Discusses the idiomatic use of copula + marb ‘to die’ (as oppposed to the stative use of copula + predicative marb ‘he is dead’) and argues that it occurs in tenses other than the preterite, except in case of omission of the copula, where the idiom is
confined to the past tense. Includes a collection of examples and a brief account of its substitution by competing idioms such as téit bás, téit éc, fuair bás.
Studies the etymology and semantics of Irish expressions denoting ‘death’ as occurring in the texts, with the aim of retrieving the Celtic attitudes towards death.