RTÉ News

Yes thanks very much for all of your input TV Room.

Nice to see Anne Doyle doing the Nine tonight - I hadn't seen her in the new set yet but she has improved a lot this evening. More perky and she looked well with the great lighting in the set. But she was framed badly - about 5 miles between her shoulder and the inset! AND there was a light blown already in the lower panel under the cyclorama behind her. Hopefully they'll replace that soon - disappointing to see wear and tear after only a few weeks! Either that or they forgot to turn it on!

sstepski, it's quite simple. These are Irish blessings or greetings. The first is:

'Go mBeannaí Dia dhíbh' (but when said naturally, you almost miss the third word). This simply means 'May God Bless You (plural). It's another way of saying 'hello'.

The second one is more in tune with where Siún is from (Feothanach, north of Dingle, County Kerry.) She uses it a lot, and in its proper spelling, it looks like this:

'Dé bhfúr mBeathasa um thráthnóna' - which is another way of saying hello, this time literally meaning 'Thank God for your Life' although this meaning is nothing compared to the Irish meaning, which is more of a congradulatory 'hello' as in, "You're looking well today." The second part of the phrase '... um thráthnóna' can be changed. This means '..this evening', but could be changed to 'Dé bhfúr mBeathasa ar maidin' for example, to mean something along the lines of 'Good Morning, how are you?'.

The Irish language is full of these greetings and blessings, which are almost impossible to literally translate, as to non-irish speakers, their translation sounds ridiculous.

I hope this clears things up for you, and anyone else that was wondering.

Sometimes it's odd in English too.

There's the weatherman on RTÉ who starts the late forecast by saying "Good night to you".

They are almost nothing like the way they are pronouced! I always wonder, can you phoenetically pronounce Irish if you know it?

irish is not like french or spannish, where you can just pronounce a word as you see it, putting in silent vowels where you think they go. it's an ancient language and very very difficult to learn.

that's why there's so little of it left in Ireland, despite the 'revival efforts' on tv lately.

this is sometimes evident in the news on rte too. there are a number of different presenters in Irish, with them coming from completely different parts of the country. There are 3 dialects in Ireland, Corcha Dhuibhne (where I hail from, in the south), Connemara (west of Galway), and Tír Chonaill (or Donegal, in the north west).

Siún Nic Gearailt and Bríd Óg Ní Bhuachalla are from Corcha Dhuibhne in the south. Ailbhe Ó Monachán who reads for TG4 and RTE sometimes has a distinct Northern twang to his accent, but I think he could be from Connemara. Barry Mescal who does reports for TG4 and Nuact RTE is definitely a southerner, and so too is Tómás Ó Mainnín. Interestingly, Tomás, Siún and Bríd-Óg are from the same parish in West Kerry!

It's sometimes quite confusing to the listener of Nuacht on RTÉ, because the variations in dialects are so vast. I find it difficult to understand Tír Chonaill Irish, whereas a non-speaker who learned in school, might understand it and Connemara better than Corcha Dhuibhne.

RTÉ balance this oddly, but well, by rotating the presenters enough to keep it interesting. And you'll normally find that correspondants with munster Irish (kerry, cork, waterford) will cover the events in Munster, and Connemara ones for the west and east and Tír Chonaill ones for the north.

By the way, Corcha Dhuibhne Irish is almost identical to Múscraí Irish (Kerry/Cork Border) and Gaeltacht na Rinne (in Ring, County Waterford).

One other interesting thing I've noticed, is there's a correspondant for Connemara and the West now, on TG4 a good bit and occasionally on RTÉ news, called Alex Hijmans. I don't know where he's from, but I would suspect Scandanavia or Germany/Netherlands. His Irish is almost flawless, even though when he signs off his nativity comes through when pronouncing his surname. I was really impressed when I first heard him... an inspiration to Irish people all over who think it's impossible to learn - he obviously did!

Although I learnt the Tir Chonaill/Rosses dialect of Irish, I find it easy enough to understand Siun Nic Gearailt... but I am more attracted by what I am ag amharc ...

I speak a MIxture of North Connacht/South Ulster, since my family comes from the area around bundoran and mullagmore.



Meh. Can't she just retire already. Eileen is miles better. Anne just gets on my nerves. . She's a robot!

Some would say Una O'Hagen should retire first. She is old!

Hello everyone
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Siun is doing a good work in the Nuacht RTE, it is not really necessary to understand Irish to feel that she is really friendly and natural there. Maybe she should lift into the English news services, to Nine News for example... she could replace Anne or Una but the person who is really for kick out is Aengus MacGrianna... he could present the Nuacht RTE because it's not watched so often (if it is not true, please notify me) as the English services.

PS I'd like to thank diarmydotnet for explaining the Irish phrases for me

I've been fortunate enough to be inside the gallery at TV3 on a few occasions, and it's impressive how fast they are at noticing mistakes - although while I was there the few that did occur were so minor that many viewers wouldn't have noticed. That said, they've had problems with a few reports lately - yesterday's one from Moyross had terrible picture and sound quality, which they acknowledged, and the follow-up today from Jenny McCudden had poor audio.

At the start of Six-One this evening, straight after the titles, the DOG started jumping all over the place so they had to take it down. I've seen it slip across to the middle of the screen before but I've never seen it this bad.

Hello again this evening

Seamus was extremely polite in this evening's Nuacht RTE - he greeted the audience before the headlines and after them ^^

It was funny to see (and hear ) when he suddenly lowered his tone saying the greeting again after the headlines.

Edit: The ending was kinda long this evening, I think Seamus was talking about special news or something. Scroll to 8:55 to see and listen. Maybe someone would like to translate?

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Scroll it to 0:45

Out of interest, for Nuacht, is the gallery talkback done in English or Irish?