Last November and earlier this month I went to Irish language workshops put on by Gaeltacht Minnesota. Those worked out very well and confirmed my interest in actually learning what I can of that language. Last night I joined the regular Monday night class put on by GM, to which the second workship was the prerequisite.

There are about 20 people in the class, ranging from a teenager to at least one grandparent, with about equal numbers of men and women. Mary (Máire) the instructor is the same woman who taught my sections of the two workshops. Most of the students have been studying Irish for a few months, but there are three or four of us fresh out of the workshop.

I am quite pleased with it so far. This first night was a challenge, but the workshops and a little reading had prepared me well. As with the workshops, the emphasis is on Connemara Irish (from the west), but significant differences between that and the Ulster (northern) and Munster (southern) dialects are mentioned. We did some basic conversation (“Hello”, “what is your name”, etc.) exercises, then quickly worked through the first few sections in our two textbooks. This last was a review for the veteran students, but pushed us newbies somewhat. I will need to review this part carefully for next time.

It is a very lively and interesting crowd–we are all doing this because we want to do it. A lot of the students are of Irish descent, and some of them are planning to travel to Ireland in the not too distant future. So why am I doing it?

1. General interest in Gaelic history and culture. The most fundamental part of any culture is its language, and so at some point you have to deal with it if you are going to better understand the culture. I realized this a long time ago, but only now have I managed to do anything about it.
2. My more recent involvement in colgaffneyis. Actually Scottish Gaelic would be more directly appropriate, but the local resources for Irish are much greater, and the languages are still quite closely related. They were even closer in the period of colgaffneyis, when the Scottish Highlanders were still very connected to their fellow Gaels in Ireland, and looked there for cultural leadership.

Furthermore, these classes are free, and the textbooks are cheap. I could not see passing up this opportunity.