djwebb2021 wrote:
An Roínn Oideachais - this is not grammatically incorrect at all.
Roínn an Oideachais = the department of the education (both nouns definite)
Compare: an bhean tí and bean an tí, as well.
I agree. Someone should tell the government.
Here's another peculiar one. It's currently around the centenary of the War of Independence. So over the last year or two, I've come across some history articles that mentioned the term 'Na Fianna Éireann' (being a reference to the youth wing of the Irish Volunteers/IRA). The first time I saw it, I assumed it was a once-off mistake, but then I saw it a second and a third time in different articles. So now I realise that the organisation did in fact render its name as 'Na Fianna Éireann'.
I'm not sure what was going on in the mind(s) of the person(s) who came up with this name but it's possibly one of the following.
1. They started off with the term 'Fianna Éireann', but then decided that it needed the definite article at the beginning. This would be along the lines of people who say things like 'an bhean an tí' instead of the correct 'bean an tí', since they are comparing to the corresponding English, which has the definitive article at the beginning ('the woman of the house')
2. Or, they started off with the term 'Fianna na hÉireann, but then decided to move the article to the beginning, in the same way that 'Roinn an Oideachais' erroneously becomes 'An Roinn Oideachais'.
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As an aside, the word 'Éire' is unusual in being one of the few country names that doesn't have the definite article in the nominative case, but it then typically does have the definitive article in the genitive case e.g. Muintir na hÉireann, talamh na hÉireann. However, in some (a minority of) phrases the convention seems to be to the omit the article eg. Dáil Éireann. So possibly things like 'Muintir Éireann' would be equally valid.