Dia duit! Aisling is ainm dom. i am pretty new to the Irish Language and would absolutely love someone to help tutor me in a way. Id prefer to learn Munster dialect, it holds the most interest for me since my family comes from Clare. I am so glad to have found this site and cannot wait to search through all the goodies it holds! The little bit of Irish I do know has been self-taught or using the not-so-good Duolingo (though it has provided me with more help than I would have had on my own). So, with that said, please excuse the ignorance I have when it comes to speaking the language! Looking forward to interacting with you all.

Dia is Muire dhuit, a Aisling.

I am learning Munster Irish myself but have been playing the eejit for the last few months, i.e., I haven't really gotten any studying done since October, but I'm planning on getting back into it in a couple o' weeks, if all goes well. The resident expert of Munster Irish around here is An Lon Dubh. If we ply him with drink, maybe he will agree to start a Munster Irish study group this year on Skype – ha, ha

A Aisling, a chara,

If you're in the Midwestern US there a number chances to learn Irish face-to-face: regular classes and/or study groups in Chicago (north and south side), Milwaukee, Bloomington IN, Minneapolis, Madison WI, Toledo, Appleton WI, Cedar Rapids IA, and others I'm forgetting; classes for academic credit at St. Thomas, Notre Dame, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee; and Irish language weekends in Milwaukee (March 6-7), Kansas City (March 27-29), Bloomington IN (May 1-3), Cedar Rapids IA (June 27-28), Collegeville MN (July 25-26), Madison WI (October 9-11).

Are you looking for study help? Contacts?

Mike

If you want to do a week-long immersion course (or two), there's an inexpensive method of doing that. A teacher at the University of Montana runs courses in the summer (usually July) in Butte. That's not where UM is located; they use facilities at Montana Tech which are available in the summer, and there are inexpensive (and quite decent) dorm rooms available. The teacher is a native speaker of the Munster dialect (Kerry flavor). Here's his contact info:

Traolach (Terry) O’Riordain
1317 Harrison Street
Missoula, MT 59802
406-544-0311 (mobile)
toriordain@hotmail.com

Terry usually teaches the intermediate course, and has another teacher from Ireland (usually someone who is then teaching at UM) for the basic course. The other teacher may or may not be a Munster dialect speaker, but there will be lots of interaction between the classes and Terry will speak Munster Irish to you at every occasion. I've been there twice and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The University of Montana has an Irish Studies program. You can check it out at their website:
http://www.cas.umt.edu/irishstudies/default.cfm

and here's the url of the Irish Montana website, in case you're interested in why the language has been of significance in local history there:
http://www.irishmontana.com

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.