Talk:Tánaiste

International Comparison
I think the idea of a (legally or constitutionally) designated successor to a Prime Minister in a Parliamentary System of government, is pretty rare- possibly unique to Ireland. I don't think it exists in other Westminster Model systems, nor more generally in other Parliamentary systems like the West German model systems or French/Eastern European Hybrid systems either? It is of course quite common for states to have a succession plan for replacing the Head of State, e.g. Monarchies just go down the family blood line, and republics normally have constitutionally mandated order of sucession too. (Presidents may or may not be the Head of Government of course). But an automatic back up to the Prime Minister is not usual.

The rationale presumably is that technically in Parliamentary Systems, the Monarch/ President is the personification of the state, so if the PM goes it's not too much of a problem in the short term, since the Monarch/President has back up powers and can appoint a new PM. Ireland though has seen fit to have a backstop other than the President.

So is there any research there about why Ireland opted to have a constitutional back up to the Taoiseach, some discussion on this would be interesting and I think add value to the article. {1:17 BST 1 April} — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.108.149.34 (talk) 00:25, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

The Tánaiste is not the designated successor to the Taoiseach. His office could be translated as "Deputy prime minister." Like deputy prime ministers in other countries, he may or may not succeed the Taoiseach/Prime minister.

Article 13
Article 13 section 1 of Bunreacht na hEireann (The Constitution of Ireland) states that the President appoints the Taoiseach and subsequently, on the advice of the Taoiseach, appoints the members or Ministers of the Government. The Tánaiste is nominated by the Taoiseach as provided for under Article 28 s.6 of the Constitution. The President does not appoint the Tánaiste.

Tánaistithe: pronunciation?
A useful footnote gives the IPA pronunciation of the singular; but how is the plural, Tánaistithe, pronounced? Suggestion: add the plural form to the existing footnote. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 15:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I know IPA, but I don't know Irish, so I can't really help with the correct IPA.  I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will do so, though. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 17:56, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Tánaistí - updated plural
According to an anonymous editor Tánaistithe is not standard Irish. Tánaistí is standard according to Niall Ó Dónaill's dictionary (standard dictionary for today's Irish). This checks out, see Vicipéid (The Irish language Wikipedia) at http://ga.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teimpl%C3%A9ad:T%C3%A1naist%C3%AD_na_h%C3%89ireann. They are also other references on the web to support this. I've the article to reflect this. Snappy56 18:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Stress not shown for IPA transcriptions
Can someone who knows Irish add stress marks? --APW 20:12, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Brendan Corish.jpg
Image:Brendan Corish.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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Non-free images
I removed all the non-free images per WP:NFCC and WP:NFLISTS, just like President of Ireland which had several non-free images and occasionally gets them added back. I'm pretty sure that Taoiseach suffers from the same problem. While some images have fair-use rationales for this use those rationales don't stand up to the scrutiny of the non-free policy. It is ok to use a non-free image of a deceased person in their own article but not elsewhere without justification and not in lists or list type articles. Yes it makes the table look less interesting but that's the way it is. You can always bring the issue up at Non-free content review if you want. ww2censor (talk) 22:20, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Translation of title
In Luxembourg, the job is called "Vice-Président du gouvernement" but in Wiki it's called Deputy Prime Minister. In the Netherlands, the job is called "Vicepremiers van Nederland" but in Wiki it's called Deputy Prime Minister. In Sweden, the job is called "statsministers ställföreträdare" but in Wiki it's called Deputy Prime Minister. In Ireland, the job is called Tánaiste but in Wiki it's not allowed to be translated in capitals as Deputy Prime Minister. Some think it that the title must be in lower case. Why? Laurel Lodged (talk) 20:09, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Because its a description (or translation) of the office not the title of the office. The title is Tánaiste in both Irish and English, no English translation is ever used officially. It could also be translated as deputy head of government, which would not need capitals. This wording is used by the Department of the Taoiseach website . The articles you mention are about specific offices which have been translated to English, the relevant one is about the generic office is at Deputy prime minister (no caps on the prime minister part) and the first line reads: "A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent.", no capitals at all on 'deputy prime minister'. Also, remember that wikipedia is not a reliable source. Snappy (talk) 22:16, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * In an attempt at compromise, I have changed it to deputy head of government linking to Deputy prime minister. Snappy (talk) 22:40, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

English pronunciation for this word
Snappy recently removed the English pronunciations for the articles on Oireachtas, Seanad Éireann, Fianna Fáil and Tánaiste, with the comment "one IPA is sufficient", when that only pronunciation is the pronunciation of the word in the Irish language. As an English speaker I am unfamiliar with Irish language pronunciations and was finding it a little difficult to decipher the Irish pronunciations, so all I was doing was adding a simple English approximate pronunciation for those words to help other English speakers to understand how to pronounce those words properly; I also discovered that the English pronunciation is slightly different from the Irish pronunciation. What I added was only adding to the article and not taking anything away from it; there are many articles that have both an English IPA and another language IPA and I don't see how these articles are any different.

BTW, other articles such as Taoiseach and Dáil Éireann have had both pronunciations for a long time now and I don't see how the former articles, that I added to, are any different, wrt displaying pronunciations, from those latter two articles. --101.160.13.231 (talk) 23:45, 26 November 2013 (UTC)


 * My instinctive reaction would be that if "one IPA is sufficient", then the "English" pronunciation would be the one to have on English Wikipedia. The question is, from my point of view, are these "English" pronunciations accurate? I have no grasp of IPA at all, so I'd like to see feedback from editors who are familiar with both IPA and the words concerned. Scolaire (talk) 00:34, 27 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I've had a look at Oxford Dictionaries and it displays at least two pronunciations for these words, a simple pronunciation first and a complex pronunciation second. See the links associated with each of the following: Taoiseach, Tánaiste, Oireachtas, Dáil Éireann, Seanad Éireann, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael. The first pronunciation is the primary English pronunciation for these words, which is what should be used in Wikipedia if one pronunciation is enough; this is English Wikipedia after all.
 * The point of the English IPA is that it's a generalisation of English sounds to cater for all English dialects; that it's a guide to assist in the pronunciation of unfamiliar words simply and easily. --101.160.13.231 (talk) 08:30, 27 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I thought the IPA was phonetic, I now realise its phonetic per language so the Irish IPA provides the correct pronunciation and the English IPA provided an incorrect English equivalent. I can't really see the point of it, but if you insist on having both, fire away! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Snappy (talk • contribs) 21:11, 27 November 2013‎


 * There's no such thing as "correct pronunciation". All these words will be pronounced differently in Irish depending on dialect, and often even on local pronunciation. I don't know whether the Irish IPA picks one at random or whether it has decided that a particular pronunciation, e.g. the Dingle pronunciation, is the "correct" one and all others are to be considered "wrong". On the other hand, the English IPA will be a rendering of how you would expect the word to sound when spoken by, say, a newsreader on the English language news on Irish television or radio. How can that be "incorrect"? The English IPA only should be used, being the pronunciation the English-speaking reader would expect to hear when the word is part of an English sentence. Scolaire (talk) 23:38, 27 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Scolaire is right, in that "there's no such thing as correct pronunciation"; all transcriptions for all pronunciations are generalisations. And when encountering a word used in an English language sentence, such as these words for Irish institutions, an English-speaker would expect an English pronunciation; the majority of people in Ireland speak English on a daily basis, and as such it only makes sense to include a generalised English IPA transcription for the pronunciation of these Irish institution's names. Because of the wide variety of English language dialects, not just in Ireland but also all over the world, it is essential that a generalised English pronunciation be included in the article, preferably in the introductory sentence.
 * If one pronunciation is sufficient in the introductory sentence then that should be the generalised English IPA transcription, but that doesn't mean the Irish language IPA transcription needs to disappear; maybe include it in a section about the Irish language pronunciation of the word, such as in the section on "Origins and etymology"? --101.160.13.231 (talk) 09:35, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
 * This make no sense - "the English IPA will be a rendering of how you would expect the word to sound when spoken by, say, a newsreader on the English language news on Irish television or radio.", an English language newsreader on RTE/TV3 would know how to pronounce the word correctly in Irish, and would do so! As pointed out the IP, Oxford Dictionaries use two IPAs, so that's a good example for us to follow here. Snappy (talk) 19:29, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, no, he wouldn't necessarily "pronounce the word correctly in Irish". In (certain dialects of) Irish, there would be a "tch" sound to the second t of "Tánaiste", or a slight "lye" sound to the l of "Fianna Fáil". A newsreader might well use these "Irish" pronunciations when reading the news in Irish, and use the plain t and l when reading the news in English. It's not as though the "incorrect English" IPA translates as "tanaystee"; if you hover over it you can see that is says "'t' in 'tie', 'au' in 'fraud', 'n' in 'nigh', 'e' in 'roses', 'sh' in 'shy', 't' in 'tie' and 'a' in 'about'." But I don't know, and I suspect you don't know either, how the "correct Irish" IPA is pronounced, because there is not a similar guide. And that is why I said at the outset that we need input from editors who are familiar with both IPA and the words concerned. More to the point, the "Irish" IPA is unsourced, and therefore OR. If you want to use both versions as used on the Oxford Dictionaries pages linked to above, that's one thing, but those pages say nothing about "Irish" or "English" pronunciation. We should not distinguish "Irish" and "English" pronunciation unless we can explain the distinction (if there is one) with reference to reliable sources. Scolaire (talk) 14:48, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * "(....) the English pronunciation is slightly different from the Irish pronunciation (....)"---precisely. It's analogical to Alois Alzheimer, most Anglophones would pronounce his name in accordance with the common pronunciation of "Alzheimer's disease", but the German pronunciation is different, and it is given in the relevant article. Now that all Irish pronunciations have been wiped from articles whenever there is a concurrent English pronunciation for the Irish spelling, where should one check the original pronunciation? There aren't any clues in the iewiki, obviously. 176.221.120.207 (talk) 16:16, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah that was a totally idiotic move. These are Irish words with an Irish spelling, so it's completely natural that we should be informed of the way they are pronounced in Irish and not only in English, just as we have transcriptions of the original Ancient Greek pronunciation of Theseus besides the standard English one, of the Sanskrit pronunciation of Mahabharata besides the English one, of the German pronunciation of Doppelgänger besides the English one, of Mozart's name, of the French pronunciation of the Quartier latin (other examples: Kalos kagathos, Endlösung...). This doesn't oblige anyone to pronounce them as they are pronounced as in the original language, but not providing the information is ridiculous, and deliberately removing it is plainly destructive and harmful.
 * The pretext that it's OR is likewise ridiculous - simple knowledge of the relevant language and of IPA are two types of competence that volunteer Wikipedians are regularly trusted with without being subject to Wikipedia's attribution policies, which is why there are no sources for the transcriptions of the other non-English words that I mentioned (a citation may be required if there is explicit disagreement about a transcription, of course). The existence of dialectal differences is not an excuse either - there are many languages with such dialectal divergences, and picking one dialect is better than not having any information. As people have pointed out, even the OED provides an Irish version after the anglicized one, and it is clear from their help page that the second pronunciation is the one of the original language (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/key-to-pronunciation-languages). Even when there is no speaker of Irish available, the OED can be used as a source. --91.148.130.233 (talk) 23:33, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Guidance on adding WP Bio
This is not a directly biographical article and so should not have WP Bio added. This is because it only describes the office position and so it only comes under BLPO (Biography of living people other).

Not using WP Bio on official office positions is also seen on (to name a few):
 * Talk:Prime Minister of Ukraine
 * Talk:Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
 * Talk:President of the United States
 * Talk:President of India
 * Talk:President of Russia

Thanks, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 talk to me &#124; my contributions 11:38, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

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