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§ 437. When two consonants immediately follow one another the articu­lation of the second is as a rule not antici­pated or in other words the off-glide of the first is distinct­ly heard as in French. In combi­nations such as tl, dl, kr, kl, kʹrʹ, gl, gn, tʹrʹ, bʹrʹ, χl, ŋl, mn, vrʹ and medial sr at first one almost fancies one hears a slight vowel-sound between the two conso­nants. For kʹrʹ cp. Henebry p. 30 and note the spellings in the old Manx Prayer-book gylaghty = Ir. gcleach­dadh; mynayn now mraane (Rhys p. 15). In the following combi­nations, however, where the articu­lations are more or less homo­geneous the glide is not heard – Lt, Nt, rN, rNʹ, sL, sN, Ns, NL, initial sr, and the combi­nations with s mentioned in the next paragraph.

§ 438. t, k, p normally have strong aspiration but in certain positions these sounds together with the cor­respond­ing palatal sounds tʹ, kʹ, pʹ are un­mistak­ably lenes and therefore not aspirated. This is the case when they immediate­ly follow s, ʃ, as in αspəl, ‘apostle’; αspUk, ‘bishop’; dʹeiʃtʹən, ‘clenching of the teeth with pain’; fαsto꞉jəm, ‘I hire’; hαskər sə, ‘it thawed’; spɔ꞉l, ‘spool’; stærʹ, ‘history’. Similarly t is a lenis after χ in o̤χtαn, ‘lapful’; rαχtælʹ, ‘to run’, Di. reachtáil. In these cases Modern Irish ortho­graphy somewhat naturally hesitates between the tenuis and the media. It is quite possible that lenes occur under other condi­tions than those just mentioned, as I have heard the t in bwelʹə tαləv, ‘a farm of land’, distinct­ly pro­nounced in this way.

§ 439. It is perhaps not amiss to point out that the gram­marian’s rule of ‘caol le caol’ is constant­ly broken in the spoken language. This occurs regularly in the case of the privative prefix αn- with uneven stress, e.g. ·αnɔ꞉li꞉, ‘an ignorant person’, ·αnɔ꞉lαχ, ‘ignorant’, Di. aineólach; ·αnɔilʹ, ‘proud flesh’, Di. ainfheoil. The other prefix αn‑, ‘very’, has even stress, e.g. ·αn·i꞉ʃəl, ‘very low’; ·αn·fʹαtə, ‘a great pet’. The ending of the condition­al passive is ‑fʹi꞉, no matter what the quality of the preceding consonant is, e.g. dʹi꞉sfʹi꞉ from içə, ‘to eat’; vɛ꞉rfʹi꞉ from to꞉rtʹ ‘to give’; χαsfʹi꞉ from kαsuw, ‘to meet’. Similarly in compounds, e.g. stαriəkylʹ, ‘project­ing tooth’, Di. stair­fhiacail, Macbain starr-fhiacail; stαriəri꞉, ‘a stubborn attempt’; drɔχiəri꞉