Even though words such as "carr", "bád", and "cailín" are masculine, don't people often refer to them as "í".
I haven't heard this enough to be sure though.

Yes, they do.

an cailín -> í (always)
an bád -> í (always)
an carr -> í or é

Didn't go into it, but yes...in the case of "cailín" common sense trumps grammatical gender when it comes to pronouns. And boats are referred to as "she" in Irish, just as they are in English. These word still behave as masculine nouns in all other ways though.

The same can be said of "stáil," which is feminine. You still refer to a stallion using masculine pronouns.

Redwolf

Exceptions, exceptions, and more exceptions. Actually, it must confuse English learners, who would've been taught that all inanimate objects are refered to as "it", when they hear people refer to cars and boats as "she".

In school we didn't learn that Irish had feminine and masculine nouns until 5th year, and we had relatively positive experience with Irish. We were just told to add a séimhiú or use "na" in the Ginideach if it sounded right until then.

Actually, it's quite common in English to use gendered pronouns for some things, boats especially. Also musical instruments.

Redwolf

I have heard and seen sentences with "cailín" that truly surprise me.
All kinds of mixing of genders...
I imagine today's liberals would love it.

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