Saoirse should not be pronounced Seer-sha!

I have heard 'O Sheen' frequently in Ireland in recent years. It has gain popularity from the traditional Oisin. Again, up to folks how they want to say their own name. My own name has been a bit problematic throughout my life .. would have been easier if my parents had made up a phonetic spelling of it to guide folks!

Heard a dad calling for his kid the other day and he said “Seer-sha”. Happy enough to go along with that.

I’m sure we all know a Niall who pronounces it Neil. I was in school with an Odhran at one point, and he pronounced it correctly. Fast forward a number of years and I was in a sporting situation with another Odhran but he wanted to be called ‘Odd-drin’.

Not really going to argue with anyone about how they pronounce their own name.

The Nial Ring that I am aware of uses one L in his given name.

"Irish is also a foreign language to most Irish people"

Irish may not be a mother tongue for most Irish people but I would definitely not describe it as a foreign language, unless of course, you're the type of person that likes to go around kicking hornets' nests.

An R in front of Oisin, becomes Roisin. Does that change the rules?

What is the correct way to say Conchobar please?

The name 'Róisín' has a fada over the 'o' whereas in 'Oisín', there's no 'Ó'. The fada gives 'Róisín' a long 'o' sound.

No, no its not "Kweeveen" As explained above its a broad rather than a narrow sound - the "eee" bit isn't correct and the W sound at the start is only in 1 out of the 3 dialects of Irish.

No.

Yes, but that wouldn't be correct either.

(Not you) but the Dunning Krueger effect is strong in this thread imo, would you agree?

OK, the root word here is saor, meaning "free".

There are a couple of pronunciations, depending on which dialect of Irish you prefer. In Connacht and Ulster, saor more-or-less rhymes with the English words ear, deer, fear. The vowel sound here is a diphthong, meaning that you start making one sound, and then glide into another sound. The first sound is the vowel sound you hear in words like kit and big; the second sound is the "neutral" vowel sound that you hear in, e.g., the second syllable of the word letter. (For the honours students, linguists call that vowel sound the "schwa", or the mid central vowel sound.) Run the two of those vowel sounds together; the resultant diphthong is the sound you hear in the English word fear, and in the Irish word saor, if your Irish is from Connacht or Ulster.

In Munster, saor more-or-less rhymes with the English words mare, glare but, again, it's a diphthong. Start with the vowel sound that you hear in the English words dress, mess and glide into the neutral vowel sound, the schwa. That's the diphthong Munster speakers use for saor.

Right, saoirse, meaning "freedom". How does sticking an 'i' in there affect the vowel sound?

It doesn't affect it at all, is the answer. It's not there to be pronounced; it's there to tell you how to pronounce the 's' at the back of the word.

Like a lot of the consonants, 's' in Irish has two pronunciations. If it's adjacent to 'a', 'o' or 'u' (the broad vowels) then it's pronounced the same way as in the English words see, sin, safe. (That's how it's pronounced at the start of saor and saoirse, where it's adjacent to an 'a'.) But if it's adjacent to a slender vowel, then it's a -sh- sound; Seán, siúcra, Sinéad.

For a consonant at the start or end of a word, there's only one adjacent vowel. But, for a consonant in the middle of a word, there are two; the last vowel before the consonant and the first vowel after it. So what do you do if you have a vowel with a broad vowel before it but a slender vowel after it, or vice versa? How do you pronounce that?

The answer is; this shouldn't happen. It's a rule of Irish spelling that, the vowels on each side of the consonant must both be broad or they must both be slender. That's why the 'i' appears in saoirse; so that there'll be a slender vowel on each side of the second 's' so you'll be in no doubt how to pronounce it; -sh-, not -ss-. Whereas in, say, Íosa it's -ss-, because 'o' and 'a' are both broad vowels. And when a vowel is inserted to determine the pronunciation of a consonant, the vowel itself is commonly not pronounced.

Nothing wrong with O Sheen... its quite simple the slender vowel after the S makes it Shhh as in Sean as in sneacta...broad vowel after the S

makes it SSS like snake.....

Simples...........

Ah ok.. So it’s Uhsheen then as I would call it not Oh -Sheen as the Dubs might call it.

The auld Dub has a propensity of elongating certain vowels in certain words as in ‘murder’ becomes ‘mooorder’ etc.

It never occurred to me before that the three dialects are the same. Normally in most Irish words there is slight difference between Connaught and Munster pronunciation. Then Ulster Irish normally has it's own completely unique different take.

"Sore-sha" definitely seems incorrect and - "Sayr-sha" seems correct. Three dialects can't be wrong on an online dictionary.

The woman in question the only famous Saoirse in Ireland - (it seems) describes it as sounding "Like inertia" to the yanks.

I'm a born, bred and buttered Dub and I have never heard Oisín pronounced as anything other than Usheen.