Chiff and Fipple Forums

I've just completed building a boat (picture below), and I need help with the naming. My ancestry is Irish, but I don't have the Irish myself. The boat is built traditional (wood), and I was thinking of using "Old School", or the Irish vernacular equivalent. Can anyone help with the translation of this into Irish?

Slainte,

dave boling

daveboling wrote:I was thinking of using "Old School", or the Irish vernacular equivalent.

Wouldn't that be sean nós ?

There's always "Sean-Nós". Means "old style", and if you play ITM, you're probably familiar with the phrase's connection to certain types of dance and singing (and I'm sure it's applicable to other things as well). It might cover a bunch of ground for you.

If you use it, just mind that there's only one fada (accent mark), that on the O of the second word, and none anywhere on the first. It matters. I frequently see the words hyphenated, but I don't know if that's a requirement. Redwolf?

[Crossposted w/ MTGuru]

About the hyphen in "sean-nós". It's there because it's a compound word. Usually compound words don't use the hyphen, as in seanfhocal = sean + focal = old + word = proverb. But because the first word ends in the same consonant as the second one in sean-nós, the hyphen makes the spelling clearer, so that's the convention.

You can use it either with the hyphen or as two separate words. With the hyphen is more common, but you do see both.

Sean = old
Nós = habit, custom or manner

Ar nós na gaoithe = like (as in as fast as) the wind.

The literal translation "sean scoil" means old school, as in an actual school which is old. It's not an irish phrase, just a literal translation of an english one - béaralachas (anglicism). No harm in that, if you're comfortable with it. It would be like saying "old word" when you mean proverb.

Nice boat! Looks like a good build too.

Thanks for the clarification about the hyphen. I always wondered about that.

I would go with "sean nós," and I wouldn't hyphenate it. You'll see it that way, but the standard way of writing it is as two words, not as a compound.

Pronounced "shan" (rhymes with "pan") "nohss"

Redwolf

It looks like plyood clinker to be, with horizontal battens along the seams. AFAIK, that's a style that owes everything to epoxy and very little to trad boatbuilding, in which the ribs - in good white q/s oak - would have run verticle, not horizontal.

Don't get me wrong - It's a fine design and entirely apporopriate to today's tech. But it isnae Sean Nos. You need a new name. Is there a term for the best of the past combined with the formost tech of today? You need one, if there isn't. This where future sales are gonna lay.