Kerry says goodbye to the GAA legend that was Paidi O Se

Giant - RIP

I should also add that Gaelic has sounds distinct from other languages. Its spoken phonetics were not taught constructively in the elementary classroom when i was a nipper and i don't presume things have advanced since. We were tortured with Tuiseal Ginideach (Genitive Case) instruction from early on - and that battle was quickly lost.

Gaeltacht parents don't know how to pass on the language..Is this down to Decades of exposure to Irish learnt as a Classical language rather than a Living language? Education system has a lot to answer for; murdering Gaelic and rendering it as a textbook language is one of them.

I did not claim to be an expert on the language I merely stated that the children's first language is Irish. In fact they could not speak English until the age of 6.

Sorry, cazm: Making an assertion is not proof. I heard the young people speak, and I am merely stating a linguistic fact. Their Irish is not native. It's imperfect, especially in pronunciation. That's not an attack, it's a statement of fact. The language is dying in front of us, and will be gone in a decade or two. What is left of gaeltacht parents are not passing on the language to the next generation. It seems that O'Se, for all the love people say he had for the language (I can't say whether that reputation was merited or false) did not pass on Irish as a first language to his children. Even your own post contains two grammatical errors in one sentence, cazm. Learn the language before posturing as an expert on it.

I happen to be a friend of the family and can confirm that Irish is the first language of his children and that they use it on a daily basis so I do not know why you have made such an ill informed statement. Tá an Gaeilge go brea beo i gCiarraí agus i measc muintir Uí Shé

Reposting (the Irish Central site does very odd things with languages other than English):-------I watched some of the mass online from RTE. It was a sad occasion. There was a lot of Gaeilge bhinn from the older priests, but I was saddened also to see how the Irish language is dying. O'Shea, I am told, had been a fluent native speaker of Irish. Yet his children who read the readings were obviously not native speakers, they weren't even fluent and had poor pronunciation. The Irish language will die within decades, and with it will die any reason for Ireland to constitute a separate independent country.

I watched some of the mass online from RTE. It was a sad occasion. There was a lot of from the older priests, but I was saddened also to see how the Irish language is dying. O'Shea, I am told, had been a fluent native speaker of Irish. Yet his children who read the readings were obviously not native speakers, they weren't even fluent and had poor pronunciation. The Irish language will die within decades, and with it will die any reason for Ireland to constitute a separate independent country.