Though celebrating birthdays in Ireland is a more recent development (feast days were celebrated traditionally), it is now quite popular. So how do you say "Happy Birthday!" ?

Lá breithe sona duit ! "Happy Birthday to you!"

And we have a smiley for that purpose here at Irish Language Forum.
(In case you are wondering duit is dhuit in Connemara.)

Other expressions used at birthdays include:

Go maire tú an lá. "Many happy returns of the day." literally "may you live the day".
Go maire tú an céad. "May you live to be a hundred."
Go maire tú i bhfad ! "Long life to you!" "Congratulations!"

(Corrections welcome.)

Other people may have suggestions for more phrases related to birthdays ...

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WARNING: Intermediate speaker - await further opinions, corrections and adjustments before acting on my advice.
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect.
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), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

I've also seen "Breithlá sona duit"...not sure if it's Béarlachas or not, but it seems to be quite popular.

Redwolf

Lá breithe sona, with short e (not bréithe).



to me it's a Béarlachas (calque of "birth+day"), because in Modern Irish you don't prefix nouns to nouns, you put them one after another, the second being in the genitive and defining the first one. Prefixing nouns is a very old thing that has disappeared in "natural" Irish (and being used again by those who invent new words in offices, because they think in English, I guess).
Quite popular maybe on the internet, I guess it's because "breithlá" is exactly like "birthday" so it's easy for English speakers (but does Irish need to be like English?)... But I think somone who had only Irish 100 years ago would never have said something like that...

Some write "Lá breithe shona", which is wrong because lá is masculine singular nominative (doesn't lenite, then) and anyway breithe is feminine singular genitive (doesn't lenite either). So no reason to lenite "sona". But even knowing that lá is masculine singular nominative is enough because it's the day that is happy.

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Should it be - lá bréige and only for an fear bréige then ? (and how would they have said it 100 years ago? I'm dying to know)

Tu peux reformuler ta question stp? (char thuig mé)

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Even the smileys around here have a bias...... Could we have a smiley with an urban bias just to reflect the general population.......

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Are you volunteering to make one, a Shaoirse?

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WARNING: Intermediate speaker - await further opinions, corrections and adjustments before acting on my advice.
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect.
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), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

I am not sure if my Irish or smiley-making skills are being questioned here.....!

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