On a cold day in early September, 2024, I sat down in an Introduction to Old Irish class, and my life changed forever. I realised, while poring over initial mutations and noun stems, that I wanted to continue my language studies for many years to come.
But, saying that, it wasn’t easy. Old Irish can be beautiful and fascinating, but it can also be a pain to wrap your head around. In this post I want to steer you towards the resources that helped me during my Old Irish studies, in the hopes that they will help you too.
● Old Irish Workbook by E. G. Quin
○ It goes without saying that this was the most educational of the resources I used. It was the class textbook, and breaks down Old Irish into simple and short chapters. Each chapter builds on the previous one, and you will find that you understand more than you realise the further you read. At the end of every chapter there are exercises you can complete, in order to strengthen your language knowledge.
● Old Irish Paradigms and Selections from Old Irish Glosses by John Strachan
○ This is the companion book to the Old Irish Workbook, and is very helpful for learning the paradigms. Do you want to know what the 3rd singular imperative looks like? It’s in the paradigms, page 33. This book aligns perfectly with the Old Irish Workbook in showing you real life applications of grammar rules, and it really helped me out of some tough spots when translating tricky sentences. (psst…you didn’t hear it from me, but both Paradigms and Old Irish Workbook are available for free on Internet Archive)
● A Student’s Companion to Old Irish Grammar by Ranke de Vries
○ Have you ever encountered one of those ‘Idiot’s Guide’ books, which breaks something down into easy and humorous explanations? This is the Old Irish version of one of those books. This book was fundamental to my Old Irish learning journey, and I will forever be grateful for de Vries for writing it. Everything is explained so easily, and the best part is that there is so much compassion for learners; sometimes, during my studies, I would feel dumb for not understanding grammatical points, but this book made me feel so much better about my abilities.
● Quizlet
○ No matter what, there will be a student before you who would have helped you out without knowing it. This was the case when I went onto Quizlet to make Old Irish flashcards, and came face-to-face with an extensive collection that had already been made. Flashcards are, for me, a very important part of Old Irish language learning, as they really cemented my memorisation of nouns and verb meanings, along with more in depth descriptions. Quizlet is a really good resource, as it can be a fun way of game-ifying your studies (I personally got a little too obsessed with the Blocks puzzle during exam season).
● A support group
○ As with any subject, having a group of fellow learners can be a huge help. There may be times where you know something and another person doesn’t, and vice versa. You can help each other out, and maybe make a friend or two while doing so. I know not everyone will have access to a group of Old Irish fanatics, but if you study the language at university, try to include yourself in conversations, as you will get more out of it than just improving your Old Irish.
Old Irish can be incredibly fulfilling, but it can also be hugely difficult. So if you ever feel overwhelmed with your language learning journey, just take a deep breath, realise that you don’t have to be a world-renowned scholar straight away, and try out one of the resources listed above.
You can do this, I believe in you.
GRMA
Chelsea Lucas (she/her)
BA English & Celtic Civilisations, UCC
Comments
Post a Comment