Declensions of Irish nouns

There are five recognised noun declensions in Irish, each with four cases (nominative, vocative, genitive, dative) as well as singular and plural forms. The accusative has the same form as the nominative.

But what is a declension? A declension is essentially a grouping of nouns that tend to form the plural and genitive according to a common pattern. Irish declensions are important for understanding how nouns change in context, especially when forming plurals and using different cases.

Key aspects of Irish declensions

1. Gender: Irish nouns are either masculine or feminine, and their gender affects how they decline.
2. Cases:
   • Nominative: Used for the subject of a sentence.
   • Genitive: Used to show possession or association.
   • Vocative: Used when directly addressing someone or something.
   • Dative: Used after certain prepositions (though in modern Irish, the dative often looks like the nominative).
3. Plural forms: Irish nouns form plurals in various ways, depending on their declension, often involving vowel changes or the addition of specific endings like -anna, -acha, -í, etc.

Example:

Let’s take the first declension (exclusively masculine nouns):

• Sg. Nominative: fear (man)
• Sg. Genitive: fir (of a man)
• Pl. Nominative: fir (men)
• Pl. Genitive: fear (of men)

In contrast, nouns from the second declension (mostly feminine nouns) have a different pattern:

• Sg. Nominative: bean (woman)
• Sg. Genitive: mná (of a woman)
• Pl. Nominative: mná (women)
• Pl. Genitive: ban (of women)

The genitive case, in particular, is widely used in Irish for expressing possession, compound nouns, and more.

Strong and weak plurals

• If a noun is the same form in the nominative and genitive plural (e.g. dánta > dánta, oifigí > oifigí, cluichí > cluichí), it is considered a strong plural.
• If a noun has different forms in the nominative and genitive plural (e.g. focail > focal, fuinneoga > fuinneog), it is called a weak plural.
• The genitive plural form of weak plurals is the same as the nominative singular (Except for a few irregular nouns that don’t belong to a declension).

1st declension (an chéad díochlaonadh)

The first declension primarily consists of masculine nouns. These nouns typically follow specific patterns for genitive singular and plural form changes.

General Characteristics

• Gender: All masculine.
• Nominative Singular: Usually ends in a broad consonant (a consonant with a back vowel sound like a, o, or u).
• Genitive Singular: The broad consonant is slenderised (changed to a slender consonant with an e or i sound), e.g. arán > aráin, casúr > casúir, bád > báid
• Nominative Plural: Often ends in -a, -anna, or -acha e.g. úll > úlla, carr > carranna, cineál > cineálacha,
• Genitive Plural: Sometimes the same as the nominative singular.

Declension Pattern for 1st Declension Nouns

Key Features

• Slenderization: In the genitive singular, the broad consonant of the noun stem (e.g., r in fear) becomes slender (fir).
• Broadening: In the genitive plural, nouns usually revert to their nominative singular form, so fir becomes fear.

2nd declension (an dara díochlaonadh)

The 2nd declension primarily includes feminine nouns, though there are some exceptions. These nouns generally follow a specific pattern when they change form depending on the case (nominative, genitive, etc.) and number (singular, plural).

General characteristics

• Gender: Most nouns in the 2nd declension are feminine, except 3 masculine (im, sliabh, teach)
• Nominative singular: The base form of the noun, no special ending.
• Genitive singular: The genitive singular often ends in -e. e.g. coill – coille, súil – súile
• Nominative plural: The plural nominative often ends in -a or -í. (e.g. bróg becomes bróga)
• Genitive plural: The most common plural form has a broad consonant followed by -a in the nominative, and a broad consonant alone in the genitive.

3rd declension (an triú díochlaonadh)

The Irish third declension is made up of both masculine and feminine nouns.

General Characteristics

They end in a consonant and tend to include most polysyllabic nouns with the following endings:

• Genitive singular: the final consonant is broadened and -a is suffixed to the end (e.g. bádóir > bádora, feirmeoir > feirmeora, saighdiúir > saighdiúra
  • For nouns that end in -int, you drop the t and broaden the word (e.g. canúint > canúna)
  • For those that end in –irt, you drop the t, broaden it, and it becomes tha (e.g. bagairt > bagartha)
• Nominative Plural: There are quite a few ways to form the plural of the third declension. Here are some of the most common ways:
  • Add -(a)í to most polysyllabic nouns which end in -éir, -eoir, -úir, óir, -cht, -úint, -irt (e.g.doctúir > dochtúirí, cáilíocht > cáilíochtaí)
  • Add -anna to the noun (e.g. am > amanna)
  • Add -acha to polysyllabic feminine nouns that end in slender consonants l, n or r (e.g. onóir > onóracha)
  • Add -ta to monosyllabic broad masculine and slender feminine nouns that end in l or n (e.g. gleann > gleannta, bliain > blianta)

But to be honest, you can still bypass all of this by simply using foclóir.ie or teanglann.ie to see the endings if you’re confused.

4th declension (an ceathrú díochlaonadh)

The fourth declension is also made up of masculine and feminine nouns. All nouns have strong plurals.

General Characteristics

• Genitive Singular: identical in form to the nominative/vocative/dative singular.
• Nominative Singular: May end in a vowel or a consonant (usually -ín).
• Nominative Plural: There are quite a few ways to form the plural of the fourth declension. Here are some of the most common ways:
  • The most common plural ending is -(a)í. (e.g. cailín > cailíní, páiste > páistí, piopa > piopaí)
  • Add -(i)the to nouns that end in (a)í, -aoi, -é (e.g. oibrí > oibrithe, draoi > draoithe, rúnaí > rúnaithe) Exceptions: dlí > dlíthe, rí > ríthe
  • Add -nna to nouns that end in -á, -eá, -ó, -eo, -ú, -ia, -ogha, -ua, -ao

A few phrases that contain fourth-declension nouns in various forms:

• ar eagla na heagla (just in case, to be on the safe side).
• lá an dreoilín (wren day).
• ar shlí na firinne (literally: on the way of the truth i.e. dead)

5th declension (an cúigiú díochlaonadh)

The fifth declension is made up mostly of feminine nouns.

General Characteristics

• Genitive Singular: Most nouns end in a broad -ch, -d, -n, -nn, -r (e.g. cathair > cathrach, traein > traenach, athair > athar, abhainn > abhann)
• Nominative Plural: There are quite a few ways to form the plural of the fifth declension. Here are some of the most common ways:
  • Add -na / ne to feminine nouns that end in a vowel (and -n in the genitive singular) (e.g. comharsa > comharsana, traein > traenacha)
• Plurals are strong except for caora, faocha and lacha.

Note: In some Munster Irish dialects, the dative singular is distinct and ends in a slender consonant. For example, do phearsain “to a person” or ón gcathraigh “from the city”.

The fifth declension word ‘Éire’ is one of only two nouns to have a distinct dative form in Standard Irish outside of set phrases (the other word being ‘fiche’ and its dative being ‘fichid’). In the case of the word “Éire/Éireann” (meaning “Ireland”), the dative form, “Éirinn”, is still used in the standard language.

Irregular nouns

The following is a list of some nouns that are declined irregularly:

*Note: You may notice that talamh has two genitive singular forms, talún and talaimh, but spelling-wise, at least in dialectal Irish from Cork and Erris, you’ll get “tailimh” as the normal genitive, but “talún” in set phrases and expressions like tinneas talún, os cionn talún srl.

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