When it comes to knowing when to use atá vs a bhfuil, one must consider direct and indirect relatives. I plan on writing a longer piece on direct and indirect relative clauses but for now, let’s look at both atá and a bhfuil which are relative clauses.
Take the following two examples:
| Sin é an fear atá ag obair sa mhonarcha | That is the man who is working in the factory |
| Sin é an fear a bhfuil a mhac ag obair sa mhonarcha | That is the man whose son is working in the factory |
Atá
The first example Sin é an fear atá ag obair sa mhonarcha uses atá, has a direct relative clause. It’s referring directly to the man and saying what he does i.e. he is working in the factory. So you can say there’s a direct connection between working in the factory and the man.
If the subject of the first clause is the subject or direct object of the second clause, you use the direct relative clause, the atá form.
Another example would be An fear atá ann – The man that is there (In other words, the man. He is there).
Back to atá a moment, the particle a is prefixed to the verb tá thus giving us atá. You’ll see other examples with other verbs below. Relative clauses can be done with other verbs but in those cases, you prefix them with the relative particle a and use the right mutation/verb form depending on the sentence. For example:
| Sin an fear a théann ansin | That’s the man who goes there |
| Sin í an bhean a léann an leabhar. | That’s the woman who reads the book |
| Sin é an fear a ghoid an t-airgead | That’s the man that stole the money |
| Sin an fear a léifidh an leabhar | That’s the man who will read the book |
The particle that signifies a direct relative clause is a, and it always lenites where possible. It does not lenite the impersonal forms of regular verbs in past tense e.g. an mac a saolaíodh dóibh – the son who was born to them.
Another note about atá: Sometimes you may see people using the form athá instead of atá. This is dialectal to Munster.
A bhfuil
The second example Sin é an fear a bhfuil a mhac ag obair sa mhonarcha has an indirect relative clause. It is referring to the man but it is doing so indirectly via the reference to his son, who is working in the factory – not the man. The son is the second subject. Put in another way, there is an indirect connection between the man and the state of working in the factory.
If the subject of the first clause is the indirect object of the second clause (or not present), you use the indirect relative clause, which causes the eclipsing of the dependent form.
| Sin an bhialann a bhfuil mo thuismitheoirí inti | That’s the restaurant that my parents are in (That’s the restaurant. My parents are in it) |
| Sin é an fear a bhfuil a mhac breoite | That is the man whose son is ill |
The verb introducing the second clause gets eclipsed. But since a bhfuil is already eclipsed it isn’t particularly noticeable. So here are some other examples:
| Sin é an fear a mbriseann a mhac an fhuinneog | That’s the man whose son breaks the window |
| Sin é an siopadóir a dtógann a mhac an t-airgead | That’s the shopkeeper whose son takes the money |
What about using go bhfuil?
This is reported speech. For example, Ceapaim go bhfuil an fear breoite – I believe that the man is sick.
Note that in Munster the indirect relative particle a becomes go and so go bhfuil can have both the indirect relative and the conjunctive use. But that isn’t to say that most ‘go’s you see are the indirect relative. It is often just a simple conjunction in a subject or object clause.
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