#AranIslands - The Irish spoken on two of the Aran Islands may have branched out quite recently from that spoken in Connemara, according to the results of a 25-year study of the language.
Galway Bay FM reports on the intensive work carried out by Californian linguist Dr Séamas Ó Direáin, who began his research in 1990 but took much longer than expected due to the complexities of the area's dialects.
And Dr Ó Direáin told The Irish Times that his study reflects very much on the contemporary status of Irish in Ireland.
He notes that complaints about present-day Irish speakers picking and choosing their dialects are a "pain in the neck" when Inis Oírr residents did the same many decades ago, choosing Munster Irish over their neighbours' Connacht dialect.
One of those neighbours, Inis Mór, is the subject of a glowing profile in the Toronto Sun by travel writer Lance Hornby, who describes "a striking contrast of Emerald Isle green, grey burren boundaries and the dramatic 91-metre cliff drop protecting the Iron Age fort of Dun Aonghasa."