"Is cailín ceolmhar í."

Translation: She is a musical girl.

[DSDragon]

I can't spell Irish words i haven't seen before the first time i hear them! How was i supposed to know it was mh and not bh? They sound the same! Doesnt that count as a typo?

[scilling]

Apparently not.

[SigurdS]

why isn't it "cailín cheolmhar"?

[obekim]

Because, although it refers to a female person, "cailín" is grammatically masculine, so the adjective is not lenited here.

[SiobhanWray]

Yes, the -ín ending on "cailín" makes it a masculine word.

[scilling]

When the -ín is a diminutive ending, it makes a word like cailín masculine. When the -ín isn’t a diminutive ending, the word could be feminine, e.g. braillín.

[lordy.byro]

Then why is it í and not é?

[SatharnPHL]

Because that would mean "He is a musical girl".

Grammatical and natural gender don't always agree. In this case you use the pronoun that accurately describes the physical subject, not the grammar.

[SiobhanWray]

Cosúil liomsa :D