Donegal and Kerry's Gaeltacht connection

It was the Conamara man who got me thinking about it after the second day of a seismic weekend of football at the tail end of last month.

As Donegal burst the Dublin bubble on Sunday evening to secure their place in the All-Ireland final against that Saturday’s winners, Kerry, he turned to me and said “cluiche ceannais idir na fadudas agus na n’fheadars a bheidh anois againn.” It will be a final between the fadudas (pronounced, fa-doo-das) and the n’fheadars (pronounced, nad-dors) now.

To those of you without a grasp of our native tongue, faduda is a Donegal variation of fá dtaobh de, which means ‘about’, ‘around’ or ‘concerning’ a particular thing. So, for example, if a Donegal man says “níl a fhios agam a dhath fá dtaobh de (faduda)” he is telling you that he knows nothing about it.