March 17 is almost upon us! St. Patrick’s Day is wildly popular here in the U.S. (we love an excuse to party!) and, by mid-February, you can hardly walk through a supermarket or drug store without being nearly smothered in green glitter. In fact, just about anything that can conceivably be tinted gets the green treatment — from bagels to beer, and even rivers and fountains.
Even now, just a few days after Lá ‘le Bríde and less than a week before Valentine’s Day, you’ll see plenty of green peeking through the pink, red, and white at places such as Target and Walgreens. And the offensive Facebook memes have already started.
Yes, this is also the time of year when Irish stereotypes good and bad (many having to do with drunkeness) come crawling out of the woodwork. If I never see that “Irish yoga” meme again, it will be too soon!*
A lot of stereotypes and other oddities that we see around St. Patrick’s Day, however, are not offensive — just based on ignorance and misinformation (and usually perpetuated by Hallmark and yes…more internet memes).
Fortunately, you have your very own geek to set you straight (or to help you set your friends straight)!
*If you haven’t seen this meme (yet!), first, aren’t you the lucky one? Inebriated young women passed out in various awkward poses and surrounded by empty bottles, captioned as “Irish Yoga.” It pops up in my Facebook feed every year, despite numerous complaints to the powers that be.
Focus on language
While misconceptions and misattributions are rife at this time of year (don’t get me started on sugary sweet English rhymes masquerading as traditional Irish sayings, and definitely don’t get me started on leprechauns!), given the usual topics I write about, I’ve decided to focus over the next few weeks on a few things related directly to the Irish language, starting with one that sets my teeth on edge every time I hear it. Can you guess which one that is?
(Of course you can. You’ve read the title of this post.)
No road elevations, please!
It’s everywhere. On tea towels and commemorative plaques. On greeting cards and posters. In modern “folk” songs and schmaltzy choral arrangements. On coffee cups, and even on pub walls! The first time I heard it was in the mid ’70s at the end of each and every episode of the old CBC Wednesday-evening Irish Rovers TV show (Usually appended with a bunch of “Oirish-y” sayings and ending with “and may you be a half hour in heaven before the devil knows you’re dead.” I think I was in my 30s before I realized that wasn’t actually a part of the blessing!)
Yep…you guessed it. It’s the The ubiquitous, unavoidable, so-called “ancient Irish blessing.”
You know the one I mean:
“May the road rise to meet you”*
People absolutely love it. I’ve seen people argue vociferously for its validity, even inventing detailed (and wrong) analysis to explain exactly what “May the road rise to meet you” means.
“The ancient Irish believed that…”. [No, they didn’t]
“The road rising is a metaphor for…”. [No, it isn’t]
Nope. None of that. This famous (infamous?) blessing is based on a mistranslation by someone who either didn’t understand Irish idioms or didn’t know that translating word for word from one language to another can be a recipe for disaster.
*Sometimes rendered as “May the road rise up to meet you” or “May the road rise with you.”
Good news: It actually IS Irish
One positive thing about this saying: Unlike a lot of things that appear on greeting cards, etc., it is actually Irish…in fact, it’s the first line of a blessing IN Irish:
Go n-éirí an bóthar leat
Further, it’s clearly based on a misunderstanding of Irish (and possibly even English) idiom, rather than on someone attempting to write something “Celtic-like” (way too much of that out there!) You can see how, if a person weren’t familiar with the often subtle ins and outs of translation, they could have gotten to this point. I mean, if you really are going word for word, it’s obvious, even if it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Go n-éirí — May rise
an bóthar — the road
leat — with-you (singular)
The problem is, while that may be the literal reading, the phrase doesn’t actually say that. It’s a matter of idiom.
Idioms, idioms!
Before we break this down, let’s take a look at one of the primary definitions of “idiom,” with help from Merriam-Webster.com:
IDIOM 1: an expression in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself, either grammatically (such as no, it wasn’t me) or in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements (such as ride herd on for “supervise”).
English has a lot of idioms for which the meaning can’t be derived from the meanings of its elements (in other words, can’t be taken literally, word for word). For example:
“I ate a ton of chips last night!” (No, I didn’t actually eat 2,000 pounds of chips, though it may have felt like it!)
“It’s raining cats and dogs!” (No, domestic animals aren’t actually falling from the sky!)
What a different a preposition makes!
It should come as no surprise that Irish is rife with idioms too. Most (perhaps all) languages are.
One interesting feature of the language is that certain verbs change meaning when paired with certain prepositions. One classic example is Buail, the basic meaning for which is “hit/strike/beat”:
Bhuail mé Seán aréir: “I hit Seán last night.” (Seán bocht!)
When you pair Buail with the preposition le (with), however, its meaning changes. It becomes “meet”:
Bhuail mé le Seán aréir: I met Seán last night.
You would never translate that sentence as “I hit with Seán last night” (Though I’d love to see the analysis breakdown for that one! “The ancient Irish believed”…no, they didn’t!)
Another word that changes meaning when combined with the preposition le is éirigh — the root form of éirí in the phrase in question.
While the basic meaning of éirigh IS “rise,” in most cases (and this is one of them), éirigh combined with any form of le* means “succeed.”
*Leat is an inflected form of le, and it’s what’s known as a prepositional pronoun. It combines the concept of “with” with the singular form of the word for “you” — tú. For more on prepositional pronouns, see my post from January 2020 — “The Modest Preposition.”
Exceptions, exceptions
Of course there are exceptions. This is a language we’re talking about (and a living language at that!) — there will ALWAYS be exceptions!
In most cases, however, the exceptions are clear cut, and mostly common sense. Éirigh le can mean “rise by/along with/with the aid of,” for example (from Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla):
Éirí leis na héin — Rise/get up with the lark
D’éirigh an leanbh le cos na cathaoireach — The child got up with the aid of the chair leg.
This sentence doesn’t fall into that category, however. The road isn’t rising with your aid (and, given the construction, neither are you rising with the aid of the road). It falls into the much simpler category — “succeed/pass/manage.” Again, with the aid of Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla:
D’éirigh leis — he succeeded
D’éirigh léi imeacht — she managed to get away
And an even closer example:
Má éiríonn an scrúdú leo — if they pass the test (i.e., if they are successful with the test).
Put bóthar (road) in the place of scrúdú (test) above, and substitute leat (with-you) for leo (with-them), and you can see what’s happening here:
Go n-éirí an bóthar leat: May you succeed [on/along] the road
But what about that road? (or what does IT really mean?)
Are we speaking of a literal road here? We could be, certainly. If I were wishing someone a safe drive on California’s Highway 17, for example (a truly hairy road!), I might say “go n-éirí an bóthar leat!”
In Irish, however, as in English, the word “road” can also be a metaphor for a journey, and often particularly for a journey through life. Think of these English expressions, for example:
As you travel on the road of life…
It’s a long and a dusty road, it’s a hard and a heavy load*
In fact, it’s a pretty common metaphor, and it’s the generally accepted interpretation among Irish speakers of bóthar in this sentence.
So what it comes down to is:
May you succeed (or prosper) on your journey [through life]
In essence, it’s an Irish bon voyage!
*Lyric from “I can’t help but wonder where I’m bound” by Tom Paxton
Putting it all together
It’s nice (and helpful!) to see things like this in context. In case you haven’t heard/seen the entire blessing in Irish, here it is in full*:
Go n-éirí an bóthar leat,
Go raibh an ghaoth go brách ag do chúl,
Go lonraí an ghrian go te ar d’aghaidh,
Go dtite an bháisteach go mín ar do pháirceanna,
Agus go mbuailimid le chéile arís,
Go gcoinní Dia i mbos a láimhe thú.
May your journey through life be successful/prosper,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
May the rain fall softly upon your fields,
And until we meet together again,
May God keep you in the palm of his hand.
Isn’t it much nicer when you know what you’re saying? And when it’s correct?
Now, the next time someone wishes you a rising road, YOU can set them straight! (Or just point them to this post!).
*There are several Irish language versions of this, all of which would be translated in the same way.
Coming up next…
This is the first of a few St. Patrick’s Day language posts I have planned for the lead-up to March 17, 2024. Stay tuned for the next installment: “The Saint and the Shamrock”.
In addition to being “The Geeky Gaeilgeoir,” Audrey Nickel is the author of The Irish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook,” published by Bradan Press, Nova Scotia, Canada. For information about the book, including where to buy it, please visit http://www.bradanpress.com/irish-tattoo-handbook/
PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM UNABLE TO OFFER TRANSLATIONS VIA THIS WEBSITE OR VIA EMAIL. IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A TRANSLATION, PLEASE VISIT THE IRISH LANGUAGE FORUM, WWW.IRISHLANGUAGEFORUM.COM.
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