"Uisce beatha." For the past few years, I've been studying Irish-Gaelic [what we normally just call "Irish"] at the East-Side Irish-American Club in Euclid, Ohio. The Irish word for "water" is uisce, pronounced something like /ISH-kuh/. This is the source of the English word "whiskey." The actual Irish word for whiskey is uisce beatha, pronounced /ISH-kuh BAH-hah/, which literally means "water of life."
Irish is a very interesting and difficult language for most people. It has a very foreign feel to it at first, with sounds and rhythms so different from most varieties of English. The rules and exceptions are absolutely astonishing, and I will discuss that from time to time in this blog. These rules could only have been invented by some perverse . . . well, Irishmen and Women, probably as a puzzle to befuddle the Sasanach (the English), the speakers of Bearla (the English language). Most likely a pint or two was involved in this process, maybe some uisce beatha.
In Sligo town, in the northwest of Ireland, there are circular brass covers in the sidewalks that say something like "Sligeach Uisce" (Sligo Water), and a tricky Irishman told me that it was proof that whiskey was piped to every house in town. I will try to upload a photo of one of these.
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