Grammatical Gender in Irish

Irish, similar to languages such as Spanish or French, has two grammatical genders. This basically means that in Irish, all nouns are categorised as either masculine (firinscneach) or feminine (baininscneach). This affects things such as which article to use, mutations, adjectives and pronouns.

As such, in Irish there is no concept of things or people being an ‘it’. Everything is grammatically a ‘he’ or a ‘she’.

How to tell the gender of a word

How to tell the gender of a word in Irish is generally quite straightforward. The most obvious rule is that things referring to males will be masculine (fear = man, tarbh = bull) and females will be feminine (bean = woman, bó = cow) with some exceptions such as stail (stallion) being feminine and cailín (girl) being masculine.

The easiest way however, especially for inanimate objects is by looking at the end of a word.

Masculine Words (Firinscne)

Masculine nouns can usually be identified by the following endings or indicators.

  • words ending in a broad consonant (a/o/u + final consonant or consonants)

    • bord (table), asal (donkey), doras (door)

  • the job or ‘do-er’ endings such as -óir, -eoir, -úir, -éir, -aire

    • múinteoir (teacher), dochtúir (doctor), siúnéir (carpenter), ríomhaire (computer)

  • words ending in the diminutive ending -ín (also if they are an English loanword)

    • cailín (girl), abairtín (phrase), cuirtín (curtain)

  • most words ending in a vowel will be masculine

    • halla (hall), bille (bill), rúnaí (secretary)

Feminine Words (Baininscne)

Feminine nouns can usually be identified by the following endings or indicators.

  • words ending in a slender consonant (i/e + final consonant or consonants)

    • ceist (question), seilf (shelf), beoir (beer)

  • words ending in -lann, -eog/-óg, -(e)acht, -(a)íocht

    • bialann (restaurant), bróg (shoe), cumhacht (power), eolaíocht (science)

  • words with refer to women or female animals or which are feminine by nature

    • bean (woman), siúr (nun, sister), bó (cow), ubh (egg)

  • many common everyday words ending in vowels are exceptions to the rule and are actually feminine

    • léine (shirt), gloine (glass), leaba (bed)