DTG wrote:
catrionanic wrote:
haileo!
Im learning irish again for the first time in a long while, through night classes once a week. am very aware of how much my spoken irish needs working on, and am also finding the progress of night classes once a week (and with long breaks in between terms) very slow and frustrating
so im hoping to go on one of the week-long gaeltacht courses this summer. being from the north originally, ive been trying to focus on the ulster dialect, so have been looking at courses in donegal
gael linn run a course in goath dobhair and oideas gael in gleann colm cille. does anyone have any thoughts on either of them?
oideas gael is €50 cheaper and also has the benefit of the school sorting your accom out, whereas with gael linn you do it yourself. however im very nuch focused on having a bit of banter and craic along the way to make learnkng more enjoyable, so if the gael linn courses are more fun then id go with it
anyone been to either?
I spent two weeks in Gleann Cholm Cille at Oideas Gael and stayed with a local family. The bean an tí was from Gaoth Dobhair originally. Her husband basically had no Irish and I only ever heard her speaking English with their three young children, unfortunately. In all honesty Irish is rarely spoken in the area, outside of Oideas Gael itself. That said, it's a solid choice for beginners, especially those who want to learn Ulster Irish. My first teacher was a native speaker from nearby An Charraig (Carrick) and in the second week it was a woman from County Meath who had been educated in Irish from age 4 all the way through to third level.
I've never studied Irish in Gaoth Dobhair but have spent a few weeks there over the years and you'll definitely hear more Irish spoken in the parish and have more opportunities to use it outside of a classroom setting.
I would say the same is true of Gleann Fhinne. In fact, people there are very happy to speak Irish with you. My first day there, one of my housemates and I went for a long walk, and as soon as people learned we were there for the Irish course, they'd switch to Irish when speaking to us. Our bean a' tí had lots of little Irish-speaking grandkids running in and out...it was lovely!
That said, generally people in Gleann Cholm Cille will speak Irish to you if you speak Irish to them.
Redwolf
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