Hello everyone!
I am new to this site and I am so fortunate to have come across enthusiasts and people knowledgable on the language -- It has been such a struggle!

I am a college student studying music in California and I have come across a piece titled "Fionnghuala" which some of you may be familiar with:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM8Uv5RFOyM


I have done a lot of sleuthing to try and find a pronunciation guide or some kind of source that will speak the poetry back to me... but I have not been successful. This is crucial because since this piece will be performed to an audience my choir demands are that we do nothing but accurate phrasing.

In the sheet music I believe this is the poetry used:

Thuirt an gobha fuirighidh mi
'S thuirt an gobha falbhaidh mi
'S thuirt an gobha leis an othail
A bh' air an dòrus an t-sàbhail
Gu rachadh e a shuirghe

'Si eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Am bothan a bh' aig Fionnghuala

Bheirinn fead air fulmairean
Bheirinn fead air falmairean
Liuthannan beaga na mara
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn

Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn

But in the recording featured above, I believe this is the poetry used (someone please confirm this!) :

Ars' an gobha fuiricheamaid
Ars' an gobha falbheamaid
Ars' an gobha ris an ogha
Na sheasamh aig doras an t-sabhail
Gu rachadh e a shuirghe

'Si eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Am bothan a bh' aig Fionnghuala
'Si eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Am bothan a bh' aig Fionnghuala

Bheirinn fead air fulmairean
Bheirinn fead air falmairean
Liuthannan beaga na mara
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn

Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn

I came across someone on a different site who gave me this phonetic guide:
Thuirt an gobha fuirighidh mi = hoort on guv-a fir-i-gig mee
'S thuirt an gobha falbhaidh mi = iss hoort on guv-a fowl-ig mee
'S thuirt an gobha leis an othail = iss hoort on guv-a lesh on uh-hill
A bh' air an dòrus an t-sàbhail = Ah v err on dur-us on tss-aww-vawl
Gu rachadh e a shuirghe = goo rock-ock ay a heer-guh


'Si eilean nam bothan nam bothan = shee eh-lahn nuh mo-uhn nuh mo-uhn
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan = eh-lahn nuh mo-uhn nuh mo-uhn
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan = eh-lahn nuh mo-uhn nuh mo-uhn
Am bothan a bh' aig Fionnghuala = am bow-han a vee egg yun-ghoo-la


Bheirinn fead air fulmairean = veh-rinn fad eth foo-loo-meh-thuhn
Bheirinn fead air falmairean = veh-rinn fad eth fah-lah-meh-thuhn
Liuthannan beaga na mara = lyoo-uhn-uhn beck-uh nuh mah-ruh
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn = veh-ri-metch gthesh eth uhn hah-rinn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn = nah mah-thuGH nuh doo-thiyy GHuh-inn

Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo = kha toort uh nah-tuhn uh shoh
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo = kha toort uh nah-tuhn uh shoh
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo = kha toort uh nah-tuhn uh shoh
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn = veh-thuh-metch gthesh eth uhn hah-rinn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn = nah mah-thuGH nuh doo-thiyy GHuh-inn

I would say this is a pretty reliable source as they are from Ireland! But I don't have IPA for the language to know what sounds the consonant combinations and vowels are.

Lastly, in the recording the soloist sounds like he is saying something differently from the poetry (it may just be my ears that are not used to this foreign language) Can someone clarify what verse is being in order of the performance? We want to replicate Anúna's performance as much as possible...

So if anyone can give me a great phonetic guide I can follow, that would be GREAT
overall a recording of the text would be ideal!

Thank you so much!

The two versions you found are essentially identical, with slightly different wording in the first verse.

The first version starts out:
Thuirt an gobha fuirighidh mi.
'S thuirt an gobha falbhaidh mi.
The blacksmith said, "I'll wait".
The blacksmith said, "I'll go".

The second version starts out:
Ars' an gobha fuiricheamaid.
Ars' an gobha falbheamaid.
The blacksmith said, "We'll wait".
The blacksmith said, "We’ll go".

The verb "ars" is a somewhat archaic (in Scottish Gaelic) way to say "said", whereas "thuirt" is a more common way to say it. In case you're wondering about word placement, note that the verb usually comes first in an Irish or Scottish Gaelic sentence, so it's like the now archaic English phrasing "Said the blacksmith ..." (which may have been the result of Celtic influence on English in its early years anyway). The only other real difference is the choice of pronoun ("I" versus "we") and the related verb forms (in the second version, the verb form is also archaic, and resembles Irish).

In that YouTube version, Anúna sings the song as follows, but from what I can hear they are leaving out some of the words (or saying them so quickly that I can't hear them) -- the ones I've shown in red below seem to be missing, and in a few other cases I don't hear some syllables, especially in the first three lines of the first verse (which is repeated near the end). They also (again, to my ears) appear to be pronouncing a number of words as if this were Irish, and not Scottish Gaelic, but I'm not an expert there. I think the Anúna singers are all Irish, so some of that is probably just automatic, given their schooling in Irish.

Thuirt an gobha fuirighidh mi.
'S thuirt an gobha falbhaidh mi.
'S thuirt an gobha leis an othail,
a bh' air an dòrus an t-sàbhail,
gu rachadh e a shuirghe.

Chorus:
'Si eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Am bothan a bh' aig Fionnghuala
'Si eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Am bothan a bh' aig Fionnghuala

Bheirinn fead air fulmairean
Bheirinn fead air falmairean
Liuthannan beaga na mara
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn

Chorus

Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn

Chorus

Bheirinn fead air fulmairean
Bheirinn fead air falmairean
Liuthannan beaga na mara
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn.

Chorus

Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn

Chorus

Thuirt an gobha fuirighidh mi.
'S thuirt an gobha falbhaidh mi.
'S thuirt an gobha leis an othail,
a bh' air an dòrus an t-sàbhail,
gu rachadh e a shuirghe.

Chorus

I'm not good at the IPA myself (even though I studied it in grad school), but I think I can improve a bit on the rough phonetic version you were given, which I'll do in another message. What I'll attempt to show you is what I believe it should be in Scottish Gaelic, so not necessarily what the Anúna folks are singing.

_________________
I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Have you looked here? - this is the version Anúna give, but as you can see, there are versions by other singers and groups that you can also find here -

www.celticlyricscorner.net/anuna/fionnghuala.htm

I did check online, a fhrainc, and the version at that link is the same as what I've discussed above. There seems to be pretty good consistency among the versions I found online, except for what I've noted above.

_________________
I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Here's a rough attempt at the pronunciation of the verses and the chorus, with the sounds as an American (amateur) would represent them, with some notes below. In words of more than one syllable, the stress is usually on the first syllable (which I have shown with the syllable all in caps), and the vowel sounds in the subsequent syllables can become very indistinct, so you'll see a lot of "uh" sounds below.

Thuirt an gobha fuirighidh mi
'S thuirt an gobha falbhaidh mi
'S thuirt an gobha leis an othail
A bh' air an dòrus an t-sàbhail
Gu rachadh e a shuirghe

hoorsht un GUV-uh FIR-uh-yeekh mee *
iss hoorsht un GUV-uh FOWL-uh-vee mee
iss hoorsht un GUV-uh lesh un UH-hull
uh veh eth un DURR-us un TSAW-vull **
goo ROCK-uck ay uh HEER-yuh ***

'Si eilean nam bothan, nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Am bothan a bh' aig Fionnghuala
'Si eilean nam bothan, nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Eilean nam bothan nam bothan
Am bothan a bh' aig Fionnghuala

shee YEH-lunn nuh MO-un, nuh MO-un
YEH-lunn nuh MO-un, nuh MO-un
YEH-lunn nuh MO-un, nuh MO-un
uh MO-un a veh ug FEEN-ghoo-ah-luh ****
shee YEH-lunn nuh MO-un, nuh MO-un
YEH-lunn nuh MO-un, nuh MO-un
YEH-lunn nuh MO-un, nuh MO-un
uh MO-un a veh ug FEEN-ghoo-ah-luh

Bheirinn fead air fulmairean
Bheirinn fead air falmairean
Liuthannan beaga na mara
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn

VAY-thin fad eth FOOL-uh-muh-thuhn
VAY-thin fad eth FAL-uh-muh-thuhn
LYOO-huhn-nuhn BECK-uh nuh MAH-ruh [here, the "ck" is a normal "k" sound, no extrasound after it]
VAY-ruh-mutch gthesh eth uhn HAH-rinn
nah MAH-thugh nuh DOO-thih GHUH-inn

Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo
Bheireamaid greis air an tarrainn
Na maireadh na duirgh dhuinn

kha doorsht uh NAH-dun uh shoh
kha doorsht uh NAH-dun uh shoh
kha doorsht uh NAH-dun uh shoh
VAY-ruh-mutch gthesh eth uhn HAH-rinn
nah MAH-thugh nuh DOO-thih GHUH-inn

* The “kh” combination in these phonetics is the guttural “ch” sound in the word Loch, but where it occurs next to an “i” or “e” sound (as in this line), it is much softened, and can be hard to even hear.
** Gaelic has several “th”-like sounds which occur where the letter “r” is written (here and in other places below). It’s really hard to show what they sound like, but the sound should not be overemphasized. Not all regional Gaelic dialects had these sounds, and some people still do not pronounce the "th" sounds, but they have become quite widespread now, since most of the areas where people still speak Gaelic are the ones where the sounds originated.
*** What is shown here as just “ck” is really a hard to produce sound like a “k” followed quickly by a guttural “kh” sound, but in rapid speech you can just use the “k” sound.
**** What is shown as “gh” here (and in other places below) is a guttural sound, like the “ch” in Loch, but pronounced deeper in the throat (it is “voiced”, using the larynx).

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Thank you so much for the guide!
Here is a recording of me attempting to speak it...
let me know what I should fix

Listen to my Vox http://voxer.com/v/c469e73a98

What you did was pretty good, but here are a few things to note. You can actually hear most of these things in the Anúna version (I didn't mean to be overly critical of their pronunciation -- there were just a few things they seemed to pronounce in the Irish way).

-- Everywhere that you see an "u" or "uh" in my (admittedly amateur) pronunciation guide, it is a very brief, indistinct, schwa-like sound, never an "oo" sound, no matter what vowel is written in the Gaelic for that syllable. That holds true whether it is inside one syllable of a multi-syllabic word, or is in a single syllable word.

-- if I've written an "i" in the pronunciation guide, it is a short "i" sound, as in the English word "hit". I used "ee" where that sound is needed, as in the first two lines of the first verse. So, at the beginning of the second and third lines of the first verse, the "iss" ['s in the Gaelic] is like the sound of a snake hissing. Also, when you pronounced the word "thuirt" in those two lines, you seemed to leave out the "r" sound in what I wrote out as "hoorsht".

-- In Gaelic, the stress on the first syllable of multi-syllabic words is very strong, and the other syllables are normally brief (sometimes they're almost not even there). In longer words, English speakers have a tendency to place secondary stress on another syllable, but that doesn't usually happen in Gaelic (sometimes it does in compound words). For example, in the second verse (after the chorus), in the last word in the first line, the first syllable takes over completely, the second syllable (which is not actually even written in the Gaelic) is just a brief sound, the third syllable is just slightly longer than the second one, and the final syllable is just a bit longer than the third one, but none of those last three syllables receives any real stress at all:
Bheirinn fead air fulmairean
VAY-thin fad eth FOOL-uh-muh-thuhn

-- In a similar vein, if you have several single-syllable words one after another, don't overemphasize them. As an example, in the third line of the first verse, the first four words are each pretty brief, and the first real stress comes on the first syllable of the word "dòrus":
A bh' air an dòrus an t-sàbhail
uh veh eth un DURR-us un TSAW-vull

-- You had some trouble with the "ch" sound in the first line of the last verse (Cha d'thuirt an dadan a' seo ), which I showed as "kh" in the pronunciation (which turned out not to be so helpful, I guess). It's a guttural sound, not a plain "k" sound. If you have a Jewish friend, ask him/her to say "Channukah" for you (the correct Hebrew way), and you'll have the sound. Or, If you have a German-speaking friend, ask him/her to pronounce "machen" for you. A German speaker would actually be ideal, because when a German pronounces that letter combination in the word "ich", you get the more silent version of the sound, just as I noted in the first line of the song, for the "-idh" part of the word "fuirighidh" (in fact, in modern Gaelic they write that word as "fuirighich").

I added another note in the pronunciation, in the second to last verse, to indicate that the "ck" in the pronunciation guide there is a real "k" sound, unlike the "ck" sound in the first verse, which I tried to describe in the notes.

Hope that all helps.

_________________
I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

I'm not sure if this helps at all. But it's a slowed down version on the song.
I think it's the Bothy Band version.

https://app.box.com/s/bcc60b86944ec7abf722