Dr Ken Ó Donnchú

There's a few which immediately to do with drink, that we all recognise the ill effects of drink and, you know, what that can cause.

And then what you just mentioned, yeah, the veil dig, having a go off someone, maybe not saying it, you know, directly to their face or, you know, there's a saying in Irish, so saying, looking at somebody between the two eyes, which is a hard thing to do probably, but it kind of, it conveys this idea of having a go off someone, but being a bit indirect about it.

It's hard to choose just one in the book, but there's a nice one there which gives the book its title, number 55 in the book itself.

And I read the Irish very quickly in translation, so...

And that's a version of that.

And that's a version of that.

That is the one I was going to pick out, that exact one.

Sweet is the mouth which is closed because it made me think, which came first?

That line, silence is golden, did it come from this epigram or was the epigram inspired by the line?

There's really no way of knowing for sure.

And you get this interplay throughout Irish history of the written tradition, written literature and an extremely robust oral tradition.

And both were influencing each other as far back as we can tell from written records.

So it's very hard to know which one came first.

But I think that particular line as well, it speaks to us now in our own day about, you know, we're all so familiar with whatever you say, say nothing.

So even if you are speaking, in a way, you're being silent.

We're so familiar with that concept.

So I think there's an idea in this collection of human behaviour and certain traits being timeless and being universal.

Where did these come from?

I mean, who was writing them?

Were they writers of the times, poets of the time, or were they formed through ordinary conversation amongst Irish people?