Talk:Irish calendar

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—Yamara ✉ 18:25, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Time/Assessment|WikiProject Time assessment rating]] comment 

message: Would it be possibe to have an English gloss of the names of the days, months and seasons? It would be interesting to know what they mean.
Inigo123 10:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Have made a start by doing the days. -- Picapica 11:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: POI, It's Irish, not Gaelic. 11:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  for non Gaelic speakers 

message: Casting your eye over the article, there is an introduction, then the first section is entitled "Seasons". However this section seems to be less about the description of seasons in the Irish Calendar and more a list of events that people believe have relevance to Irish history, from Bloody Sunday to "Bull of Pope Gregory XIII, for reform of calendar, issued at Rome" to "First performance of Riverdance at Eurovision Song Contest". Could this section be renamed?  --mgaved 17:26, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Alas, it's all been deleted. It would have been funny (and informative) to have a section for dates in Irish history, from the sublime to the ridiculous. However, every Wikipedia article I see on Ireland is censored to death, sometimes for reasons of politics or prejudice. Apparently it is still not free. Galliv (talk) 21:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: First performance of Riverdance at Eurovision Song Contest as part of "Seasons"?

message: This calendar seems to start as a discussion of celebrations and feast days. The year is then marked by a variety of dates during with no relevance to celebration or feast at all. More appropriate to be in a history of the Troubles since this is not purely Irish history.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.56.193 (talk) 19:54, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevance to Celtic history 

message: Seconding the above two comments. After the intro, this dissolves into a disjointed timeline of modern Ireland and a couple of basic Gaelic vocabulary lessons.  It'd be much more useful to cover the history and development of the calendar, it's relationship to the Julian/Gregorian calendars, its significance in various religions (Christianity, Pre-Christian Celtic Religion, Neopaganism, etc) and their influence on it, the significance of the various holidays, it's importance in modern Irish thought, politics, etc.  I'd do it myself, excepting I don't know much about it, and also I'm lazy.
- 76.188.177.20 (talk) 18:48, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevance 

message: I'm not sure I see why the Irish Calendar is treated as separate from the Gregorian Calendar. It seems as though the date is the same in both calendars, as both the months and days are aligned exactly with one another. The only difference seems to be in the names of the months (which is true for any calendar used in areas with different languages) and in the arrangement of the seasons. I don't think that these two differences merit calling the Irish Calendar a separate calendar in the same way that, say, the Buddhist calendar or the Hebrew calendar are separate from the Gregorian calendar. Instead, this should be made into an article about the seasons, and the timeline should be a separate article altogether. Thoughts? --SameerKhan (talk) 18:35, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Irish holidays are unique to Ireland. The seasons differ. (By the way, there are many Buddhist calendars and variations in the Jewish holidays. It's helpful to have them all posted.) Galliv (talk) 22:00, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Separate calendar? 

message: Yes- I'd argue that the Irish calendar is merely the Gregorian- since Ireland has always been historically close to Rome- thus iot woulod have been one of the first countries to adopt it. The article on the Gregorian calendar quite clearly states that it was adopted until 1603- where upon Catholics asked special permission to not appear disloyal to the Protestant English- still using the Julian calendar.
If Ireland was to have a unique Gaelic or Celtic calendar- wouldn't have been influenced by the greater populations of Celts/Gaels and hence greater cultural weight of the British mainland if not Gaul?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Years%27_War_%28Ireland%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar
I really don't notice anything especially distinguishing about it- and the list of Irish Historical events is clearly not related to the body topic.
Maybe it just needs more research?Starstylers (talk) 18:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Agreement with Above post

message: In Northern Ireland, the seasons do not follow the same pattern as those in the Republic. (e.g. Winter starts in December).
Given that fact, is it logical to include events which only apply to NI? 90.202.168.222 (talk) 09:44, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Northern Ireland 

message: This article is skirting the boundaries of silliness, and more than once sets up camp inside.  I am Irish and have lived in Ireland since I was two years old, and it comes as news to me that the Irish calendar "centres the seasons around the solstices and equinoxes".  As long as I have known, it starts on January 1 and ends on December 31.   I notice too that the article doesn't provide any references whatsoever.  Finally, what is the collective significance of any of this information, other than it is vaguely and sometimes very tenuously Ireland-related?   It's basically nothing but a list of Trivia presented in chronological order.  This is a candidate for deletion, if ever I saw one; it's a purely invented category. Lexo (talk) 02:08, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Lexo, it is pointing out, among other things, that spring, summer, autumn and winter begin at different times of the year to the situation in America and Britain. What's wrong with that? Dunlavin Green (talk) 12:20, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't realise that any country had a formal definition of the seasons. What is the definition in the UK? Mooretwin (talk) 12:39, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Check your Oxford English Dictionary because in my version, from 1997, it definitely differed from the seasons as they were known to me and presumably everybody around me when we were growing up, whether it was making the St Brigid's cross on the first day of spring (1 February/ Brigid's Day" or going out on Oíche Shamhna/ 31 October, the last day of autumn. I was genuinely surprised at that difference. But then I learnt that the English/Julian calendar differed from the Irish/Gregorian calendar until 1752 when the English adopted the Gregorian calendar so maybe expecting conformity in an imperfect world was my mistake. Dunlavin Green (talk) 19:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  What would be the point of Welsh names on an Irish calendar? They have their own culture; they can have their own calendar. Galliv (talk) 21:23, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is this article supposed to be about? 

message: From a non-Irish viewpoint, as a person with Irish ancestry who is trying to learn the language and culture, it is nice to have all the elements of the Irish calendar in one spot. It is helpful to both students of Irish history or just tourists. I would ask that this article not be deleted, but instead edited.
 
It may seem a bit messy to combine the historic Irish concept of time, days and seasons with the modern holidays, the Christian with the pagan, but again, having all the information together is convenient to the reader.
In the USA, we have a bizarre way of delineating the seasons of the year. I imagine the person who wrote this article was trying to explain the Irish calendar from a US perspective, hence the clumsy introduction (which definitely needs rewriting!). It's our seasons that are off, not the Irish.
For example, our winter just began on the solstice, Dec. 21, 2010. Any sane person knows that the shortest day is the depth of winter, not the beginning of it. The crocuses sprout and the trees bud in February, but our spring doesn't begin until Mar. 20 (really the beginning of the end of spring). There is a change in the weather at the beginning of August, but only the Irish and Chinese consider that the beginning of autumn. A solar agricultural calendar makes more sense.
I'd suggest organizing the article chronologically.
It seems pointless (and introduces anachronisms) to quibble about the concept of an Irish calendar from a modern political perspective. The calendar evolved at a time when there was no Britain, no Northern Ireland, just areas with their local tribes and constantly changing leadership and borders. (Someone made a comment about Philo of Alexandria, which is also irrelevant.) You could argue that since the world is shrinking, all cultures should be combined into a "Euro" calendar. This would be a disservice to all. 
I'm familiar with the calendars of many cultures and it's helpful to have a Wikipedia entry for each so that, for example, I know the difference between the Tibetan, Chinese, Korean, Thai or Vietnamese new years. I don't see why the Irish calendar should be wiped out of existence on Wikipedia and would have to question why anyone would want that to happen. 
Galliv (talk) 19:56, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  I found this article on the Irish calendar helpful, if a bit disorganized 

message: What's the starting point for this kind of calendar? --41.151.167.139 (talk) 17:13, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  starting point 

message: No mention of use in Scotland. Interestingly, some of the Scottish names are more Gaelic too...--MacRùsgail (talk) 18:55, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Scottish Gaelic

message: As many Irish people have mentioned above, the vast majority of Irish people still view spring as starting on St Brigid's Day/Lá Fhéile Bríde/1 February, summer as starting on Bealtaine/1 May, autumn starting on Lúnasa/1 August and winter starting on Samhain/1 November. Why, therefore, is this article treating it like this calendar is something merely confined to the past? 79.97.64.240 (talk) 11:26, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Please go ahead and fix it. I started some initial cleanup, but this needs additional rewriting and sourcing. - CorbieV☊☼ 15:58, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Irish Calendar today, not just "Gaelic Calendar"

message: The seasons, as understood/used by Irish people are subject to much debate.
Ultimately, there are 3 definitions in use:
The official (Meteorological) version is that Spring starts on the 1st March https://www.met.ie/climate/climate-of-ireland#:~:text=For%20climatological%20and%20meteorological%20purposes,and%20September%20to%20November%20%E2%80%93%20autumn.
There is also the astrological version which deals with the equinox etc (Spring starts on March 20th). While it is accepted, it is rarely used in day-to-day life https://www.thesun.ie/news/607252/when-does-spring-start-and-how-is-the-date-decided-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-seasons/
Finally, there is alternative (historic) version based on religious holidays (Spring starts on Feb 1st which is considered a holy day by some) which is taught to young children in most/all catholic primary schools (the majority of primary schools in Ireland are run by the Catholic Church). However, there are attempts to correct this teaching https://www.met.ie/cms/assets/uploads/2021/02/YP-Fun-Facts-Meteorological-Seasons.pdf
Davesugrue (talk) 17:11, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Astrological vs. Meteorological vs. Catholic School system