Saoirse?

[NameNameNameNames]

Follow on from my Isla thread, another name I have in mind is Saoirse.

Sister would still be Hazel, and there’s very little chance of the name being mispronounced

What exactly don't you like about Jane's name?

It was a joke. Which I think she took it as.

Jane is a nice name

Just curious as it's one of the wittier names on here so I was surprised to see someone Irish describe it as boring.

I know or have known 3 in England and a Sorcha. All pronounced their own name Sore-sha. I find that a bit harsh sounding, but Seer-sha is beautiful. Ultimately, there is so much mixing around the world that people anywhere will normally just ask your name once then get it right from then on. I always longed for something more interesting than my dull and predictable name that there was always another in my class at school.

I hadn’t heard/seen any “very” Irish names at all until I was 12 and went to an integrated school… I actually thought the first person I met was from a British colony with an unusual name because I had experience of that…

I know some will think this an exaggeration but I swear it isn’t!!!

I think that’s why I like the romance of the names now as there was a near total absence in childhood. Only people was anglicised versions (think Owen instead of Eoghan)

In Scotland it is pronounced Sore sha

@ColleenDonaghy she's not Irish, she's lived all over Ireland though but won't tell us where exactly she's from

Well quite. Just having some fun, would hope she'd, err, hurry up and reply.

Can someone explain the joke in JaneJeffers’ name? Google didn’t help me!

Déan deifir. (Though the wordplay doesn’t really work where I’m from — different pronunciation.)

😂😂😂

Thanks!

I am Irish.

They were talking about JaneJeffers, not you.

Read it again. She is talking about me.

I said 'jane jeffer is a boring name".
A poster said "I'm surprised that an Irish poster would find that name boring".
Another poster said "she's not Irish". Talking about me.

I replied. I am irish

Born and raised here were you? If you are Irish which i highly doubt you need to educate yourself on Irish names because you don't have a clue what you're talking about

Jesus Christ. You're starting to sound like a racist. What is it any of your business? Does it make me less of a person if I wasn't born here? Do you go up to people on the street in Ireland and say "were you born here I doubt it".
You're acting like you are superior to every one else that lives in Ireland . Your not.

And you don't get to decide who is Irish or not.my Irish passport tells me I'm Irish. God you sound like an absolutely horrible person.

I was born in England. I lived there untill I was 4. My mother is Irish m i moved back to Ireland with her when I was 4 years old. I have an Irish passport.

Saoirse Ronan the actress was born in America. She moved back to ireland when she was 4 years old with her Irish parents. She considers herself to be irish. Would you tell her she isn't Irish.

Who are you to tell others that they are not Irish enough. You're being disgusting

It's none of my business whatsoever, I'm just finding it hard to believe you when you spout nonsense about one irish person calling another Irish person a freedom fighter because her name was Saoirse, also your boyfriend calling your friend ClionR, those kind of things don't happen here OP, and I'm not the only one who has said that, maybe if you had a rhotic accent you were pronouncing it that way yourself and he was teasing you for it? Because it's always pronounced ClionA. Anyway I'm sure you're as Irish as the rest of us on here no offense intended

Thanks for that @ColleenDonaghy. :-) I am Spanish (more or less) and that is a language written almost phonetically so this one has always done my head in. I knew how to pronounce Siobhan, the daughter of the policeman in Crime in Paradise is called that!😉

@Mooshamoo, I remember your name because your posts often demonstrate exceptionally odd, entrenched views, especially about Irish-English relations. I distinctly remember you explaining your own background on another thread, and saying you were born in England, and had an English accent. You used the expression ‘not fully Irish’ of yourself.

The reason I remember this is because you have some odd views on Irish and English people — you posted at length on a thread at some point in the past about English people being ‘cold and cruel’.

I can only conclude that something in your upbringing wounded you into views I don’t recognise, as an Irish person who’s spent my 50-ish years pretty much 50/50 between Ireland and England.

I knew how to pronounce Siobhan
Until now <evil laughter>

Where in Scotland?
Is that a Scots Gaelic pronunciation?

@Liv999 I can’t comment on @Mooshamoo‘s views nor their history of posting on “Irish” threads as I am mainly posting on family related threads.

But I will say I think people need to be less prescriptive about what it means to be “Irish” - not all Irish people are catholic, Irish speaking, Gaelic and Bodhran playing stereotypes.

Not all have access to or want to learn Irish language, nor use Irish names, there will be local variation in names used and in the level of participation with Irish cultural activities and in the definition of what this comprises as culture varies across the island.

You have 6 northern counties and a further 5 that border the north where the name Saoirse - due to the politics - is going to be contentious. Several people have attested to that on here and I can assure you that the issue with Saoirse in Donegal did happen because myself and my husband were busy checking she was ok and that she got some safe after.

As a person born in the north, genuinely, despite having some catholic neighbours as a child I wasn’t aware of Irish names - all the catholic families we knew locally had gone for names like Robert, Samuel, Laura, Sarah and so on because they were middle to upper class and didn’t want their kids involved in any shit during the troubles. My experience of it, later as a teenager/adult, was that Irish names tended to be much more frequent, and indeed almost compulsory, in more working class communities where republican beliefs were held - and I know this because of the kids I met when I entered a mixed secondary school.

Now a few decades post cease fire the names are being used more broadly, even by Protestants, but Saoirse appears still to be contentious unfortunately. Which is a shame as I really loved it.

With regard to Cliona… I did meet one as a teen and realised it was Clion-ah… millions of Ciaran and Ciara’s, Conor, Aoife and Nuala’s.

But never came across names like Iarlaith, Caoimhin, Cliodhna, Oisin, Eoghan etc until late 20s/30s. (despite having lived in ROI for some considerable time by that point - again the people I was mixing with didn’t really have Irish names, odd one here and there but nothing accented or difficult to pronounce).

So I think to say that people from Ireland should know all Irish names and their pronunciation is a bit naive really. And to say someone is not Irish enough because they don’t know a name…. is to be too limiting in your view of what being Irish is.

@Sparklecats someone who lived in Ireland since they were 4 would have learned Irish at school

@JaneJeffer Not if you are in the north of Ireland - it isn’t compulsory and levels of participation in catholic schools vary, usually it’s an optional after school class unless it’s a Bunscoil.

Any ROI partners I had didn’t speak the language and hadn’t done anything from primary which they could barely remember.