Irish/Reference/Directions

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Directions in Irish work a little differently than they do in English. There are two major differences:

Some of the words have multiple meanings: for example, deas, which means both "right" and south".
The words and forms used differ depending on context

This article gives a comprehensive overview of Irish directions for the English-speaking student.

Historical Directions

Historically, the same words were used in Irish and the languages it descended from for compass directions (north, south) and relative directions (right, left). The directions match up for a person facing east:

East	Forward
West	Back
South	Right
North	Left

Deas still means both "south" and "right", but the other direction words are no longer identical in modern Irish. However, the concept survives in some idioms and expressions, which will be discussed below.

Categories of Direction Words

In Irish, different direction words are used in different contexts. The types of direction word are:

Noun: Used to describe the direction as an independent noun, or to describe a portion of a place. Example: "It will rain in the west this weekend," "She visited the south of France."

Adjective: Used to modify a noun, usually as part of a place name. Example: "She's from North America"

Going to: Used when describing motion away from the speaker. Example: "She's not here right now, she drove west this morning."

Coming from: Used when describing motion towards the speaker. Example: "It was nice of you Dubliners to drive from the east to see us."

Comparative: Used to compare relative positions of two things.

The hardest direction for English speakers to understand is "coming from," because it implies traveling in the opposite direction. For example:

téigh suas means "go up (to there)", but,
tar anuas means "come from up (there)"--or in other words, "come down".
téigh síos means "go down (to there)", but,
tar aníos means "come from down (there)"--or in other words, "come up".

List of Irish Direction Words and Forms

This chart shows the different direction words. In each case there's a three-letter pattern shared by all the words indicating a certain direction (except for deisceart, South, which breaks the pattern).

Direction	Going	Coming from	Adjective	Noun	Comparative
North	ó thuaidh	aduaidh	thuaidh	tuaisceart	lastuaidh
South	ó dheas	aneas	theas	deisceart	laisteas
East	soir	anoir	thoir	oirthear	lastoir
West	siar	aniar	thiar	iarthar	laistiar
Up	suas	anuas	thuas
Down	síos	aníos	thíos

The direction under "Going" is always opposite to the direction under "Coming from", e.g. going south vs. coming (north) from the south.

Forming Intermediate Directions

To form intermediate directions, use the appropriate term for the east-west direction, followed by the "going" form (the a- form) of the north-south direction:

thiar aneas (in the southwest)

Right and Left

"Deas" is right.

"Clé" is left.

"Ar an dheas" is "on the right".

"Ar an chlé" is "on the left".

In and Out

Amach = out. "Tar amach" is "Come out", if you are already outside you are "amuigh".

"Slí amach" is way out

Isteach = in. "Tar isteach" is "Come in", if you are already inside you are "istigh".

"Slí isteach" is way in.

Compass Idioms

Some of the surviving idioms related to the points of the compass in Irish include:

seas siar: Stand back (literally "stand to the west")
aniar aduaidh: By surprise (literally "from the northwest")
amach anseo: From now on