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1940s Irish sci-fi novel features early mecha and gravity assists

104 points by donohoe

by colmmacc

6 subcomments

Native Irish Speaker and Sci-Fi fan here. What an unexpected delight. For those who might not pick it up , the author name "Máiréad Ní Ghráda" is that of an unmarried (that's the "Ní") woman ("Máiréad" which is like a variation of Mary).

Here's my Translations of the Chapter titles. I'm pretty sure many of these have old-Irish style séimhiú (a dot above a consonant denotes what would now be a h after the consonant) in the originals that have not been translated by the OCR, so there are several missing h letters. If I weren't on a plane over Afghanistan, I'd download the PDF to check. Will update the repo when I can!

   Pláinéid na feaca Súil Duine riamh = A planet no person's eyes have ever seen
   An Radarc, tríd an gCiandracán = the view throughout the [Ciandracan] (this is a compound proper noun, "Cian" is "head" or "brain" and "racán" could be visor or rocket)
   An Turas go Manannán = the Trip to Manannán
   Manannán = Manannán (it's a noun, which is very similar to the Irish term for the Manx and the Isle of Mann). 
   Muintear Manannáin = the people of Manannán
   na 'Cráidmí' = the Craidmi (I think it's just a plural noun)
   An tÁrd-Máigistir = the high Magistrate, or possibly the supreme magistry
   An Priorún = the Priory
   Oidce sa Coill = The class/lesson/teaching in the woods/forest
   An tinneall = the fire
   Oidce tar Oidceanta = Lesson upon lesson
   Lug Lám-fada = the long-armed lug
   An Tróid leis na 'Cráidmí' = The war with the Craidmi
   Diogaltas = Revenge
   An téalod = not sure about this one

by serf

0 subcomment

> It may contain the furst use of a Mecha outside of Japan.
there are earlier north american examples; steam man of the prairies (1860s) being one.
(i'm big into mecha, sorry for the nitpick.)

by ZeroGravitas

0 subcomment

Tangentially related via the Irish Language but on YouTube, "Channel 5" who previously focused on street protest gonzo journalism have branched out into explorations of endangered languages and started with an episode on Irish:
https://youtu.be/oJRMfInSjRo

by antonyh

0 subcomment

This is fantastic. As an absolute beginner in the language I've added to my list of learning resources for Gaeilge. I've tried to find a better scan of the book online, but it's not anywhere - there's some Máiréad Ní Ghráda on archive.org but this one is missing.
It also looks like the PDF in the repo is just the first 20 pages, it would be worthwhile scanning the whole thing cleanly and uploading to preserve this important work.

by Tsiklon

1 subcomments

Beautiful, it's typeset in classic cló Gaelach.

by rekabis

1 subcomments

I think the biggest stumbling blocks is that not many of us can read Irish (Gaelige).
While I am on mobile and (therefore) have not accessed the files, the ToC and description of the OCR process leads me to understand that the original print is in Irish, not English.