quote:

In a chip shop in Killybegs last week, the young one behind the counter asked me if I was on holidays in the area. So I told her yes and no: that it was a working holiday, because I was doing an Irish course out in Glencolmcille.

At which news she paused just long enough to sprinkle salt and vinegar on the question that was coming. And then, in a withering Donegal accent, she said: “Why?” If the baldness of the query hadn’t caught me off balance, I might have explained that, well, for good or bad, I thought Irish was part of what we are. That ever since scraping a Leaving Cert pass in it, I had considered the language unfinished business: to which I would return one day. I might have added that, mainly by geographic accident, my children were now attending Gaelscoil and I felt the need to be supportive. And I might even have suggested facetiously that the comedian Des Bishop had shamed me into it by demonstrating how a mere Yank could achieve fluency in Irish from scratch. But I didn’t say any of these things, because the obvious depth of the questioner’s feelings had thrown me. “You’re not an enthusiast for the language, so?” was all I could manage.