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DR GARRY BANNISTER originally believed his Irish-English thesaurus project would take him “a year or two” to complete.
40 years later, it is finally on the shelves.
The book has been described by its publisher New Island as “the culmination of a life’s work.” Bannister, who is 70 now, said the idea came to him during a fateful conversation he had with his father on the Isle of Man, when he was 30.
“It was the last time I saw my father, because he died shortly afterwards and I was away in Russia at the time. But he asked me if I had any kind of life project. ‘You need something that will be a continuity in your life. Everybody needs a big life project. What’s yours?’”
Released earlier this year, Bannister’s Teasáras Gaeilge-Béarla is one those shortlisted in the Best Irish Published Book of the Year category, sponsored by The Journal, at the An Post Book Awards (the shortlist can be read in full here). Weighing at 2kg, the impressive tome contains no fewer than 700,000 entries.
Speaking to The Journal about his book, Bannister described it as “a reference book that is very much needed. It’s something that we need to have. We needed this for years.”
The bilingual thesaurus does exactly what you would expect and more. Naturally, it contains Irish words and their various English counterparts, but it also features thematic lists, proverbs, and etymologies and histories of Irish words and phrases with respect to the language’s mystic past.
“Tá do chosa nite/Your feet are washed” is one such phrase included by Bannister, a phrase which draws on the Biblical story of Jesus having his feet washed before his crucifixion. In colloquial Irish, this phrases means that someone is about to be crucified.
Bannister studied at Trinity College before moving to Moscow and achieving a PhD in comparative linguistics. He went on to teach at St Columba’s College where he served as head of the Irish Department for 30 years.
“There’s one very interesting thing which I have in this thesaurus, which no other thesaurus has,” said Bannister. “It’s lists of verbs with their preposition or noun combinations in long lists, which shows the great variety of English verbs that are used to translate them.”
Illustrating the versatility of the Irish language, Bannister gives the example of “laghdaigh,” a word commonly means “to lessen”. The Teasáras demonstrates that this one Irish verb can be used for many different purposes, such as:
Bannister also spoke about the painful decision to omit certain words which have fallen out of use down through the ages.
“There’s a lovely word in Irish: fáfall, which means the falling off or dissipation of rain, but it’s not used now. We didn’t include it because it went out years ago.”
Indeed, Bannister tells The Journal that only “one-third, if not even less” of the phrases and words gathered while researching the book have made it into its final, printed edition.
While Bannister has great hopes that poets and writers will be able to draw upon his Teasáras to add detail to their work, he also hopes it can be helpful for would-be Irish speakers at large.
“We have to work with the English words that would be most used by English speakers, and find the best Irish equivalent for these, and at the same time, represent the vast richness of the Irish language,” he said.
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Rath Dé ar an obair! Fair play.
An-obair go deo. Nár laghdú a pheann!
Well done, that man! Fabulous work. I still hope we can eventually compile a comprehensive dictionary of Irish etymology.
Haven’t had much need to use the Irish I learned in school, but I love translating place-names around the country. Gives a much better sense of the place.
It kicked off years ago on a long rainy drive to Sligo. I was bored, saw a sign sticking out from a woody ditch that roughly translated to ‘Marsh of the Wolves’ and that was that. There’s very succinct stories dotted everywhere!
There’s actually no point in visiting thejournal.ie if all the articles have zero comments.
Weighing in at 2Km….??..2Kg..perhaps
@Gerard Moroney: so many mistakes in the text.
@Gerard Moroney: baby or a turkey ??
So happy for Paddy Cosgrave, may the exodus continue.
@Chris Thaunton: So you disagree with his statement that war crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies?
@Chris Thaunton: War mongers and fanatics on both sides, you obviously stand with the vastly more powerful side which has already inflicted much more suffering and destruction on innocent people.
Well done sir.
I’ll have to get a copy
Excellent. Is there an entry for the Willy of the People….aka Mick D
Maith thú Mr Bannister, a magnificent piece of work.
He was my Irish teacher in school. Lovely man, one of the best teachers I had, a compassionate man among a load of horrible p r i c k s.
Maith thú. She obair. Caithfidh mé an leather sin a cheannach.
Does Tabhair dom an oiche have variations of meaning?
Leather=leabhar
Maith thú. I’m putting it on my Christmas list.
I’d like to comment on the previous article but not available. It’s about our disgraceful president who should resign. He is supporting a Hamas’ lead Gaza after the horrendous attacks on Innocent Israelis who were butchered and defiled by so called religious men purporting to be a government.
All of the aid the West pours in goes to this terrorist group and yet our left wing Yahoo’s here have not condemned the horrific acts and the capture of children and vulnerable adults from their homes and held as bargaining chips.
If those in charge of Gaza had put all the resources given over the years into developing their part of the courty instead of buying rockets to kill Israelis maybe their people wouldn’t be so oppressed. This constant firing rockets gives Netanyahou all the excuses he needs to further increase building on disputed land. And on it goes.
Stay out of it Mr Higgins.
Ask yourself Of those two countries which regime would you live under as a woman, a liberal democracy with freedom in Israel or an oppressed society like Gaza.
@Ann owens: no actually our president shouldn’t resign and he has my gratitude for speaking out against the g e n o c i d e and ethnic cleansing happening in Gaza. Stop talking about what happened on October 7th, was it terrible, yes, do I support it, absolutely not BUT why is it ok if Israeli defence force attacks innocent Palestinians and m u r d e r them, which has happened for the last 75 years under an occupied state, that is Palestine. Are Palestinians not important enough for you? I support people of all religions and am happy for anyone to believe what they want to believe, this is not about Jewish/Palestine it’s about right/wrong and the only people wrong here are the IDF and I’m glad to see people speaking up to protect the children, the mothers and the people of Palestine. And as a woman and a liberal aren’t we so lucky we don’t ever have to make the choice of living in israel or living in Gaza, how fortunate for you and I we got the lucky card lottery in life where we were born. Please educate yourself on what’s been going on the last 75 years and not just one isolated incident, then you might sound like you have a clue.
Go híontach. Looking forward to seeing a copy.
Cén fáth nár úsáideadh an teideal “stórchiste?
Go maire sé céad agus an t-údar freisin! Is cinnte go gcuirfidh an leabhar seo go mór le saol na Gaeilge agus lena litríocht saa. Saibhríonn sé sin ní hamháin na Gaeil ach na Breatnaigh freisin.
have your say