I was a guest this week on LMFM, our local radio station in Ireland. The regular presenter, Michael Reade, was being covered by an old friend, Ken Murray, which was a pleasant surprise.
Being in London this Christmas sucks. A Lot. Not just for me but for a lot of people. Keep an eye for a blog post over the next few days.
Have a listen. Thanks to Marie, Chris and of course, Ken for having me on.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been really lucky. It’s not everyday that you get the opportunity to contribute to Ireland’s top newspaper, The Irish Times and it’s a little more of a kick when they come to you.
This week as Seachtain na Gaeilge kicks off, they kindly asked if I could turn my blog post ‘Speaking Irish at Work – in London’ into a stand alone piece for them. I was well chuffed.
Have a read!
The very awesome Mr Phil Maltz took the photo of us in Chapter St, alongside me there’s Colin Hamilton, Megan Reidy and Starra Clarke.
G’wan the Irish
I kinda hated Irish in school, I mean, who the hell didn’t? It was only going to be of any use to anyone if you were going to end up being a teacher or work in a government office or county council.
A few months ago, I was channel surfing and skimmed through BBC Alba. As I was speeding through, some familiar words stopped me in my tracks. I read the subtitles to fill in the blanks in what was a really strange experience. I knew the majority words they spoke, there was nothing over the top, except that some words were pronounced differently. I was now watching a ‘Learn Gaelic in easy steps’ kinda show.
This is all the weirder as it happened in South East London, where I’ve been living. I set up a series record with all good intentions of watching and getting into the Scots gaelic but as with lots of things, good intentions, not enough time or willingness to sit and learn another dialect of our native tongue.
My Irish is pretty dire, the last time I spoke Irish, I think, was on DCUfm during Seachtain na Gaeilge. I remember Eddie Caffrey on LMFM always introducing the Green Scene in Irish and remembered his words ‘Failte go dti an clár, An Radharc Glas’. I thought I should give it a go and see how it went. Not too bad I think. There were no complaints anyway.
That was probably 2010 I’d say.
Little did I think, that, by some strange occurrence, I would be speaking Irish, albeit broken pigeon Irish, in an office, in a media company in Westminster, London, on a daily basis. Yup, you heard it, táim ag caint as Gaeilge gach lá i Londain.
When I started working here, there were two of us Irish here on a daily basis. There’s now a few more Irish, from both sides of the border. Three of us definitely learned Irish in school.
One of our colleagues loves language. Rob studied the classics and it’s actually kinda fascinating to hear him speak about the origins of words, language, where it all came from. All this started by Rob asking how to say hello.
I have to mention Starra here. Starra is pretty fluent in the auld tongue. As Rob was asking ‘how do you say…’ we started using Irish words, cupla focail nuair a muid ag caint.
It was partly to wind Rob up to as he hadn’t a clue what we were saying. I ran out of Irish words on numerous occasions only to swap the words I was missing with French words from my vocab. If I seriously fecked up, Starra would very politely tell me the correct word or phrase to use and off we go again with our little club as caint as Gaeilge.
This has been going on a few weeks now, but Rob is leaving today. We’ll have no one to act as an inbetween. When he comes with a little ‘Irish poem Starra told me’ and it’s ‘Leigh anois go curamch ar do scruidphapeir… ‘ I burst out laughing and send a line or two back as he finds out what each means.
We’re using Irish in a way that was never used in school, having a laugh. Jeez, can you imagine poor Peig Sayers and her beloved tea leaved stuffed pipe chatting in Westminster. It’s a long way from a wind swept island off the coast of Kerry.
If we had to learn Irish in school in a more relaxed fun way, sure we’d be speaking it all the time. Instead, it’s hammered in that this is something you have to know, automatically hitting the rebel button in every teenage brain.
We’re having a laugh, trying to tell each other what we did the night before and all the ska of course, as Gaeilge. This is how our language could grow.
Now! Who’s going to get Ros na Run on London Live?
*apologies for lack of fadas and spelling mistakes.. I am trying!
Image of Peig from here
This weekend has been all about radio.. I reckon if I went back in time to meet the 16 year old me (shudder) I’d be doing the same as I was this weekend (unsure if that’s a good thing or not).
I spent yesterday in the company of some Twitter and new friends at a Radio Workshop run by Brian McColl of BMacMedia.com I really enjoyed the day, it was informative, easy to understand and was great basically to get my head back in radio space.
Brian pointed out some of the things we take for granted on radio, along with cliches to avoid and other tips.
His special guest speaker was Debbie Allen, who now works on Dublin’s Q102. I found Debbie quite inspirational and listening to her gave me a right kick to get out there and do something.
So I did.
Today I did my first live radio show in about 13 years when I co-presented 11-2 on Hot Country (104.2 / 88.1) with the Legend that is Simon Young.
I was a little on the apprehensive side, not knowing what to expect but it all went swimmingly. We got some real texts from listeners and some great feedback off air from some industry pros. I was gobsmacked as I spoke to Ian Dempsey from Today FM as I waited to do a link 🙂
I always liked American Country, even though I haven’t consciously listened to any lately, I was surprised that I knew most of the songs on our playlist for today's show. When I think about it, the first thing I ever did was make the tea on Eddie Caffrey's Green Scene on LMFM. Another coincidence, LMFM was broadcasting 20 years this week.. time flies.
I've figured out now that I as probably too shy to pursue my radio dream when I was so young. But, I have to say the words of encouragement I've received today from not only family but my new Hot Country Friends and listeners mean this time I'm going to grab every chance with both hands.
The show worked well, myself and Simon clicked, especially when we met for the first time the other night. I'm looking forward to the next 13 weekends on Hot Country 881 and 1042.
Lastly, Jim and Joe, I said it earlier but thank you so much for this chance! Appreciate it – pity the minidisc only recorded 4 minutes..
…nessy out!
🙂 🙂 🙂
