As the weather is improving our minds may be turning to travel, so this month I’ll be showing you how to talk about places you’ve been. To do that a little bit of grammar is required, but don’t worry – it’s easy stuff!

In the first line you will have seen the phrase, Bhí mé i nGaillimh… The Irish word for Galway is Gaillimh but when you want to say in Galway you use the little word i (meaning in) followed by the place-name, Galway. However, after that little word i (the simple preposition if you want the technical term) you are required to use an urú at the beginning of the place-name so you say, i nGaillimh.

The urú is the extra letter you see added to the name, i nGaillimh.

The urú changes the pronunciation so you no longer hear the first letter of the name, you hear the sound of the urú instead.

So an urú is placed before the consonants b, c, d, f, g, p and t, after the simple preposition i and each consonant has its own urú!

Here they are:

• Words beginning with B take an M – Béal Feirste (Belfast)= i mBéal Feirste (in Belfast)
• Words beginning with C take a G – Corcaigh (Cork) = i gCorcaigh (in Cork)
• Words beginning with D take an N – Doire (Derry) = i nDoire (in Derry)
• Words beginning with F take BH – Fear Manach (Fermanagh) = i bhFear Manach (in Fermanagh)
• Words beginning with G take an N – Gaillimh (Galway) = i nGaillimh (in Galway)
• Words beginning with P take a B – Port Láirge (Waterford) = i bPort Láirge (in Waterford)
• Words beginning with T take a D – Trá Lí (Tralee) = i dTrá Lí (in Tralee)

One more thing to notice: The original capital letter stays the same – the urú is always a small, lower-case letter. It never happens in English, but in this case you have words that begin with a small letter followed by a capital!

So, bhí mise i nGaillimh – cá raibh tusa? (I was in Galway – where were you?) Give it a go!

We will add to this topic next time, but meanwhile, Bain sult as an aimsir (enjoy the weather) agus feicfidh mé thú go luath.

Terri