A Chairde,

This is the first edition of a revised series of nuachtlitreacha (newsletters) that le cúnamh Dé (with the help of God) will become a series of blogs on this website.  The concept was derived in part from a website called Transparent Language that contains a blog.  Here is the link to the Irish version: http://www.transparent.com/irish/?link=tagcloud. To some extent this series will build upon prior blogs so it will be helpful in understanding to read them in the order published.  However, at least intially the level of Irish is not extensive. So with the help of a dictionary and the translations provided the order they are read in is not an absolute necessity.  Since there are a number of newsletters a number will be posted in quick succession and then when caught up they will be posted on a weekly or bi-weekly basis as time permits. The intent is to gradually increase the level of content as Gaeilge. To start I am sending along a few websites that may be of interest.  The first is that of the Conradh na Gaeilge Shanasa Nua (http://www.gaeilge.org/) is in New Hampshire.  Daltaí na Gaeilge (Students of Irish - http://www.daltai.com/home.htm) is located in New York and they have an interesting site which includes more than just seanfhocail (proverbs, old sayings or literally old words).

If you are interested in Old Style Irish fonts they are available at the following site: Gaelchló (http://www.gaelchlo.com/). The fonts are unicode fonts and suitable for use with Windows.  They were designed by Vincent Morely and are free.  The site is as Gaeilge and, therefore, a bit difficult for some to navigate.  If you click on the name of the font Bunchló GC for example you will get a page with a sample of the font and you will see a place to download the font on that page: Faigh an comhad bungc.zip (44 KB) ina bhfuil Bunchló GC, leagan 8.00, ina chló TrueType.  The character map and codes can be found in PDF format here: Tá an cló seo códaithe de réir Unicode. Is féidir sampla de théacs a clóbhuaileadh leis an gcló seo a léamh má tá Acrobat Reader ar do ríomhaire agat.  You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read the pdf files.  It can be downloaded free and safely here: http://get.adobe.com/reader/. Cló means type or print. Clónna is the plural.  Litríocht specializes in books in Irish... They are located in Ireland and are reliable: http://www.litriocht.com/shop/. Another site with some interesting products can be found here: http://www.fiosfeasa.com/.  It too is reliable, in my experience. If you want to watch Irish language television programming, visit TG4 at http://www.tg4.ie/crut/clo.asp. Click on TG4 BEO and a drop down menu will appear. Live programming might also pop up. On the left of the pop up page... there is a list on a green background. The items are programming categories and each category contains archived programs click on Ceol - Cartlann for example and you will sse a list of music programs to view. The list changes of available programming changes periodically. You might find these sites interesting as well: http://homepage.eircom.net/~eofeasa/level01/ceacht106/miniu/106b.htm, http://homepage.eircom.net/~eofeasa/level01/ceacht107/miniu/107h.htm and http://homepage.eircom.net/~eofeasa/level01/ceacht103/miniu/103b.htm. The first two pages deal with the copula (an chopail) which is one of the two forms of the verb to be. It is useful for ordering pints and expressing likes and dislikes among other things. The third page deals with the vocative case which is the form a noun takes when it is being used as an address. So if you had a question to ask Mary, you would say, 'A Mháire, tá ceist agam.' 

Mise, le meas

Dáithi