By Kate Demolder
Kate Demolder is a freelance journalist.
It's a great time to be a Gaeilgeoir.
Now more than ever. Kate Demolder meets the creators of GaelGoer, the new
Google Maps-style app that has carved out a space of welcome interaction for
anyone who craves a cúpla focal.
In the first few months of 2019, Noreen Breen, a retired primary schoolteacher
based in Dublin City, came to understand that she lived in an Ireland full of
Irish speakers, all of them too modest to make themselves known.
During her visits to shops, hairdressers, cafés and local businesses, she
noticed people would speak back to her in Irish if she began the conversation,
but rarely volunteered it first. She spoke the language well and noticed a
number of people around her did too, but none of them knew about each other,
and thus couldnât communicate.
They were also out of practice, embarrassed, and linguistically stunted from
years of fear around speaking it. From months of manual-heavy researching, she
found a number of Irish-speaking people working in pubs, shops, cafés and
facilities near her.
She asked them to wear a badge reading 'Labhair Gaeilge Liomâ (speak Irish to
me) in an effort to encourage others to do the same. "The thought process was
actually based around the Irish seanfhocal "AithnÃonn ciaróg ciaróg eile,"
(It takes one to know one)," Breen tells RTÃ. "But Irish speakers donât
recognise each other at all."
The result of her heady, aspirational, grassroots experiment indicated that, on
average, 3.6 customers spoke to those wearing badges in Irish every day over a
two-week period, as opposed to zero who spoke when not. "I was taken aback by
how many opportunities I was missing to speak our native language due to being
unable to identify fellow GaeilgeoirÃ," Breen says. "We couldnât be happier
to get the app off the ground and we canât wait to welcome the wider
Irish-speaking community to the platform."
The outcome is GaelGoer, a new, free app that aims to connect Irish speakers of
all levels, by identifying locations and events where Irish is spoken, and the
people who are willing to speak it. Constructed in a similar manner to Google
Maps, Gaelgoer indicates locations around the world ("London, Boston,
Brussels⦠We presently have two registered Irish speakers in Africa!") where
Irish is or can be spoken, alongside the name of the person in each environment
who has registered their interest in speaking.
It holds high the beacons of enthusiasm and a desire to learn, welcoming all
levels, whatever tense theyâre able to speak in. The softwareââelegant,
clean and easy-to-useââis the work of Head of Technology and Innovation at
DataDyne Consulting, Luke Middleton, whose experience with Irish mirrors a
myriad.
"My Irish is very poor, which is bad to say after 14 years of teaching" he
laughs. "I wish I had a better grasp on it. Iâm quite interested in using
myself as a case study as GaelGoer grows, to see how much I can improve. My
fiancé is also fluent, so sheâs been using this time to kick me into shape."
Breen learned about Middletonâs prowess through his parents, her friends, who
two years before she committed to researching, spoke proudly about their son
Lukeâs gold medal winning achievements for his work with apps in Trinity
College. Middleton smiles as she retells the story, for what I imagine is the
10th time.
"Sure, who else could I have asked to help me?"
Using state-of-the-art technology, including geo-fencing, Gaelgoerâs main
functionality at present exists in three ways:
⢠Anseo : This indicates the premises and businesses where there is an Irish
speaker, of any level of proficiency, willing to speak Irish to customers.
The location will appear on the app when a registered GaelGoer user is on the
premises.
⢠Imeachtaà : This will give information on events in Irish.
⢠Lámh Suas : This will inform users of the presence of another GaelGoer
user in their vicinity and offer the opportunity to contact that person via an
instant messaging system built into the app.
Further functionalities are currently being considered ("everything from
autocorrect to voice-to-text to Tinder as Gaeilge") with plans to create
individual profiles for users to connect in ways traditional social media
platforms have us used to. "Iâve been to the Oireachtas and other
Irish-speaking events and spoken to lots of people about our app," Breen says.
"The young people are very enthusiastic."
With that in mind, I set out on a Tuesday morning to complete a myriad of
errands entirely as Gaeilge, with help from GaelGoer. First up, I went to
Mellons Shop & Deli on South Lotts Road, a charming pile-it-high newsagent
serving everything from 99s to Kerrygold to vapes to newspapers, resplendent
with an extensive deli.
Existing within the family for generations, shopkeeper Colm spoke to us proudly
and delightedly about how Mellons came to be, and how he stocks Bean in Dingle
coffee in his Dublin 4 shop. Tall and smiling, he tells us his wife is from
Kerry (the notice on the shop front which informs customers that Gaeilge is
welcomed here is in Dingle Irish) and that heâs noticed a number of
Irish-speaking punters since the appâs inclusion of his shop. We grab a
coffee, admire the deli and move on.
Next to Dunneâs Hardware on Wexford Street where one may speak to Seán or
Tony in Irish. "Fáilte róimh isteach! Ba bhreá linn bheith ag caint libh."
("Welcome! Weâd love to speak Irish with you all.") the shopâs profile on
GaelGoer reads.
We chatted with Tony, a Galwegian long-settled in Dublin, with beautiful
memories of beaches in Connemara and extensive knowledge of what sort of
lightbulbs we needed for our home. He seemed genuinely thrilled to speak to us,
as did the fellow punters behind us in the queue. His shop, too, boasted a
âGaeilge welcome hereâ notice in the windowââsomething we perhaps
should be reminded of more; how many things we miss when weâre hurrying
through life.
From there, we headed for Ballyfermot. Glic Café, a charming set-up located on
the site of the sprawling Longmeadows Pitch and Putt course, boasts three
employees with a command of Irish, as well as a local Gaeilge-speaking group,
who meet up twice a week for a caife and a comhrá.
We happened upon them this Tuesday, joining in on conversations about what
theyâd watched on TV that week and where they all grew up. They were thrilled
and delighted, as were we, to tell us about Liffey Gaels, their local GAA club,
which promotes the Irish language through classes and meet-ups. It gave us
hope, and a laugh, to see such pockets of activity. Not least in the back of a
pitch and putt café weâd almost driven right by.
According to TEFL, the internationally recognised entry-level credential for
teaching English as a Foreign Language in schools and communities, nearly two
billion people study English as a foreign languageâabout four times the
number of native speakers. And, today, apps like Google Translate make it
possible to communicate, almost anywhere, by typing conversations
letter-by-letter into an internet-connected device (presuming your
conversational partner can read).
Ironically, however, as the hegemony of the English language decreases the need
to speak anything else for work or travel, the cachet attached to learning
others seems to be growing. A number of thriving online communities in Ireland
of ardent linguaphiles who are, or who aspire to become fluent Irish speakers
exist, bolstered by Facebook groups, comhrá cainte (Irish-led conversations),
and music fans (largely influenced by artists such as Belfast hip-hop trio
Kneecap and Dublin rapper Selló).
These and much more have attracted a number of aficionados to try their hand at
the language theyâd largely forgotten about since school. Most recently,
Maynooth actor Paul Mescal was lauded for speaking in Irish, botúin (mistakes)
and all on the red carpet, as TG4 followed him, the Banshees of Inisherin, cast
and An CailÃn Ciúin, Colm Bairéadâs remarkable film, to the 2023 Academy
Awards.
No one becomes an Irish speaker without trying. While one might have boasted
proficiency in school, generally oneâs grasp of the language erodes so
gradually through the years that there is never really a definitive moment when
their vocabulary became less extensive or their grammar less polished.
It also generally doesnât occur to those with waning skills that their
second, or third, or fourth language is regressing until itâs too late.
Gaelgoer gives the tools we civilians lack, noticeably those which are held
back by our own scepticism, shame or fear of failure.
As Conradh na Gaeilge celebrates its 130th year, allow yourself to embrace the
language once relegated to Leaving Certificate grinds books and Gaeltacht
brochures once more. Not least because you know more of it than you realise,
but because without it, weâd be less the fascinatingly sly elements that make
the language what it is (the same word in Irish, francach, can be used for both
âFrenchmanâ and âratâ), youâd have no way to discuss demented
carry-on while abroad, and because, in a number of instances, it actually saves
your soul (anyone who orders their pint as Gaeilge in Hynesâ Bar,
Stoneybatter gets a â¬1 off).
"If we lose the Irish language, we lose our native literature," MairtÃn
OâCadhain, the crude, Joycean author and former staunch republican once said.
"Weâll be finished as a people. The vision that every generation of Irish
people had will be at an end."
Gaelgoer is available to download via iOS and Android. For more information,
check out:
www.gaelgoer.ie <http://www.gaelgoer.ie>
RTÃ LifeStyle.
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