91: #91 | Go Rabbi Maith Agat: Cecelia Beyer’s Irish Journey

07/12/19 • 45 min

Some people out there wouldn’t see a rabbinical calling and a love of Irish dancing and sean-nós singing as a likely pairing. Those people have not met Darach’s guest this week. Saoirse Cecelia Beyer is a New Jersey-based rabbi with a passion for traditional Irish singing and dancing styles which has taken her to fleadhs all over.
In this week’s episode, she tells Darach about being a “purveyor of joyful Judaism”, learning conversational Connacht Irish but Donegal Irish songs, PG-13 humour in religious education and the significance of the chosen name Saoirse. She also offers an informed interpretation of controversial passages of Genesis and Leviticus which might surprise you.
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twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor
email - [email protected]

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Previous Episode

90: #90 | Wingardium LeviÓSéaghdha - Translating Harry Potter into Irish

Gearóidín is a Gryffindor. Peadar is a Hufflepuff. Darach, however, is a muggle who has not read the books, only seen a few of the films and has not yet tuned into the audiobook (famously read by Ros na Rún guest star Stephen Fry). However, so pervasive is the influence of JK Rowling’s books that even he knows more about them than texts he has had to study for exams. The Harry Potter novels have been translated into over seventy languages... including Irish, and that’s where the Motherfoclóir train stops today.
In this week’s episode, we look at Harry Potter agus an Órchloch as translated by Máire Nic Mhaoláin. We consider the many challenges and opportunities that a translator tackling such a well-kown text has to take on board. How do you replicate accents? What about acronyms and anagrams? What about the parallel translation of a screenplay? And how about those words which might scurry in the long shadow of copyright laws?
The gang also consider the impact that the series has had on pop culture in general, its role in Blair-era “Cool Britannia” soft power and the dangers of legacy management in the internet age.
Special thanks to Laura McGloughlin for advice on this episode.
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Contact the show:
twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor
email - [email protected]

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Next Episode

92: #92 | An Astral Week: Seven Days That Shook The North (with Claire Mitchell)

"For me, the Irish language was like a ghost limb".
The days leading up to the 12th of July are often tense and dramatic ones in the North of Ireland, but never more so than in 2019. After months and months of stalemate and stagnation in Stormont - frustratingly coinciding with the British-Irish border being in the centre of a geopolitical crisis - the DUP's bluff was called with two amendments to the Northern Ireland Act passing in Westminster.
An Irish Language Act is one of three factors in the mix as the October deadline looms.
In today's episode, Darach talks to Belfast journalist Claire Mitchell about the events of the week. She brings him up to speed and gives him the background for all these developments, while also telling him about how Gaeilge fits in to her life and her Northern Protestant heritage.
Claire is a contributing editor with sluggerotoole.com
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Contact the show:
twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor
email - [email protected]

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