Pronunciation
International phonetic alphabet provided by the International Phonetic Association
Vowels
Dipthongs and Other Vowel Combinations
Vowels are fairly straight-forward, but this section becomes more complicated because it includes sounds not present in English. I've broken the chart into three sections. The first contains those that have an English equivalent. In the second, the sounds are not exactly like anything found in English, but are close enough to some in the first section that if you use them in their place you'll probably be able to make yourself understood. In the third, I can't provide any helpful shortcuts; the IPA transcription is the best tool for learning the pronunciation.
Consonants
Irish consonants are difficult for an English speaker to learn because they make a distinction between sounds not found in English. There is a "broad" and a "slender" version of each consonant, and some word pairs are distinguished only by which consonant is used.
You should spend some time with the sound files on other sites to really get a grasp on the distinction. For now, the description that most closely matches what I hear is that broad consonants are followed by a "w" glide and slender consonants by a "y" glide. For example, you can get close to the distinction between gal (steam) and geal (bright) by pronouncing them as "gwal" and "gyal." Make the w and y sounds as subtle as you can.
You'll notice that the spelling of the two words is not exactly the same. That is because in Irish the use of a broad or slender consonant is signalled by what vowels surround it. A consonant immediately preceded or followed by an a, o, or u is broad. One preceded or followed by e or i is slender. In some cases, an "extra" vowel is needed to change the consonant sound. In the example above, the e in geal is silent, found in the word only to change the sound to a slender g.
You can imagine how this complicates the pronunciation of a written word. Other pronunciation oddities will be covered in the section on Grammar. Turn there before going on to Vocabulary for some useful words and phrases.
Apart from the broad/narrow distinction, consonants make essentially the same sounds as in English. The only things to note are that "c" always makes a "k" sound, and "r" is rolled, more like an "r" in Spanish.