Seanfhocail — Irish Proverbs and What They Mean

Irish proverbs — seanfhocail — are short sayings in Irish that compress a whole observation into a handful of words, and what they mean is usually more than the English that gets printed beside them. Seanfhocal is sean, old, and focal, word: an old word. Read one slowly, word by word, and the translation turns out to have smoothed something away — a fire, a herd of cattle, the weather.

This is a closer reading of the seanfhocail we print, one at a time. For the wider set of Irish words and sayings, and why the fada matters, see Irish words and phrases as Gaeilge.

How a seanfhocal is built

Most of them are made on two frames. The first is Is maith an … — a good something is the … — which names a thing by what it does well. The second is Is fearr … ná … — better is this than that — where fearr is the comparative of maith, good. Both open with is, the copula, which in Irish is not the ordinary verb to be but the one used to say what something fundamentally is. That is why a seanfhocal sounds like a verdict rather than a piece of advice.

The second frame often rhymes, and the rhyme does real work: it is what makes a seanfhocal easy to carry.

Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin

Word by word: níl, there is not — aon tinteán, any hearth — mar, like — do thinteán féin, your own hearth. The t softens to th after do, your, which is ordinary Irish grammar rather than a spelling variant. The English gives it as there's no place like home, but the Irish is more particular: home is the fire, and the fire is yours. It is the natural one for a housewarming.

Two about people

Ní neart go cur le chéile — literally, there is no strength until putting together. Neart is strength; cur le chéile is the act of putting things, or people, alongside each other. The English unity is strength states a principle. The Irish describes a process: strength does not exist until the joining happens.

Is maith an scáthán súil charad — a friend's eye is a good mirror. Scáthán is mirror, súil is eye, and charad is cara, friend, in its genitive form, softened after súil. The point is not flattery. A mirror shows you what is there, and a friend is the one who will.

Time and the young

Is maith an scéalaí an aimsir — time is a good storyteller. The word doing the work is aimsir, which means weather as well as time. The nearest English, time will tell, keeps the idea and loses the teller: in Irish, time is a scéalaí, someone with a story to finish.

Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí — praise youth and it will come on. Mol is praise, as a command; tiocfaidh is the future of the verb to come. Óige, youth, is a feminine noun, so it takes sí, she — youth itself is the one who will flourish. It is a saying for a new parent, a teacher, or a first day.

Wealth, and the language itself

Is fearr an tsláinte ná na táinte — health is better than herds. Táinte is the plural of táin, the same word that names the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the old epic of a cattle raid; in early Ireland, wealth was counted in cattle. Note the t before sláinte: after the article, the s falls silent, and tsláinte rhymes cleanly with táinte.

Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste ná Béarla cliste — broken Irish is better than clever English. Same frame, same rhyme, bhriste against cliste. It is the seanfhocal said to anyone hesitating to speak Irish because their Irish is rusty, and it is meant as permission.

Choosing one for a wall

Read the Irish first, then decide what it is for. A hearth for a new home; a friend's eye for a friend; time as a storyteller for a birthday that ends in a zero; praise of youth for a nursery or a classroom. Each one is typeset in Irish and English, framed or unframed, in the Irish proverb and seanfhocal prints. Single words such as grá and sláinte are in Irish language prints — As Gaeilge, and if a painting suits the room better than a phrase, the full range is in Irish art prints.