The Modh Coinníollach is the Easiest Tense* in Irish - A Quick Guide
For whatever reason, teachers and students alike hype up the conditional in Irish as if it's the most difficult thing you'll cover in Irish grammar, I promise it's not.
What is the Modh Coinníollach?
The modh coinníollach is the conditional mood, it is essentially used whenever we would use "would" in English. So it mostly deals with hypotheticals.
The conditional stems are always the same as the future, which means that there are no verbs which are specifically irregular in the conditional.
You just take your future stem, lenite it (séimhiú) and add d' if it starts with a vowel, and you add on the appropriate ending.
For a one syllable verb (one which takes -f(a)idh in the future) you add
-f(a)inn
-f(e)á
-f(e)adh sé/sí
-f(a)imis
-f(e)adh sibh
-f(a)idís
For a two syllable verb (one which takes -(e)óidh* in the future) you add
-(e)óinn
-(e)ófá
-(e)ódh sé/sí
-(e)oimis
-(e)ódh sibh
-(e)óidís
*I'm writing e(ó) for the sake of convenience but it's actually ó or eo.
You can even compress most of this rule into just "remove the -idh from the future form and then add the following endings":
-f(e)á -- Note here that the f is only put in if there isn't one already
And that's it, that's all you need to know to form the conditional.
Let's look at some examples
For the conditional we lenite the future stem (déanfa-), and then add the ending, so "I would do", the ending is "-inn" -> "dhéanfainn"
future: ceannóidh
future stem: ceannó-
"You would buy" - Cheannófá
future: beidh
future stem: be
"I would be" - bheinn
"he would be" - bheadh sé
future: ólfaidh
future stem: ól
I would drink - d'ólfainn
they would drink - d'ólfaidís
The only real difficult thing about the modh coinníollach for english speakers is remembering when to use it. This is because in english we often use past tense forms for hypotheticals "If I was rich I would do...", even though we're not talking about the past.
You just need to remember that for hypotheticals in Irish both verbs need to be in the conditional. And that you use dá for 'if' which eclipses.
If I was rich I would buy a house - Dá mbeinn saibhir cheannóinn teach.
If I drank wine I would be happy - Dá n-ólfainn fíon, bheinn sásta.
*it's not a tense it's a mood (The Conditional Mood), but don't let that distract from the point.
