When my ultra-cool, techno-wizard, decade-younger cousin, Laura, finished setting up this website, she asked if I wanted a blog. ‘All the cool people have them,’ she said, or something along those lines.
First thought: will this involve work?
Second: cool, you say?
‘Ah, go on then,’ I said, as if I didn’t mind either way - cool, like.
‘What’ll we call it?’ she asked, just when I thought we were finished.
‘Hmm.’
How about ‘nuacht’? Laura asked, nuacht being the Irish for news. She was joking - calling a blog ‘nuacht’ would not be cool.
‘I like it,’ I said, ‘for it’s irony. Better include an exclamation mark, though.’
You see, though Irish, I’m not what you might call a gaelgoiri, a proud speaker of my native tongue. When I was a teen, I did go to Irish college (summer school through Irish) but that was to meet boys. My children do not attend a school that teaches through Irish. I do not listen to the news in Irish. And wouldn’t understand it if I did. My son, for a brief surreal year or two, played gaelic football and hurley, but he has just packed it in - and it feels right, somehow - a bit like the time my daughter gave up ballet. We are not a family of gaelic players or ballet dancers. We’re just not.
So, apologies if you thought this blog was going to be as gaeilge (through Irish). I was being ironic.
