SeanfhocailIrish proverbs & blessings, sourced

Memorial prints

Beannacht Dé lena hanam

God rest her soul.

The same blessing in the form for a woman, recorded in the Folklore Collection. Said there of the writers’ own mothers. Irish marks that difference, and getting it right is the whole kindness.

Beannacht Dé lena hanam God rest her soul. MÁIRE UÍ CHONAILL · 1938–2024 · LOVED AND REMEMBERED Beannacht Dé lena hanamPaidir · Irish prayerSay it: BAN-okht jay LEN-a HAH-numNational Folklore Collection · seanfhocail.ie

The wording is quoted exactly from the record and its cited source; personalisation touches only your own names and date, never the Irish.

About this saying

Recorded in the Schools’ Collection of 1937–39, on page 256 of volume 464, from Lansdowne school in Co. Kerry: the writer sets down a saying “my mother heard said”, and adds this blessing for her in the same breath, in the manuscript spelling of the day. The masculine form, Beannacht Dé lena anam, is the one the dictionaries happen to print; the manuscripts show the feminine was always beside it in living use.

Related prints