Munster Irish. It was called "Munster Poetry" perhaps from the collection bearing the title Poets and Poetry of Munster" printed by O'Daly. At any rate though prevalent all over Ireland the system attained its highest degree of perfection in the hands of the 17th and 18th century professional rhymers of that province.

A triple subdivision of Munster is made necessary by the fact that short accented vowels in heavy syllables assume at least three distinct grades of intonation. The members of this partition shall be called 1 Thomond (Clare, Limerick), 2· Desmond (Cork, Kerry), and 3 the country of the Desi comprising Waterford and the southern portion of Tipperary. As the last-mentioned division is my native language-territory I shall treat of its dialect specially giving such references to the variant usages in the others as will be helpful towards the reading of the whole body of Munster Poetry.

The district here called the country of the Desi or shortly Desi, is that comprised by the present Dioceses of Waterford and Lismore. To this add the baronies of Iverk and Ida in Kilkenny. Boundaries: From the Meeting of the three Waters below Waterford to Dunmore, along the coast to Youghal, by the Blackwater to Lismore, over Cnoc Mael domnaig to the meeting point of Cork, Limerick and Tipperary at Kilbehenny, along the Galtees to Sliabh na mban, along the Walsh Mountains to Tory Hill and to The Meeting of the Three Waters. The inhabitants may be distinguished by their surnames into various races: Irish, Cymric, Danish, Norman and English. In East Waterford the Norman element prevails hence the name Duthaigh Paorach, the territory of the Le Poers.

Phonetic Symbols.

§ 1. Small uncials and text will be used to connote broad and slender sounds respectively. This distinction will extend to the vowels also in so far as they suffer variation

of timbre. U EI therefore shall be used to denote the broad sound of those vowels. Special reductions of L R are represented by 'r'; zh signifies the weakening of r, a Leinater development which extended South as far as the Suir. cc stand for the spirants arising from к k; Y y, those produced by G D and gd respectively. N is the nasal guttural. A o are not used as those vowels are broad for their whole period of duration. unvoiced r.

rh

Vowels, a ã å å, E ē е ǝ, Iī i, Ū u ū, l m n ṛ, L ́ M ́N ́R ́.
Diphthongs, iǝ, uə.

Slurred Diphthongs, au ou i ai Ei.

PBF WM are bilabial sounds. (w in auslaut from bh mh, broad is written v.) Their corresponding slender sounds are either bilabial or labiodental.

DTNL require for their production that the tongue be pressed against the upper teeth and hard gum. For L a lighter pressure is required, the tongue is apparently spread wide and the throat organs are held in the position of a u vowel. It is best reproduced by sounding such a vowel before it the tongue being drawn forward to touch the upper teeth.

td are produced by the tip of the tongue on the hard gum near the roots of the upper teeth. Contact is broken gradually and an incipient spirans makes itself heard after the

consonant.

S= Eng. sh, Germ. sch,

zh = French in such words as rouge,

g

k like in Eng. kin, Ger. kind.

g like Eng. give, Ger. gib. As in the case of td so k g break contact slowly and produce a slight following spirans. Eng. winged, Germ. ging but without the auslaut palatal k, g, which is often heard both in English and German. c = Ger. ich.

n =

y =

Eng. aulaut y, Germ. j.

K like guttural e in Eng. cow, Ger. kuh.

C = guttural ch in Ger. ach, kuchen.

Y = Ger. g in words like wagen.

Nng in Eng. longed, Ger. lang but without a following guttural consonant, as sometimes in Eng. long—9, Ger. lang-k.

l' is the reduction of 1 the ordinary slender consonant.

It is a ly or yl sound like Italian gl heard in ennjunction with y as in ghleo. The reduction of L will be distinguished occasionally by l'.

R represents rr, and r unaffected in anlaut,

r' its reduction, and slenderr in auslautaire, anlaut gr-, pr-, br-.

r the ordinary sound.

Vowels.

a=short open a as in Eng. cat as pronounced in Ireland, Ger. kann.

a the same sound lengthened. Ger. malen.

Eng. what.

Eng. fall.

E, always long is like Ger. ö sounded deep in the relaxed

guttural chamber. It may be attempted by pronouncing ge

with the g of Eng. go.

e = Eng. bed, Ger. bet.

Eng. a in fate, late, Ger. lesen.

ǝ the irrational or colourless vowel the short vowel after the accent in English words e. g. evident, wicked, pronounced naturally not affectedly as when one says evy-dent, wickeed.

I like the short and long vowels in Eng. quill, queen respectively, pronounced without the w and without lip-rounding thus k(w)ill k(w)īn. II and E are the broad sounds corresponding to i and è slender. Ii umlaut of o; cuir Kir', from cor. I when not =1+ y represents the i umlaut of an old diphthong now written aoi. E represents the sound of the digraph ao.

U=

Eng. puss, Ger. muss.

00 in Eng. cool.

u stands for U after y. iú = ew in English words like few, new.

!. m, n, r, are liquid sonants like n in Eng. buckle token, etc. i. e bakl', tōkn.

au, eu, î, ai, Ei, are long slurred dipthongs or coalescences which can be apparently resolved into the simple sounds which constitute their several signs. î may be imitated by slurring öi. Those arise from short vowels under certain conditions of accent and consonant accompaniment. Vid. § 4, sqq.

au like Ger. haus, more open than the English pronunciation of ou in house. It is always strongly nasalized.

ou

the Irish pronunciation of ou in house or of o in bold i. e. bould.

ai like the English pronunciation of the pronoun I î = öi like the Irish pronunciation of the pronoun I Ei like the preceding sound but with an e instead of an i colour.

The numerous digraphs asising from the caol-leathan rule will be represented by their simple values.

Of Accent.

$ 2,1. In the prehistoric period a revolution of accent took place in Irish which compared with the original Indogermanic accent shows two remarkable characteristics. One has reference to the place the other to the quality of the accent. With regard to the place we find that the free Indogermanic accent which could rest either on the root or on the ending, has become fixed in the great majority of cases in O. I. Its place in nouns, simple and compound, and simple verbs, was on the first syllable, in the case of compound verbs the position charged from the first to the second element according to certain established laws. As regards quality the Irish accent consisted of stress whereas the Indogermanic represented a chromatic tone change. This stress, being of a very strong expiratory character gave rise to certain phenomena which may be briefly summarized thus:

The toned syllable retained its inherited vocalic quality and quantity whereas unaccented syllables suffered a qualitative and quantitive weakening. The syllable after the accent became weakest and if not final usually lost its vowel and contracted. maidin gen. maidne, tabhair, but taibhrem taibherem. Vid. Zimmer, Ueber altirische Betonung, Berlin 1884, and Thurneysen, L'accentuation de l'ancien verbe irlandais; R. C. VI. 129, sqq.

2. In general the accent inherited from O. I. is retained. On weakening of the accent force new agencies became energetic in Munster, the O. I. laws being crossed by others with ensuing disturbance especially in the Dēsi.

I. A long vowel in an unaccented syllable induced strife between the stress and tone accent. The stress accent balances

the tone accent or yields to it. In the latter event a detoned