What It Takes to Learn Irish: Love, Loyalty, and Friendship
Somewhere in a dusty box in New Jersey is a fáinne - ring, so small that it won’t even fit on the tip of my pinky today. My first claddagh ring.
The claddagh design is composed of a croí - heart, lámha - hands, and a coróin - crown, symbolizing grá - love, dílseacht - loyalty, and cairdeas - friendship.
Not only are those values important things to have in life, I realized that they are also essential to learning Gaeilge - the Irish language.
Grá - Love
From a young age I was raised with grá - love for a tír - country I had not yet visited. That grá became súim - interest in the language as I grew older and learned more about the cultúr - culture. Grá was the splanc - spark, that started me on my turas teanga - language journey. And it was grá that kept that flame burning even when the winds of easpa muiníne - insecurity and amhras - doubt blew.
The more Irish I learned, the more grá I felt for it. Not only was I uncovering áilleacht na teanga - the beauty of the language, I was also discovering my own beauty. I was seeing the torthaí - results of my hard work. I was becoming more muiníneach - confident. And I was meeting new people, cairde - friends.
Dílseacht - Loyalty
Learning a language is a lifelong commitment. While we may reach líofacht - fluency, within a matter of years, there will always be more to learn. And to learn well, we need to be dílis - loyal to ourselves and the commitment we made to learn the teanga - language. When I started to learn Gaeilge - Irish, I didn’t believe it was a éacht - feat, I was capable of. Learning Irish became an act of self love. Gach lá - every day, I had to prove to myself that chreid mé ionam féin - I believed in myself. I had to be dílis - loyal to myself and commit to pursuing my spriocanna - goals.
Tar éis tamaill - after a while, my dílseacht wasn’t just to myself but to the teanga í féin - the language itself. When I learned Gaeilge, I didn’t just learn a new skill. I joined a movement. Beatha teanga í a labhairt - the life of a language is to speak it.
Cairdeas - Friendship
As my grá agus dílseacht don Ghaeilge - love and loyalty to the Irish language grew, I found myself i bpobal na Gaeilge - in the Irish language community. And with that community came cairdeas - friendship. The cairde - friends, I met along the way encouraged me to lean ar aghaidh - keep going. Not only did I now have daoine - people with whom to practice mo chuid Gaeilge - my Irish, I had cairde - friends that shared a common interest with me.
As my relationship with Gaeilge grew and deepened, those caidreamh - relationships did too. Thar na blianta - over the years, friendships based in a mutual grá don Ghaeilge - love for Irish, simply became friendships based on grá.
All of these values helped me foghlaim Gaeilge - learn Irish, but they’ve also enriched my life.
I am not only dílis - loyal to the language, I am loyal to mo chairde - my friends, mo theaghlach - my family, mo phobal - my community. My grá - love exists for daoine - people, áiteanna - places, and coincheapa - concepts both anseo - here and beyond. Mo chairde - my friends are not just people with whom I can use my Irish. They are people that remind me how to live life. They help me gáire - laugh, even when it feels dodhéanta - impossible. They make it easy to be dílis and to show grá.
All of these values have made it so that I will never stop ag foghlaim - learning; not about Irish or about life.
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The profundity of language as a conduit and shaping force of bonds is so beautiful, I had to go read the Irish version as well despite not knowing a lick of it.
This is on my list!!