Greetings, all!

I've long been a fan of Peter Gabriel, and especially his release OVO, which is the soundtrack to the Millennium Dome Show in London which took place in 2000. The opening track is called "Low Light" and was composed by PG with vocals by Iarla Ó Lionáird. It took me ages to find a translation of the lyrics, but when I finally found them I became even more enamored with the piece. Here they are:

Árdaigh mé suas an dtalamh
go dtitim síos san spéir
Árdaigh mé an dtalamh
síos san spéir

For those of you (like me!) who don't speak the language, here is the translation that I found:

Raise me up on the ground
until I fall in the sky
Raise me on the ground
under the sky

I'd like to get the first two lines (Árdaigh mé suas an dtalamh / go dtitim síos san spéir) tattooed, one on each forearm. However, I'd like to get it in Gaelic type, and I want it to be authentic. How would those lines look in Gaelic type? Based on my research, it seems like some of those consonant pairs get replaced with single letters with dots above them, but I'm not sure.

Can't thank you all enough in advance for your help. I really don't want to be one of "those people" with painfully incorrect or inauthentic tattoos.

Those verses will need some reworking.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Aaaaaand it appears I posted it in the wrong section anyway. If a kindly moderator would move it, I'd be most grateful.

Breandán, what do you mean exactly? Is the translation incorrect, or is the syntax of the Gaelic incorrect? Or is it something else altogether?

It has some grammar errors.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

As Breandán said, the translation you have, while not horribly bad, is not good Irish.

An attempt at correcting it:

Ardaigh aníos go talamh mé
go dtitfidh mé sa spéir
Ardaigh go talamh mé
thíos faoin spéir

I’m not sure about the ‘until I fall in the sky’ part. In fact, I’m not sure what’s meant in English—it could either be that he’s in the sky, falling; or that he falls from above (or below, as it seems here?!) into the sky. It’s ambiguous and not really transparent in the English, and I think the Irish is more or less the same.

In the Gaelic type, it would look like so:

Ardaiġ aníos go talaṁ mé
go dtitfiḋ mé sa spéir
Ardaiġ go talaṁ mé
ṫíos faoin spéir

Be sure to get other people’s input on this translation before you go ahead with anything, though. There are probably better ways to achieve especially the second line.

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

I was hoping to "remain true" to the original lyric, even if it's poorly constructed from a grammatical standpoint. That being said, if the transcription of the lyric is incorrect, that I would like to remedy.

It might help to hear the song itself! I don't know why I didn't post that link here in the first place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSFCSATE98o (The lyrics begin around 3:13.)

So... having heard it... how would that look in Gaelic type?

I really do appreciate all of your input!

Yep, wait for confirmation on the translation before we get to the script.

kk, there's a stray h in the last line.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

By the way, if you're interested in exactly what the lyric itself means, this brief description might be helpful:

http://womadshop.com/detail/5

The CD itself comes with a "comic book" of sorts that tells the story in much greater detail. I read it to my son, who's name is Gabriel. (That's no coincidence.)

The translation I gave is quite true to the original—it’s a very direct translation.

The one you had to begin with wasn’t just poorly constructed; it had some very unnatural mistakes. Suas an dtalamh, for example, is completely impossible in Irish. If I were to try to translate it into a similarly wrong phrase in English, it would be perhaps something like “up the a earth”.

Edit: Hang on … the Irish there is the original lyrics, I now realise. In that case, it’s just the original lyrics that are bad Irish—nothing new about that, plenty of songs in Irish have shoddy grammar!

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

You would expect more from an actual Irish singer-songwriter, right?!