Learning Irish the Wrong Way Leaves All Irish People Embarrassed

A National Language, Barely Spoken.

Ireland is one of the few countries in the world where a large part of the population seemingly feels awkward or embarrassed about speaking its own national language. After many years of learning Irish in school, most of us can only string a handful of words together — Dia duit, Go raibh maith agat — maybe a sentence if we’re brave like ''An bhfuil cead agam dul go dtí an leithreas?'' which was drilled into us on day one and probably the only line spoken with confidence by all Irish people.

Why is it so bad? Because Irish (Gaeilge) is taught in classrooms as if it were a dead language carved in stone — not a living, breathing thing that people actually use. We memorise poems, we translate stories, we tick boxes for exams. But we never truly speak our own beautiful language. It's like a group of academics who never had children grouped together to form the curriculum and left all good common sense at the door.

A puzzled Irish tourist holding an Irish phrasebook stands in front of a bilingual road sign, while a local man facepalms in embarrassment in rural Ireland

If you were taught English as your first language, the same way as in the classroom — grammar first, books only, zero conversation — Irish people wouldn’t be fluent in that either. Children learn language by listening, speaking, messing up, and being gently corrected — at home, with parents, with friends, out loud. But in Irish classrooms, this is rarely how it happens. After each class has finished, English is spoken aloud once more. Why have those smart people in academia not figured this out?

A Little bit of History

Irish is one of the oldest languages in Europe — and we’re letting it fade through boredom — though it is not our fault. The language was stripped from us in a deliberate campaign by the English when they ruled over us. It didn't happen overnight but through sustained pressure of carrot and stick over the centuries. If you wanted to work, to eat or to go anywhere — English was what you had to speak. The Great Famine was the final death nail in our native language as most of the Gaeltacht areas were decimated by death and emigration. We carry a deep scar of shame within us all where our language is concerned, not our shame but an enforced shame.

The Way It’s Taught Is Broken

How many school kids hate Irish? Nearly all of us from my experience back in the day. I know this because I was in classrooms of 30 or so students who were always bored, a collective groan would emanate when we discovered Irish class was next. There was no grá for the language within us at all.

We had teachers going through the motions as well, just reading from the textbooks as if they were magically imparting Irish words into our adolescent brains. They weren't. Did we leave the classroom and instantly start talking Irish to each other after the class? No we did not.

Instead of building confidence, schools hammer grammar from textbooks, which is absolutely the wrong way to learn any language. Speaking should come first, structure later — like kids learning English at home. In fact, I don't believe children should have a textbook for the first 2 or 3 years. Or maybe a limited one, but with emphasis on the spoken word.

A living language needs daily use, conversation, mistakes corrected naturally. Having teachers who are enthusiastic about the language would be a great improvement too. My experience was, teachers just going through the motions and taking home their cheque at the end of the week/month.

My Own Experience (Why I Cared Enough to Try Again)

I have always carried some guilt over not speaking my native language but struggled to do anything about it because I didn't have the tools to go at it by myself. We didn't speak it amongst friends, at home and we didn't watch Irish TV or listen to Radio na Gaeltachta so what chance did I or any Irish person have in the era before the Internet.

This embarrassment is keenly felt by all Irish people when we go to Spain or France on holidays and fancy speaking our own words to match the locals only to realise that we don't have the vocabulary. After 14 years of having the language drilled into us. This is absolutely scandalous!

The idea of chatting freely in Irish? Never happened so how could we match the Continentals and their fluent speech.

The Hope — And the Reality Check

Years later, by chance, I heard about Abair Leat — an Irish-language microblogging site that was released around 2012. The promise: ordinary Irish people using Irish freely online, short messages, daily practice. I was ecstatic at the prospect of finally removing the black weight feeling from my shoulders and learning from peers who felt the same.

I signed up eagerly but quickly realised that I was lost. It wasn't the site's fault. I just couldn't speak or write my own language. I was using Google translate for everything and I felt awful about it. It was absolute proof if ever I needed any, that the Irish language was so badly taught in school that we never had a chance.

The saddest part? Abair Leat didn’t last. No mobile version, no staying power. I was reminded of this recently when I found an old blog post of mine — full of hope at the time — about Abair Leat’s launch. Looking back, I was probably a bit naïve.

What Should Change

Irish should be taught like a living tongue: daily chat, spoken practice, real corrections in the moment. As mentioned earlier, no textbooks for the first few years for small children. Conversations started by the teacher asking students what they did yesterday, what they plan to do tomorrow. Learning the tenses by actually talking instead of waffling from textbooks.

Teach teachers in college how to love the language themselves and encourage them to bring that into the schools where they teach. That would be a great start. If the teacher is only paid from the neck down and the waist up, what's the point?

Use TV, radio, short podcasts, real conversation circles and get students to watch programs As Gaeilge instead of watching the latest cartoons would be a massive help. Bring the parents into this too by preparing pamphlets on how they can help at home and maybe they would learn too.

If you want kids to love Irish, make them laugh in Irish. Let them joke in it. Let them fail out loud.

An Open Letter to the Department of Education

To the Department of Education in Ireland,

I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but you and previous administrations have failed to bring the Irish language back into the classroom and failed in your duty to teach our national language.

Stop pretending a child can love Irish by memorising or reading endless text books and sitting silent for years. You can’t learn a language from a book alone, it must breathe.

Teach it like you’d teach a child to speak at home — listen, repeat, try, get it wrong, learn, get it right. Make spoken Irish the heart of every lesson. Grammar will follow. Love will follow.

You have the power to bring Gaeilge back to life in daily homes and daily streets — but not if you teach it the same way we’ve suffered through for decades.

I'm embarrassed. 14 years and only a cupla focail I have to string together. You should be embarrassed for me too. You are the Academics. In the words of the internet personality Joey Swoll, ''You need to do better!''.

If You’re Reading This Outside Ireland, Yes — It’s Really This Bad

If you're reading this from outside Ireland, you might be wondering if I'm exaggerating. I wish I were. But sadly, almost every Irish person you meet will tell you a similar story — 14 years of schooling, and barely a sentence they can speak with confidence.

It's hard to explain how a nation could end up feeling awkward or even ashamed of its own language, but here we are. This isn't about laziness or apathy — it's the result of a complicated history and a broken education system that treated Irish like a museum piece, not a living part of daily life.

Shame might be too strong a word, but embarrassed? Definitely. Not embarrassed by our language — but by our lack of ability to speak it.

In Closing

We have the tools now — streaming, social media, podcasts, video calls. It’s never been easier to speak Irish daily if people feel confident enough to open their mouths but it has to start from the top down.

I still want to brush up my own Irish, maybe find people to swap phrases with, even if Abair Leat is gone. I still believe the language can live again. It is probably too late in life for me now though, which is a sad statement to make.

It won’t come from a book alone. It comes from us and from the people trusted to teach it properly. It must start on the very first day of school and continue from there but this time with grá.

If you are Irish and this post strikes a chord, please leave a comment below.

Thank you for Reading,

David

About the Author

I’m David Condon, writing from Tralee in the southwest of Ireland. Most of my working life has been spent in woodcraft, but this blog lets me step outside the workshop and write about life here in Kerry, the challenges of self-employment, and whatever else catches my interest.

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