Ok, I have to ask. I’ve heard the word “tionol” pronounced several different ways, even by people who are long-time pipers. Does anyone know how this word is actually pronounced? My best guess is chin-oal, but that’s based solely on what I’ve heard the most.
Depends on your dialect of Irish. I pronounce it chun-ol. The “un” is pronounced the same as in understand. The “ol” as in old. Chin-ol is also correct.
Paddy Keenan likes to call them “Toe-Nails”. 
And what does it mean exactly at all? Does it have anything to do with the word tine (fire)?
“Tionól” basically just means any assembly or gathering, but in these circles it’s usually understood to refer to an organised event where you’ll find a group (or “despair”, as I call it) of uilleann pipers getting together for piperly stuff. No relation to “tine”, aside from the chunes gettin’ hot.
The pronunciation does not start with a “ch” sound - although some seem to think so.
The sound clip provided in the link above is a definite “t” sound. Some people may aspirate* the t a bit which is an unusual sound in spoken English.
- (I stand corrected…“palatize” the t)
Actually, the “t” sound is palatalized, not aspirated. This is the “slender” t sound in Irish, as indicated in spelling by the slender i vowel that follows it. In phonetic transcription, it may sometimes be written as a small superscript letter “y” following the t.
You’re right, it’s not a common sound (and not phonemic) in spoken American English. The closest sound is the palatal stop “ch”. Which is why “ch” is considered an acceptable substitute in English-ized pseudo-pronunciation.
The palatalized “t” is, however, a sound in some British and other dialects of English, in words such as tuba and tune. This is why it’s common to see “tunes” referred to jokingly as “chunes”.
Thats an excellent description MTGuru.
Tylenol.
Yes, nice description. And while a palatalized t is not phonemic in American English, the post-aleolar affricate mentioned does occur at word boundaries in colloquial speech when t is followed by a front vowel or glide, e.g., ‘what are you doing’ → ‘whacha doin’? (similar combination of sounds, “more extreme” solution).
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the palatalized t in tionól is realized as a full-fledged post-aleolar affricate (the ch sound in ‘church’) in some dialects (or ideolects) of Irish (I certainly have heard Irish people pronounce it as such). A palatalized t certainly has that tendency in other languages (see how historic palatalized t is realized in the Slavic languages, e.g., ch in Russian, but something closer to the Irish sound in Serbian/Macedonian dialects).
I’ve always wondered what MTGuru means? Are you a machine translation guru?
What do you mean “Irish people” ? Irish people for whom Irish is the first language, or English-speaking Irish people who have learnt Irish as a second language ?
For the sake of argument I’d say native speakers of Irish, but I think the same would apply to those learning it as a second language and use it regularly in Ireland. Keep in mind that I’m not making an assertion – I know very, very little about Gaelic. My conjecture is based on how the sound mutates in other languages across time and space AND on the fact that I’ve heard native speakers pronounce the word as Podge states he does (if he’s a native speaker or learned Irish as a second language and uses it often, I’d automatically defer to him).
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Colmhaltas pronunciation is the prescribed standard and variants like chun-ol (again as Podge says he says it) are variants found among various groups of speakers.
Shhhh … Yer giving away my secrets. 
I’m from a breac-Ghaeltacht (patchy Irish & English) in Mayo. English would be mostly spoken there now but Irish is still common. After reading MTGuru’s post I’m of the opinion that I actually pronounce it closer to chin-ol than chun-ol. I would never pronounce it like it is pronounced on the Comhaltas website but maybe thats because I’m from the other side of the country. There’s a subtlety to the pronunciation that I find hard to describe but others here have the vocabulary to do so much better than I can.
The woman who I just made the trip to the SoCal Tionol with is from Clare and she pronounced it something like:
“tin-Ol” or “tun-Ol” or “t’nOle” (this makes sense in my head so hopefully it translates to you all). There wasn’t much emphasis on the first syllable so the (arguably) “i” or “u” sound was barely audible (which is what the last spelling above attempts to capture)
There was no “ch” sound, but a distinct (yet soft) “t”. The emphasis was more on the second syllable, especially the long “O”.
Basically right, with the caveat that it’s always iffy reporting the sounds of a language you don’t actually speak, because you tend to hear things through the lens of your own language.
Yes, an Irish speaker would not say “ch”, but some flavor of palatalized “t”.
Regarding the emphasis … Technically, the Irish word is stressed on the first syllable, not the second. But we don’t make a distinction in English between stress accent and vowel length accent. So to English speakers, the long “o” in tionól (o fada) tends to sound like the stressed syllable - “t’n-OLE”, as you said. Same problem with “feadóg”.
Bossy bunch of gits, ain’t they?
As I understand it, the accent over the “o” means that it is to be pronounced as an “o”. Without the accent that “o” would be pronounced as a schwa, the “uh” sound, written as an upside down “e” in IPA.
That accent does NOT mean that that syllable carries the weight. The weight/stress always falls on the first syllable. (I think that people who are used to the conventions of other languages sometimes incorrectly infer that the accent marks in Irish indicate the stressed syllable.)
The "o"s are somewhat more complex in Scottish Gaelic, and their accent marks tilt both ways accordingly.
My understanding (which might be wrong) is that in Scottish Gaelic, slender "t"s are always pronounced more or less “ch” while in Irish it varies as to dialect. I used to know one old Irish woman who spoke Irish and who pronounced all her "t"s “t” regardless whether broad or slender.
I used to know one old Irish woman who spoke Irish
Hey Pan…was that our Dr. Dorthea Kenny?