Irish Blessings Online

May there always be work for your hands to do,
May your purse always hold a coin or two.
May the sun always shine warm on your windowpane,
May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain.
May the hand of a friend always be near you,
And may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

The Irish language, often known as Irish Gaelic outside of Ireland, is usually simply referred to as “Irish” in Ireland. The language is beautiful to listen to, and encompasses the rich traditional culture of Ireland through the ages.

Once widespread throughout the country, the language suffered greatly over the last few hundred years. Today, about 3% of the population of 4 million people use Irish as their main community daily language.

While this may sound unfortunate, the language has put its worst years behind it. Indeed, there is a new energy felt by the speakers of the language. It has shaken much of its stigma that was attached to it even only fifteen years ago. Many young people now have an interest in the language, much helped by media entertainment now available through the language.

The language is also growing outside of Ireland. Online communities such as Daltai.com and IrishGaelicTranslator.com show us that there are hundreds of people actively learning the language. This is the case even for people with no direct ancestry to be found in Ireland.

If you’re setting off on learning to speak the language, an essential tool for any serious learner is an Irish dictionary. There is a limited range of dictionaries available to the user, but yet there is a rich mix of strengths and weaknesses to the dictionaries that are available.

As a learner, you don’t want to be overcome by the grammatical detail of a dictionary, but you also need a dictionary that covers a wide range of every-day Irish speech. You’ll also want a two way dictionary (both English-Irish and Irish-English).

As a learner, you don’t need anything too fancy to start learning, which is why I suggest Foclóir Scoile. This dictionary is edited by an Irish state-owned publishing company. The title literally means “School Dictionary”. It features a relevant mix of every-day speak for the Irish language. As a plus, it’s quite compact and easy to get a hold of.

As a bonus tip, I suggest watching Irish language television (TG4) and listening to Irish language radio (Raidió na Gaeltachta) to get a real taste of the beautiful rhythm of the language.

May God be with you and bless you,
May you see your children’s children,
May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.

If you’ve got Irish ancestors, you may have already experienced frustration in trying to track them down. It can be daunting enough to start a family genealogy project dealing with American ancestors. Once you start looking for kith and kin in other countries, it really gets mind-boggling! Often, other countries don’t have many well-preserved records, or the records that exist are hard to find. If you’re working on your Irish genealogical quest through email and postal mail to try to find anything, it gets even harder.

Still, the Internet is continually advancing the world of genealogy, and nations all over the world are making a concerted effort to preserve important historical documents. If you’re searching for Irish ancestors today, there are so many more resources available to you than just 10 years ago. Now, you stand a real chance of uncovering the identities and lives of your kinfolk from the Emerald Isle.

So, where do you start? The first thing you must do in ANY genealogical project, whether of Irish lines or American ones, is to find out if the work has already been done. Many family lines have been traced long ago by the genealogists of yesteryear, and this research has often been compiled and published online by modern scholars or family history enthusiasts. If you do a search online using such resources as Google, Ancestry.com, and Amazon.com, you may be surprised at what you find. If your family history has already been researched, then all you have to do is re-trace the steps of the original researcher to confirm the information is correct.

But what do you do if there isn’t a pre-existing family history? Start looking through your existing information. Check all of the documents, newspaper clippings, diaries, photos, and letters belonging to your ancestors that have been passed down through your family. Most families have at least some information of this sort. Go through it all carefully, combing it for clues as to the identities of your Irish ancestors. Look for names, birth and death dates, marriage dates, and places of birth mentioned in any document in your possession.

Once you’ve gotten some basic information to go on-or if you were unable to find anything new among your family’s artifacts-it’s time to jump into the world of online genealogy. There are plenty of websites with Irish databases available, some of which are dedicated to Irish research entirely. In these databases, you can check such things as Irish census returns, Griffith’s Valuation, parish registers, civil registration records, and more. These should offer you important clues about your ancestors, and may even introduce you to them outright. Some of the most popular and well-stocked Irish genealogy databases online today can be found at:

• Ancestry.com
• The Origins Network
• One Great Family

By making use of what you already have and combining it with new information you can find online, you’re sure to learn a lot more about your Irish ancestors than you previously knew. Once you’ve got the basics of their lives confirmed, you can start digging deeper to find out the details of who they were and how they lived by requesting copies of original records from the General Register office in Dublin. However, you’ll likely be pleasantly surprised by just how much information on your Irish family history you can find from the comfort of your own home online.

May your thoughts be as glad as the shamrocks.
May your heart be as light as a song.
May each day bring you bright happy hours,
That stay with you all year long.
For each petal on the shamrock
This brings a wish your way
Good health, good luck, and happiness
For today and every day.

Sometimes with all the financial scandals we are currently hearing about we lose sight of our true Spirit. Whether this is Irish, American, English, Scottish or whatever, it is important to remind ourselves of our true Spirit which is far greater than any recession and far deeper than any surface financial storm. In fact perhaps this very financial storm is the catalyst for realigning us with our true Spirit and values. What might some of these values be? What do you think they are? What top three values would you like your nationality to have?

Here’s some important values which make me proud to be Irish:

1. Generosity of Spirit - “when I’m hungry give me someone to feed” is what I believe Mother Theresa said. Perhaps because of our history, in particular the famine 1847, when 1 million Irish people died and 1 million had to emigrate (a quarter of the Irish population at the time) we’ve been very generous in giving to causes around the world and many Irish people have dedicated their whole lives to helping the much less well off. Lets show the world that our generosity far surpasses any greed that has been highlighted in recent times.

2. Friendliness - “Cead Mile Failte”, this of course means 100,000 welcomes. The Irish have been known as a very friendly race and indeed it has been an attraction for many tourists over the years. Let us open our hearts once more to welcome everyone into this island of ours and let them experience true Irish friendliness, fun and great value!

3. Family Values - “The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home” - Confucius. The future of the human race is in our children, not our property or share portfolio. Most of all we MUST give our children our love and our time. In giving them our time, a resource which none of us will ever get back we demonstrate at a deep level how important they are to us and how much we love them. Up to quite recent times the Irish were known to be quite laid back and we had a lot more time for our families and other people. Let us give more time to our families and as a society lets reward this rather than rewarding those who sell unscrupulous financial investments. We must learn to teach our children well because the very future of humanity depends on it.

4. Sporting Values - the Irish play sport all over the world whether its gaelic football, soccer, rugby, boxing, athletics, cycling and so on. And there’s one thing for sure, we are known for having a lot of fun around it. We bring music and “craic” to it all whether we win or lose. Lets keep celebrating this!

5. A deep sense of History - there’s literally millions of people around the world, in particular in the USA that claim Irish decent, far more than there are Irish people!!! Over the centuries the Irish influence has spread far and wide and there is much to be proud of. We were once even called the “Isle of Saints and Scholars”. Lets remind ourselves of the great people that once walked this land, our Mothers and Fathers, our writers and poets, our sports people, our true visionaries, our musicians, our economists and business people who built their careers with integrity and a sense of service, the mainstream clergy who’s intention was to educate us in mind and Spirit, our medics, our teachers, our true Politicians and the millions more who gave of their lives in the greater service of the Irish people and indeed all of humanity. It is because of their sacrifice and vision we enjoy all the blessings we have today. The question we MUST now ask ourselves is - what blessings will we leave for our children?

6. A Spiritual Connection - “Be Still and Know”. The Irish have always had a Spiritual tradition in fact we’ve had a few and have often fought about them! However no matter what religion or even non-religion we have aligned ourselves with, the Irish have always felt a strong connection to the divine. There are countless historical sites around Ireland echoing this spiritual wisdom from our ancestors. Let us not get caught up too much in the “doingness” of life that we do not have time to enjoy the journey of “being” and connecting with this divine invisible presence that is always with us. Indeed this very presence constantly offers us guidance on our lifes journey, should we take the time to listen.

7. Peace prevails in Ireland - for approximately 800 years there has been trouble in Ireland, in the main with our closest neighbours the English. In 1998 a peace agreement was signed and at this stage even the IRA have disarmed. Yet how much celebration has there been about peace? How much do we hear about the positive developments since the peace deal was signed? How much have we got to offer to the many other places of conflict around the world to help peace be realised there? Peace in the main has been realised in Ireland, lets at least put as much energy into spreading this amazing news as we do to bombarding the world with bad news!

Given these seven values I for one am proud to say I’m Irish. Of course I’m sure there are many more reasons to be proud to be Irish and I invite you to share yours in the comments below. I also invite you if you’re from any other nationality to share reasons why you are proud of your nationality. As the Chinese say “Its better to light a candle than curse the darkness”

Here’s another verse from an appropriate song to finish this article.

When Irish hearts are happy,

Sure, they steal your heart away.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

In the holy ground of the churchyards of Ireland, simple stone crosses rest in remembrance of those who have passed. For centuries, these ringed crosses, known as Celtic Crosses, have been used as symbols of faith and hope, along with other crosses, such as High Crosses. A true Celtic Cross will always include a central ring, which is thought to be borrowed from Pagan rituals of yore, representing the Sun. The four points of the Celtic Cross represent the four directions, north, south, east and west.

When Celtic Crosses first appeared in Ireland, they were often decorated with Runic symbols, and sometimes with zoomorphic images of animals as well. While they may have been considered Pagan symbols back in the day, Celtic Crosses have become potent symbols of Christianity in Ireland.

The Insular Art movement produced many fine examples of Celtic Crosses, throughout Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Insular Art is complex, symbolic, and somewhat mysterious. The art movement gained its name from the fact that is was impossible to ascertain exactly where the art may have been made. Often, art treasures and metalwork was moved from one country to another.

It is certain that many Celtic Crosses were made in Ireland, rather than simply brought there, but others have a hazier origin. The Insular art movement began after the Romans retreated from Celtic lands, and grew stronger as the Celtic people embraced Christianity.

Irish master artists have a long tradition of expertise with metalwork and stonework, and, in past centuries, they added real beauty and meaning to Celtic Crosses. Unlike the Crucifix, which features painful and sad images of Jesus in his suffering, the Celtic Cross is more decorative and less graphic. For example, the Celtic Cross often features carved symbols and intricate knot work that symbolize life-force and the eternal nature of all things. Irish master craftsmen sought out many small variations to the Celtic Cross, adding a rich, three-dimensional quality to the simple structure.

Some other examples of decoration used to enhance the beauty of stone and metal Celtic Crosses are whorls and spirals, popular symbols used in many Celtic designs of the Insular Art period. Some symbols remain wrapped in mystery, years later, but their frequent use in Celtic art and design speaks to spiritual meanings, and to the notion of eternity. The spiral, in particular, is thought to represent growth, and the journey through life.

When the first High Crosses appeared in Celtic lands during the ninth century, they were often adorned with zoomorphic, or animal, symbols…but why? Some people feel that many aspects of Celtic and High Crosses were borrowed from the Druids, who worshipped the natural world.

The addition of complex, richly-detailed animal symbols such as wolfhounds, birds, and other creatures, may have been passed down from the Druids. Zoomorphic symbols faded in popularity over the years, and Celtic Crosses continued to evolve into their modern variations.

Today, master craftsmen still embrace the beauty and meaning of Celtic Crosses, and many Irish families still place a Cross on the grave of a loved one, to symbolize their faith in a higher power. Today, Celtic Crosses can also be found in jewelry designs such as pendants, and they are crafted of gold, silver, and often precious stones such as emeralds and diamonds. The pleasing lines and intricate knot work of modern Celtic Cross jewelry designs have made them popular choices for many wearers who wish to honor their Celtic heritage.

If you travel to Ireland, you will find ancient and modern examples of the Celtic Cross in churches, churchyards, and other landmarks. It is thought that some Celtic Crosses were placed in the ground in order to guide travelers on their journey.

The timeless nature of the Celtic Cross ensures that each generation discovers its meaning and history, decade after decade. The crosses are a touching symbol of the past, and an important way to remain in touch with the beliefs and spirit of Christianity. Celtic Crosses will always remain an integral part of Irish art and culture, whether they are worn as pendants, or placed in remembrance upon the final resting place of a loved one.

The fascinating history and meaning of Celtic Crosses is often steeped in mystery, but there is no doubt that the love of God prompted their creation. For this reason, they will always retain their appeal, and represent the special, unique nature of the Celtic people.

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same
The Three in One and One in Three.

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Price: $79.95
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