A Chomaraigh Aoibhinn O (Sweet Comeraghs) -Karan Casey

I love this singer.......

Wonderful!

Am I half-deaf, or is she mispronouncing stuff left and right? Either way, great singer.

Maybe she is speaking another form of Gaelic? There is the Goidelic branch - Irish gaelic, Scots gaelic, and Manx (I guess this might be extinct now). Then there is the Brythonic branch - Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. Then, to make it more complicated, at least with Irish, theres several dialects. I've only started learning Irish, but I do know that the pronunciations between dialects can sometimes be different enough to make it confusing if you arent used to hearing it. (e.g. Dia duit).

Its (or was) more complicated than that. I was educated in Irish in the 40's and had the misfortune to by taught by Kerry, Donegal, and Connaught speakers. Each one wished to be 'more Irish than the Irish themselves' and would not tolerate the other's pronunciation - thus crann would be 'crown' for one and 'krann' for the other. Also the use of local slang was a matter of pride. No wonder we abandoned Gaelic (it is Gaelic no matter what the Scots think)

Yikes! That's a shame, I love the way the Celtic languages sound, but, if the speakers can't unite enough to standardize the language enough to understand each other, what's the use. Pride ruins a lot of good things.

There are many versions of english largely thanks to our american cousins(?) In fact, 'street cred' is attained by being unintelligible to old fogeys such as me. The French make serious (and largely unavailing) attempts to maintain the purity of their language. I believe Irish Gaelic has now been standardardised. I suppose it depends on whether you wish to speak it daily or not. Shakespear's English is still beautiful same for classical Latin, Greek etc.

theres a difference between speaking local accents and not being able to understand each other... its like american and british english. But, they all did standardise it in the 70s

Yah, I was just under the impression that local Irish accents had become so different from each other that they were turning into new dialects and languages (like Scots vs. English, which are officially considered 2 different language, even though I can understand Scots just fine).

I have looked high and low...even went so far as to ask relatives to get them from Europe and can not find them anywhere.