Verbal noun endings

The verbal noun following ag is the equivalent of the present participle (‑ing words) in English, e.g. “I am writing” Tá mé ag scríobh. This is similar to the old fashioned/dialect English of The Twelve Days of Christmas, e.g. “Twelve lords a‑leaping” or Bob Dylan’s “The times they are a‑changin’ ”. Like ag “at”, this a‑ also comes from a preposition (Middle/Old English an) meaning “on”. Other Celtic languages have a similar structure: Scottish Gaelic a’ sgrìobhadh, Welsh yn ysgrifennu, Cornish ow skrifa, Breton o skrivañ.

It can also be the equivalent of the English infinitive (verb with ‘to’ before it), e.g. “I like to write,” Is maith liom scríobh. “I’m trying to write a letter,” Tá mé ag iarraidh litir a scríobh.

It is also the noun that describes the activity of the verb. Often this is different in English, e.g. “marrying” vs. “marriage”, but often both are covered by the verbal noun in Irish ( pósadh). Is maith liom scríobh above means both “I like to write” and “I like writing”.

Verbal nouns, just like other nouns in Irish, have different kinds of endings which aren’t predictable from the verb stem. There is a limited list of endings, but you have to learn the form when you learn the verb. Many verbal nouns also have different endings in different dialects, e.g. feiceáil is feiscint in Munster.

This table is adapted from a few different sources including Learning Irish (Micheál Ó Siadhail), Gramadach gan Stró (Éamonn Ó Dónaill) & Basic Irish: A Grammar and Workbook (Nancy Stenson). A couple of (Conamara) dialect forms left in are in grey & between {}.