluent speakers – who could never explain it to me. Thank you very much for such a clear explanation.

    Reply
    1. Gabrielle at Bitesize

      You’re very welcome Una – it’s something that comes easily to daoine líofa and can be hard to explain.
      I’m glad it helped and hope you can pass the information on to your students too!
      Gabrielle

      Reply
  6. Jen Foley

    This article is very helpful so thank you for posting it. I am currently taking Irish 102 on FutureLearn and this week’s lesson covered the days of the week. The names of the days were posted with both “an” and “de” in front of them, but no explanation was given so I didn’t understand the difference or why there was an “an” or “de” in front of them to begin with. This clears it all up!

    Reply
  7. Malcolm

    So – these (of course) are all names of the week after Christianity.

    Does anyone know if there existed named days in ancient times? Was there a celtic calendar? Was there a week?

    Thank you in advance!

    Reply
        1. malcolm

          Thank you for the kind wish.

          BTW If anyone is interested in the novel I would be happy to share some details. And I wouldn’t mind some readers.

          It’s titled Rapu = crayfish in Finnish. It’s the nick name of main character given by king Conchobar.

          Reply
        2. malcolm

          I Thank you for kind wish.
          BTW If anyone is interested in the novel I would be happy to share some details. And I wouldn’t mind some readers.

          It’s titled Rapu = crayfish in Finnish. It’s the nick name of main character given by king Conchobar.

          Reply
  8. David O'Druaidh

    Gaelic appears to have a strong Latin influence. In languages like French and Spanish the days of the week are named after the planets. In Spanish, for example.

    Monday – Lunes – Lunar day, Tuesday – Martes – Mars Day, Wednesday – Miércoles – Mercury Day, Thursday – Jueves – Jupiter day, Friday – Viernes – Venus day, Saturday – Sábado – Saturn Day, Sunday – Domingo – Sun day.

    This also appears to be the case in Gaelic, as they sound similar even when they are not spelled the same. Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday seem obvious enough.

    Dé Luain (Jay LOO-in): Monday
    Dé Máirt (Jay march): Tuesday
    Dé Sathairn (Jay SA-ha-rin): Saturday

    Any thoughts on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday? How direct are any planetary influences here?

    Sláinte

    Reply
  9. David O'Druaidh

    Gaelic appears to have a strong Latin influence. In languages like French and Spanish the days of the week are named after the planets. In Spanish, for example.

    Monday – Lunes – Lunar day, Tuesday – Martes – Mars Day, Wednesday – Miércoles – Mercury Day, Thursday – Jueves – Jupiter day, Friday – Viernes – Venus day, Saturday – Sábado – Saturn Day, Sunday – Domingo – Sun day.

    This also appears to be the case in Gaelic, as they sound similar even when they are not spelled the same. Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday seem obvious enough.

    Dé Luain (Jay LOO-in): Monday
    Dé Máirt (Jay march): Tuesday
    Dé Sathairn (Jay SA-ha-rin): Saturday

    Any thoughts on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday? How direct are any planetary influences here?

    Reply
  10. Joe Kelly

    I had always been told that Luan, or Dé Luain, came from either the festival “Lúnasa”; or its namesake, the god “Lú” – do you have a source supporting the idea that Luan came from Luna instead of Lú?

    Reply
    1. Siobhán at Bitesize

      Hi Mark,

      Thanks for your question.

      Here’s what I could find online in answer to your question. Very interestingly, the Irish did not have a seven day week before the arrival of Christianity. The Irish for “week” is “seachtain” (shokh-tun), seacht being the Irish for seven.

      https://books.google.ie/books?id=vAYxDQAAQBAJ&lpg=PT126&vq=pre%20christian%20names%20days&pg=PT126#v=onepage&q=to%20be%20fair,%20Patrick%20has%20little%20or%20nothing%20to%20say&f=false

      I hope this answers your question or atleast leads you nearer to the answer.

      Le meas,
      Siobhán

      Reply
  13. Mark Hassall

    I looked up ‘Irish days of the week’ on the off chance that I might find something on the pre-Roman/ pre Christian names of the days. I had already found out that there was nothing about ancient Celtic names in Wales. Sadly it appears that the situation in Ireland is the same. We do have the Celtic names for the months and some festivals inscribed on the fragmentary bronze tablet found a Coligny in France. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to track down the ancients Irish names of days of the week… if so I would love to follow things up…..

    Reply
  15. Margaret

    The little story you began about the hunchback and the fairies, in the version my Irish father told me it does not end so well. There were 3 men with humps and the fairies removed the humps from 2 of the men, as the fairies were naming the days of the week in Gaelic and the first 2 hunchbacks offered names for a day in the week and the names were a musical and lyrical match to the first day named by the fairies, but then 3rd hunchback now seeing the the other 2 having their humps removed went down the road where the fairies were and sure enough the fairies sang the 3 days of the week Dé Luain Monday, Dé Máirt Tuesday and Dé Céadaoin Wednesday and waited for the 3rd hunchback to add the next day. Well he did but it was a cluncker, discordant, and harsh, so he was given the other 2 hunchback’s humps!! The End

    Reply
  16. Audrey Nickel

    My concern here is simply to help people pronounce the words properly. When using English phonetics, I use the structure that, in my experience, is most likely to help Irish learners get into the ballpark pronunciation-wise. It serves no purpose to keep the meaning intact in a phonetic rendering if it doesn’t also help the learner to pronounce the word correctly (especially as the phonetic renderings have no meaning in and of themselves).

    Reply
  17. rotbowie

    Hi Audrey, it sounds subtle, but it’s an important distinction. (even if I am being pedantic)
    een and awn are as you know suffixes to the main word in names like
    Róisín and Rónán etc. So pronouncing the word with the final consonant of the word starting the suffix is *wrong*
    For example, most people pronounce the name Colman as “Coal man”
    but it comes from Colm-án so it should be ‘Cullm awn’

    So similarly, Ceadaoin which is two words Cead and aoin should be
    ‘Kayd – een’ and not Kay-Deen as the first pronunciation helps retain the meaning of the original two words. First-fast

    It happens often in English as so many words are derived from other languages
    September (from Latin septem, “seven”) shouldn’t be Sep – tember but
    Septem-ber … this could go on forever 🙂
    it just bugs me is all!

    Reply
  18. Audrey Nickel

    I’m not sure I’m getting the distinction, rotbowie. As I’m reading it, regardless of where you put the “d” in the phonetics, it’s pronounced the same.

    Reply
  19. rotbowie

    The word Céadaoin should not (IMO) be pronounced
    “KAY-deen” but KAYD-een
    I certainly learned it in school as (Jay KAY-deen) as listed on your site, but as the two words céad Aoin make up the word, it should be pronounced as such to retain meaning.
    Many names are similarly ‘mispronounced’ in the same way in most parts of the country ro-sheen instead of róis-een, ro-nawn rather than rown-awn

    Reply
  20. Annie H

    These posts are a great reinforcement to the online lessons as well as providing another approach to the information. I am really having fun with this. I wish I could find someone to practice with face-to-face. I LOVE the audio lessons as reinforcement. Thanks! Annie

    Reply

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