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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.
Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example: AH0 TH IY1 N AH0 = a-THEE-na (Athena)
The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.
Quick Definition
The Irish word for voice or sound, used in poetry both literally to describe the human voice in song and speech and metaphorically to evoke the voice of Ireland, the land, or the ancestral tradition.
Explore this topic in depth (5)
How to Hear Tone in a Poem
— Tone is the attitude a poem’s speaker takes toward a subject, a listener or themselves. Learn to hear it through word choice, pace, address, sound and change—rather than settling too quickly on one label.
How to Annotate a Poem
— Annotating a poem means recording what you notice and what you are still working out. This guide offers a staged method for moving from first impressions to evidence-based interpretation without turning the page into a checklist.
Death and Mortality in Poetry
— Poetry has long given people ways to face death: with sorrow, prayer, anger, wit, tenderness and attention to the living world. This guide explores mortality as a broad theme, from elegy and remembrance to ageing, doubt and the music of silence.
The Elegy: Poetry of Loss, Memory and Address
— An elegy is a poem shaped by loss: it attends to someone or something absent, and asks what it means to remember. This guide explores its long history, changing forms and sounds, from intimate mourning to public grief.
Poetic Voice and the Speaker
— A poem’s “I” is not automatically its author, and a poem can speak in more than one voice. This guide offers practical ways to identify the speaker, hear changes in tone and perspective, and base interpretations on the poem’s language and form.
Detailed Definition
Glór is one of the most charged words in Irish poetic and political culture, since the recovery of a native Irish voice — against the silencing effects of colonialism and language shift — was itself a major cultural and political project. When poets invoke glór, they can mean the literal voice of a singer or storyteller, the voice of a specific poet within a tradition, or the collective cultural voice that a people struggles to maintain. The idea of finding one's glór — one's authentic poetic voice rooted in native tradition — was central to the Gaelic Revival and continues to animate Irish-language poetry.
Example
Example in poetry:
The glór of the choir fills the cathedral with reverent sound; Poets compare divine inspiration to overwhelming experience of glór; The glór of nature includes wind, water, and wildlife voices; Silent contemplation contrasts with expressive power of vocal glór; The glór of ancestral voices continues speaking through preserved poetry; Modern poets seek authentic glór amidst noise of contemporary life.
Additional Notes
Glór (voice/sound) in Irish poetry emphasizes the auditory nature of the tradition. It refers to the human voice in song, speech, or prayer, as well as natural sounds. Poets celebrate the glór as a tool of creation and connection. Loss of glór signifies silence, oppression, or death. The glór of the poet is seen as powerful enough to influence events. Understanding glór helps appreciate the performative aspect of Irish poetry, where the sound of the word is as important as its meaning.