The night was cold and windy and the hedges on either side of the narrow road that runs outside Ballyferriter, a town near Dingle in Ireland, were emitting a preternatural sound. My hair stood on end.
I was twenty, my head full of tales and romance, and it’s not too much to say: I was thrilled.
I’d come to Ballyferriter with the other students in my Irish language class at University College Cork. We were staying in a lovely old hostel a stone’s throw from the sea, surrounded by fields and those mysteriously alive hedges. Down the road in the village was the pub and a shop or two, and I was walking there now.
I saw the shape of a man approaching – that distinctive flat cap and suit jacket all the Irishmen used to wear. As we came even, he nodded and said,
Tá sé fuar.
“It’s cold.”
My heart! I understood!
Those were at the time perhaps the only words I could have understood from my brief spell in Irish class, and they shot through me like electricity.
Tá, cinnte,
I answered, proud as a new priest.
“It is, indeed.”
That was my first genuine moment of communication in the Irish language.
I’m so grateful for all of it: the man, the road, the weird hedge music, and the young woman who followed her heart.
That moment set me on a road I’ve been following with ardor and delight for more than thirty years now. It showed me that language was a path – a very reliable one – to draw nearer to the stories and culture that were beckoning me with irresistible allure. I could see things as I traveled that road that were invisible to me otherwise.
In the sounds of that Irish night, I could hear new voices speaking, and with them, new possibilities.
And when at last I did reach the pub, I heard many, many voices speaking Irish. All I could understand was the word agus – “and.”
And it was enough.
And – It was a beginning!
PS – If you’ve been wanting to study Irish to draw nearer the stories and enchantment that beckon you, I’m teaching a class this October and November called “Welcome Home to Irish.”
Within one class, you’ll be speaking this beautiful language and you will have your first moment of genuine communication in Irish.
Please visit Welcome Home to IRISH ~ live online course plus video lessons – Kate Chadbourne for all the details.
And if you join my mailing list community, I’ll send you a code that will give you a nice savings on the tuition. Write to me at kate@katechadbourne.com with any questions and I’ll be glad to help. We start October 9th.
I would love to welcome you into our class!
Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash
