Lig Liom pulls no punches and there are no apologies from TV and radio presenter Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh for her use of the Irish language.
Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh has declared that she is no longer willing to look for acceptance or to explain herself to the English-speaking majority. Speaking to RTÉ Entertainment she said: "I’m a proud Gael, an Irish speaker."
"I don’t want or need your acceptance anymore. Just let me be me."
In Lig Liom which airs on RTÉ One, tonight at 7:00pm, the cameras go into the presenter's home and record a passionate conversation between the presenter and her husband Ciarán. Has she ever tried to teach him to speak Irish - not necessarily with the fluency she herself - but to be passable with it?
"He doesn't speak it, but Ciarán probably understands every word, how could you not?" said Bláthnaid, who speaks as Gaeilge with her four children all the time in what is a bi-lingual household. "He (Ciarán) hates being put on the spot, because even last night Peadar [her son] asked me a question and I looked at Ciarán because he had the answer and I didn't.
"And I said, 'ah, but i nGaeilge?' And he goes, 'Don't do that,' he didn't like to be put on the spot, you know. So, he understands every word but you'd have to ask him why he didn't learn it. Think about it, he didn't have to, sure there's English everywhere."
The broadcaster tells me that Lig Liom is "probably the most real and personal thing I have ever done (on TV)." Somone saw a clip from the film and told her she looked really upset. "And I said, 'well I am, I'm frustrated.' They said, `you looked angry' and I said, `well, I hope I didn't, I think I'm frustrated and I think you could see that in my face'. Like, I will cry when I'm frustrated and impatient."
She explains the source of her frustration. "I'm still trying to negotiate with the rest of the world and the rest of the world having the advantage over me because the rest of the world is English. My world is English and I just speak Irish in that world. I'm lucky with a few colleagues that I do speak Irish and I speak Irish to the kids and I speak to my mother every day."
As an Irish speaker, Bláthnaid says she probably has more in common probably with the Syrian, the Traveller, the Romanian, the Polish person "except that I am not coming from trauma or conflict." She moved to Dublin from the Ráth Chairn Gaeltacht in County Meath at the age of 15 and soon began to feel like an outsider.
The Oppressed becomes the Oppressor in the circle of shame and hate, Bláthnaid explains, which theory is elaborated upon in the course of Lig Liom by Dr Abdullahi El-Tom, head of Maynooth University's Department of Anthropology. On arrival in Ireland from Sudan, Dr Abdullahi insisted on learning Irish, because he fervently believes that it is through the native language that one truly understands a people.
Meanwhile, Bláthnaid is impressed by the vibrant Irish language scene in West Belfast and meets the similarly unapologetic members of Kneecap, an Irish rap group from the Falls Road, 'who refuse to compromise their music or their language in their bid for world domination'.
Lig Liom can be seen on RTÉ One at 7pm tonight, Thursday, March 22
