Apparently it isn't; she is still talking about it across continents over the internet!!

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Scarred for life! No wonder I became a copy editor!

Redwolf

Good example, Breandán - an saol mór 'na gcodladh.

I wonder why American usage differs - after all the English language was taken over there from England (and Ireland) - and whether the large numbers of non-English speakers, eg. Germans and Dutch etc had an impact on English grammar in North America.

Because it seems to me that English and Irish have elements of a Sprachbund - based on the fact that there is a Celtic substratum in English?? So - sin iad an pobal - makes perfect sense to an English speaker - and is what is said in Munster Irish.

It's me - this phrase (which grammarians once wanted to change to "it is I" to bring it into line with Latin) - mirrors Irish too. Is me féin - where the Irish disjunctive pronoun is the same as the object case of the verb - just as in English.

It's me who's paying for it - this phrase (which grammarians once wanted to change to "it is I who AM paying for it" to bring it into line with Latin) - mirrors Irish. Is mise atá ag díol as (not: *is mise atáim...).

I'm sure there are many other things too. I think the English gerund and the Irish verbal noun have a similarity - and English is quite non-Germanic in that respect.

seo and d by analogy with siúd ; or is it simply a form of "siúd"?
The d doesn't come from rud, but from "ucut" in Old Irish or sthg like that.



but it doesn't prove that the d always becomes slender in "seod/siod", because I think I heard "seod é" with a broad d in Ulster Irish

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

If Lughaidh heard seod é - then I'm sure the d remains broad in some dialects.

But Brendan the spelling seod é does not tell you anything about liaison or assimilation between the words - it may be that the d becomes slender across the word boundary - and only hearing it can tell you?

Based on what Lughaidh said - I expect it remains broad in the Connemara too and thus you have the 2 or 3 dialects outvoting the 3rd, the principle the Caighdeán was founded on.

if the CO was founded on that principle, then they made loads of exceptions

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Sin é mo mhac. = That is my son.

Seod é mo mhac = This is my son.

Seod í mo mháthair = This is my mother.

Seod iad mo mhuintir. = This is my family.

I can't explain the grammar of it.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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Seo é mo mhac. Seo í mo mháthair. Seo iad mo theaghlach. Seo í mo chlann.

Are these not correct?

According to the little dictionary I'm currently using, Redwolf's suggestion seems to be right that "clann" is feminine whether you're referring to boys, girls, or both.

Merry Ploughboy, I say to be helpful and not for any other reason that the best way to learn is to use a textbook. Whatever version of Irish is given in the textbook, you can work your way through. Random questions can't really teach you a whole language. And dictionaries are not textbooks either - and cannot be used as such.

Clann is a feminine word - as you rightly say, the word is feminine whoever it refers to. But that does not mean that plural pronouns cannot be used with it.

See http://www.irishpage.com/story/Madra/madra(9).htm - for a famous story from the Munster Gaeltacht that one a prize in the 1901 Oireachtas: gurb iad mo chlann iad.

Irish dialects are so disparate that I'm starting to learn not to be emphatic about what is and what is not good Irish. There always appears to be an exception. I don't know if any dialect says "seo í mo chlann". Lughaidh has said that in Ulster the í would drop out anyway: seo mo chlann. I am not too certain over the validity of *seo í for Munster Irish. AFAIK it is sid í. But in any case: sid iad mo chlann is what dovetails with that quote from Madra na nOcht gCos.

What they say in the Connemara - that remains the one major dialect we need to pin down. Do they say seo í mo chlann, seod í mo chlann, seo iad mo chlann or seod iad mo chlann - or, potentially, all four? Bríd's example was of muintir (seod iad mo mhuintir), and so did not specifically use clann.

Sid iad mo chlann - is right - but not necessarily what every dialect will have. Looking in the dictionary and seeing clann is feminine is not going to clear up this query.

As patrick has said, you have to be very careful when saying what is and isn't true in Irish.*

With that in mind, I will say that I have only heard Munster Irish speakers use:

Sid é.....
Is é seo....

Sid í...
Is í seo...

Sid iad...
'Siad so...

*This point was driven home to me recently when I noticed that what the speech of the people I stayed with near An Fheothanach in Corca Dhuibhne didn't match the description in Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne by Diarmuid Ó Sé. However Ó Sé does explicitly state his description only covers the western end of Corca Dhuibhne , for exactly this reason. For example, what is said in that book about the dative, is simply not true in other areas of the peninsula. It's the reason we have a four volume set on only Iorras Aithneach Irish.

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal