Irish Slang Translator

Me ma, apparently, is always giving out about the jacks. That's what this Irish slang translator made of "my mom is complaining about the bathroom again," and I laughed out loud at my desk, because every Irish mammy alive has said some version of it.

Paste Irish slang in and it works the other way too. Your cousin in Cork sends "yer man was gas," you get "that guy was funny" back, and nobody has to fake a laugh on the family WhatsApp.

What Does Craic Mean?

It's fun, news and good company, all in one word. "What's the craic?" is what's up. "The craic was mighty" means you had a great night. And "he's great craic" is high praise for a lad you'd want at your table in the pub.

The funny part? Craic isn't old Irish at all. It started as the English word crack, which meant chat or gossip in Scots and northern English. The Irish-looking spelling only took off in the 20th century, and then English borrowed it right back. Wikipedia's page on Hiberno-English covers the bigger story of how Irish grammar leaked into the English people speak there.

Words That Keep Coming Up

These showed up again and again in my test runs, so they're the ones worth learning first.

Irish slang	Plain English
grand	fine, okay (not "great")
craic	fun, news, good company
gas	funny
deadly	brilliant
sound	decent, kind
eejit	idiot (said fondly)
yer man / yer one	that guy / that woman
giving out	complaining, scolding
the jacks	the toilet
gaff	house
press	cupboard
runners	sneakers
banjaxed	broken
knackered	exhausted
fair play	well done
I'm after eating	I just ate
stop the lights	wow, no way

"I'm after eating" looks like a mistake to visitors. It isn't. Irish has its own way of saying something just happened (tá mé tar éis, roughly "I am after"), and people carried it straight into English.

Grand Isn't Great

This trips up Americans every single time. Ask a Dubliner how the new job is going, hear "grand," and you'll think it's going brilliantly. It's not. Grand is a shrug. It's fine. You'd need to climb a good bit higher before anyone's actually impressed.

How I Got It Wrong First

Version one wrote "yer man is a eejit." A eejit! No Irish person on earth says that. One line in the prompt now forces "an eejit," which sounds like nothing but is the difference between Galway and a bad Hollywood film.

Then it got pushy with "Sure." Every second line opened with it: "Sure, can ye shut the press?" People do say sure a lot, but not in front of every request like a nervous tic. It's capped at once per answer now, and it still sneaks into some questions, which, honestly, is fair enough.

The worst one was "omg my phone is broken." The model swapped omg for a mild swear word I never typed. Out it went. Now omg becomes "stop the lights," which is what my imaginary aunt in Mullingar would shout if her phone died mid-Mass.

Fresh From the Output Box

Every line here is copied straight from the tool after those fixes. The last three went backwards, slang in, plain English out.

What I typed	What came back
i just ate, im so tired, see you tomorrow	I'm after eating, I'm knackered, see ya tomorrow.
that guy is an idiot but hes actually really nice	Yer man is an eejit, but he's sound.
omg my phone is broken and i'm exhausted	Stop the lights, me phone's banjaxed and I'm knackered.
well done on the exam, that's brilliant news	Fair play on the exam, that was deadly news.
what's up? any news?	Sure, what's the craic? Any news?
the craic was mighty last night, yer man was gas	It was great fun last night, that guy was funny.
would you ever stop giving out, sure look it's grand	Would you ever stop complaining? Sure, it's fine.

See that second one? "He's sound" is about the nicest thing you can say about a person over there. Being called an eejit in the same breath doesn't cancel it out. If anything it's affection.

Slang, Not the Irish Language

Worth saying plainly: this does Irish slang in English, the way people talk in a chipper in Cork or on the 46A bus. It doesn't translate into Irish Gaelic, the Celtic language on road signs and in the Dáil. That's a whole other language with its own grammar, and a slang tool would make a mess of it.

It also skips the stage-Irish stuff. No "top o' the mornin'," no leprechauns, no begorrah. Nobody in Ireland has said begorrah unironically since about 1950.

Hop across the water to the Scottish Translator for dreich and dinnae, or try the British Slang Translator if a London mate keeps saying innit. Every other voice lives on the translators page.

Asked Over a Pint

What is Irish slang for friend? Pal, bud or mate all work. In Dublin you'll hear "me oul' segotia" from older folk, and Cork has its own "boy," as in "well, boy?", which works on girls too.

Is craic Irish or Scottish? Both, sort of. The word started as crack in Scots and northern English, then Ireland gave it the fancy spelling and made it famous.

What's an Irish insult that isn't rude? Eejit. Muppet comes close. Both are what you call a friend who locked his keys in the car again, and he'd call you the same.

What does "giving out" mean? Complaining or scolding. "Mam was giving out to me" means you got a telling-off, probably for leaving wet towels on the floor.

Can it turn Irish slang into English? Yep. No button to press, it just spots the slang and goes backwards on its own.