Tá Brendan Courtney ar thóir ceangal lena chuid Gaeilge arís agus mar dhuine de na haíonna speisialta ar Creidim Ionat, tá an deis á thapú aige.
Brendan Courtney wants to reconnect with Gaeilge. Why now?
"Its been in my head for about two years, to reconnect. I remember filling in on the Nine o'Clock show on Radio 1 about a year ago or more, and meeting the comedian Michael Fry, a really nice guy. He had done Creidim Ionat so I thought, why not?"
"And I did a programme (Bród Club) with Bernard Dunne. I did a date night as part of that. It was the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done. It was a total disaster. I just lost my nerve. I really think it set me back a little bit. So now I have a silent determination to really crack it."
"Thosaigh mé ranganna i nDeireadh Fómhar anuraidh le oide príomháideach, Sinéad, a tháinig chugam ar mo laptop as Conamara. Bhí sí ar fheabhas. Rinneamar 10 nó 12 ceacht ach ansin fuair sí post lán-aimsearach, tháinig an Nollaig agus seo anois arís muid."
"I went to Coláiste Mhuire, a Gaeilscoil, and did my intercert through Irish there. I was fluent when I was 15."
That said, his time in Coláiste Mhuire wasn’t a pleasant memory for Courtney. Corporal punishment was officially banned in Ireland in 1982, though 'reasonable chastisement’ wasn’t specifically outlawed until 2015. His parents eventually took him out of the school at 14 after he’d bunked off for a full fortnight, such was his regard for its practices. While he prides himself at having the confidence to go on the hop from school at that age, he feels it may explain why his positive feeling towards Gaeilge needed time to come around again.
"Cúis eile go raibh mé ar 'mission' leis an ngaol agam le Gaeilge a athnuachan ná go ndearna mé roinnt taighde faoin gcaoi go laghdaíonn dátheangachas ar do bhaol néaltraithe, nó go gcuirfeadh sé faid leis an mbóthar isteach ann duit. Ach an rud ba mhó ba shuntasaí dom ná, nuair a bhí na ranganna le Sinéad ar siúl agam, bhraitheas ana-shuaimhneach é, beagnach machnamhach. Ba oide iontach a bhí i Sinéad, agus tuigimid go léir an tábhacht a bhaineann leis sin."
"An uair gur thuigeas i gceart go raibh athrú ag teacht ná go raghainn isteach sa rang fé struss mhór agus dom cheistiú féin 'Cad tá ar siúl agam, táim i bhfad ró-ghnóthach?' toisc go bhfuil mé féin fhostaithe agus go leor oibre le déanamh agam. Ach théinn isteach fé struss agus thiocfainn amach suaimhneach. Mheasas ansin 'Oh! tá sé sin barúil!'"
"So that taught me to stop being stressed, knowing I’d be relaxed at the end of this. In a bizarre way I kind of looked forward to it. Because it was meditative and relaxing. And someone asked me recently what would my advice be to someone considering doing classes and I said ‘well find the meditative side of it’. Don’t do it to be a winner. The only thing is is that there is a natural competitive nature to learning with other people, so try and stay back from that, don’t get sucked into it."
An molfadh sé ranganna aonair mar sin?
"Well it can be more expensive so it might be tricky. But since Covid and the advantage of remote learning you can now tune into the class and do it when you’re ready. I had signed up for Gaelchultúr classes from May so I’m doing that anyway but I’m also going to do the Rusty Beginners class with Gael Linn. And, we’ve got Sinéad Ní Uallacháin as our mentor too!"
"So David O'Reilly and myself, our mission, with Sinéad’s help, is to record an episode of our podcast, Any News?, bilingually, in four week’s time. So we’ll send Sinéad the standard intros and outros and she’ll send us the translation."
The show is 30 mins long, although Courtney jokes that this one might end up being more like 15 minutes. Even so, zero to 15 minutes (if that's how it ends up) is progress, no matter how you view it.
Does he hope to be able to reach a conversational level by the end of Creidim Ionat?
"That’s what I’d hope for pretty quickly. I can feel a little seal breaking in that my confidence is coming back and I can really feel that gently happening, which is great. I can feel the manhole of the great abyss of my brain lifting! I can feel that. But I notice that when I relax a lot more flows out.
I did a stagiaire in Brussels for a year with the European Commission. I was living with a French-Belgian family and by the end of it I was fluent. Conversational-fluent. So the key to learning Irish I think is to go to the Gaeltacht and immerse yourself in it. That’s what I’d love to do.
Would you have the time to do that as a self-employed person?
Well I found time to go to the Tyrone Guthrie centre recently for 10 days, so you can make the time.
I went to Gaeltacht Chonamara with Liam Ó Maonlaoi and I went back with my partner, who’s Polish, I was speaking to the waitress in the restaurant as Gaeilge."
Agus cad eile a bheadh uait ach an méid sin féin?
