Irish-English Dictionary

Rating:
Summary: A Remarkable Legacy of Scholarship
Review: Father Patrick Dinneen was fascinating man: a scholar who devoted the energies of his life to the study and preservation of the Irish language. Along with editing several volumes for the Irish Texts Society, his dictionary stands as a brilliant compendium of Irish idiom, verse, and folklore.

As we have it now, Ó Dónaill and Dinneen have written the two dictionaries considered the standards for the study of Irish. Ã" DÃ3naill has the virtue of being recently compiled, unlike Dinneen, whose dictionary utilises an out-dated orthography (non-standardised spellings) and typeface (the somewhat archic, if not endearing, medieval Irish font), all of these features being in keeping with the date of its original publication (1927). For a beginner, then, Ó Dónaill would probably be less confusing.

I love my Dinneen: it's a depository of Irish heritage, containing numerous idiomatic phrases, folkloric titbits, and regional peculiarities. I am not an expert on Irish dialects, and I can't say that it favours any particular region, although his own native Sliabh Luachra area lends a fair number of rural phrases to the final product. Also, the dictionar functions as something of mythic encyclopedia, having entries for many of the major figures of the cycles.

Overall, Dinneen is a wonderful gift for all enthusiasts of Irish Gaelic. You may not use him as your trusty sidekick to sort a translation of a poem, but you will use him to increase your senstivity to Irish history, culture, and nuances.

As an unfortunate addendum . . . my copy of Dinneen, printed Elo Press, Dublin 8 - 1996, contains several poorly printed pages with a faded typeface, quite illegible in places.