Thanks, Brian - "sean" (with whatever the accents are) is one of the few Irish words that I do recognise. "Song of the Dawn" also includes reference to "Roisin Dubh", which is another of the few expressions I'm familiar with. While I was in Galway recently I found that the locals, when referring to one of the music venue pubs called Roisin Dubh, pronounced it to rhyme with "love". I never got round to asking whether this was some sort of ironic thing - does this happen anywhere else?