Donegal Irish is spoken in the northwest of Ireland in Co. Donegal.

Donegal Irish phonemic consonant inventory

The consonant phoneme inventory of Donegal Irish is given below (Ó Siadhail 1989; see Ní Chasaide 1999 for discussion of the phonetic realisations). Palatalized consonants are marked with a following superscript j, and velarized consonants are marked with a following superscript ɣ. The Donegal Irish vowel system can be roughly described as /i,e,a,o,u/, each occurring in long and short form.

	Labial	Coronal	Dorsal	Glottal
Stop	pɣ pj	tˠ tj	kˠ kj
	bˠ bj	dˠ dj	ɡˠ ɡj
Fricative	fˠ fj	sˠ sj	xˠ xj	hˠ
	w vj		ɣ ɣj
Nasal	mˠ mj	nˠ Nˠ nj	ŋˠ ŋj
Liquid		lˠ lj Lj
		rˠ rj

Tongue position during palatalization

The sample images below show the position of the tongue when palatalized vs. velarized (or non-palatalized) consonants are pronounced.

Click on the links to listen to a Donegal speaker saying words containing those consonants.

Ulster labial consonants

[Images coming soon; data-processing in progress.]
Learn about labial consonants

Ulster coronal consonants

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Learn about coronal consonants

ulster dorsal consonants

[Images coming soon; data-processing in progress.]
Learn about dorsal consonants

Photos from Donegal