The Irish Language Grimoire — Verb Conjugation
Irish has two regular conjugation classes and eleven irregular verbs. The tense system covers present, past, future, conditional, and habitual past. Once you can recognise the class a verb belongs to and the ending the tense adds, conjugation is largely predictable. The eleven irregulars do most of the heavy lifting in everyday speech, so they pay back the effort of memorising them quickly.
The two regular classes
A verb’s class is determined by the stem of its imperative (the second-person singular command form, the simplest form a verb has).
Class 1 — one-syllable stems or stems ending in a single broad vowel sound. Endings start with a broad vowel (a, o, u).
- dún (close) → dúnaim (I close), dúnann sé (he closes), dhún sí (she closed)
- ól (drink) → ólaim, ólann sé, d’ól sí
- bris (break) → brisim, briseann sé, bhris sí (slender stems take slender endings)
Class 2 — multi-syllable stems ending in -igh, -ail, -air, -is, or similar. Endings tend to involve longer suffixes.
- ceannaigh (buy) → ceannaím, ceannaíonn sé, cheannaigh sí
- imir (play) → imrím, imríonn sé, d’imir sí
- foghlaim (learn) → foghlaimím, foghlaimíonn sé, d’fhoghlaim sí
The tenses
Each tense has a predictable ending pattern. The first-person singular usually has a synthetic form (verb + ending), while other persons can use either synthetic or analytic forms (verb + separate pronoun).
| Tense | Class 1 (dún) | Class 2 (ceannaigh) |
|---|---|---|
| Present 1sg | dúnaim (I close) | ceannaím (I buy) |
| Present 3sg | dúnann sé (he closes) | ceannaíonn sé (he buys) |
| Past 1sg | dhún mé (I closed) | cheannaigh mé (I bought) |
| Future 1sg | dúnfaidh mé (I will close) | ceannóidh mé (I will buy) |
| Conditional | dhúnfainn (I would close) | cheannóinn (I would buy) |
| Habitual past | dhúnainn (I used to close) | cheannaínn (I used to buy) |
The past tense lenites the verb’s first consonant. Vowel-initial verbs in the past take the d’ particle.
The eleven irregulars
Eleven verbs have irregular forms in one or more tenses. They cover such basic vocabulary that learning them is essential:
| Verb | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|
| bí | to be (tá) | The most irregular: separate forms for each tense AND mood |
| abair | to say | Past dúirt; verbal noun rá |
| beir | to bear / catch | Past rug |
| clois / cluin | to hear | Past chuala |
| déan | to do / make | Past rinne; future déanfaidh |
| faigh | to get / find | Past fuair; future gheobhaidh |
| feic | to see | Past chonaic; future feicfidh |
| ith | to eat | Past d’ith; future íosfaidh |
| tabhair | to give | Past thug; future tabharfaidh |
| tar | to come | Past tháinig; future tiocfaidh |
| téigh | to go | Past chuaigh; future rachaidh |
Most of these have predictable present-tense and conditional forms but show their irregularity in past and future. Bí is irregular in every tense, including separate dependent forms after particles (tá → bhfuil after an, raibh, bíonn, etc.).
Synthetic vs analytic
Irish offers two ways to mark person on a verb. Most tenses have a synthetic first-person singular form (verb + person ending fused: dúnaim = I close) and analytic forms for other persons (verb + separate pronoun: dúnann sé = he closes). In some dialects the synthetic forms extend further (dúnaimid = we close, dúnann siad = they close).
In the Caighdeán (modern standard), only the first-person singular and the third-person plural typically use synthetic forms. The rest are analytic.
Practise
The conjugator below lets you pick any verb from sixteen hand-curated entries (eleven irregulars, four Class-1 regulars, one Class-2 regular) and view the full paradigm across all persons and tenses.