How To Say I’m An Irish-American In Irish

A great many of our members here at Bitesize Irish are Americans of Irish descent. We thought it was high time that we posted a blog to tell y’all just how we say ‘I’m an Irish-American’ in Irish!

Here goes..

Is Gael-Mheiriceánach mé /Iss Gwayl-Ver-ik-yawn-ukh may/ (I’m an Irish-American)

Lets take a look at the grammar of this simple statement.

We begin with the copula Is /Iss/ . This is a special form of the verb ‘to be’ (bí /bee/) that is used to describe what a person is rather than his or her state or condition. Here we are talking about nationality and cultural heritage, but this copula may be used to describe other enduring things such as a person’s profession e.g. Is múinteoir mé /Iss moo-in-tyoe-ir may/ I am a teacher.

Next we have the noun Gael-Mheiriceánach /Gwayl-Ver-ik-yawn-ukh/ (Irish-American). This word is comprised of two individual nouns. Word order in Irish is often the reverse of that in English so lets look at the second noun first.

Meiriceánach /Mer-ik-yawn-ukh/ in its noun form simply means (an) American. It takes lenition (séimhiú) when it forms the second part the compound word Gael-Mheiriceánach.

Gael /Gwayl/ is a word historically used in the Irish language to refer an Irish person, though in the strictest sense a Gael was originally a person who was a member of the Gaelic ethnolinguistic group that has been in Ireland since pre-Christian times. Nowadays, Éireannach is a more precise term for a person of Irish nationality. The term Gael is reserved, for the most part, for when referring to people who practice elements of Gaelic culture such as the language, music, dance and sports. It is especially a term used by us Irish-speakers to refer to one another.

The last word in the statement, mé /may/, is a pronoun and simply means ‘me’.

Of course, this simple sentence structure Is + [your nationality/heritage] + pronoun can be used to say that other people are Irish-Americans:

Is Gael-Mheiriceánach é /Iss Gwayl-Ver-ik-yawn-ukh aye/ (He is an Irish-American)

Is Gael-Mheiriceánach í /Iss Gwayl-Ver-ik-yawn-ukh ee/ (She is an Irish-American)

..or even Is Gael-Mheiriceánaigh sinn /Iss Gwayl-Ver-ik-yawn-ig shin/ (We are Irish-Americans). Here the ending of the word Gael-Mheiriceánach becomes Gael-Mheiriceánaigh because the noun is in its plural form.

Conveniently, Gael-Mheiriceánach can be either a noun or an adjective, so we can use it in its adjective form to describe nouns.

So, you could use it to refer to the Irish-American Community: An pobal an Gael-Mheiriceánach /Un pub-ul Gwayl Ver-ik-yawn-ukh/ .