Ciúnas Ivan, tá tú chomh awkward as a pig in a parlour...

IT was just a bit of craic, a trite exchange between two fellas shooting the breeze on a much-debated subject – the Irish language. And yet, when doing just that on Virgin Media’s Six O’Clock Show this week, Ivan Yates and Brian Dowling caused quite a bit of consternation across the land.

Brian – who was discussing the topic with fellow presenter Fionnuala Jay, Gaelgeoir Síle Seoige and Ivan Yates – set the proverbial cat among the pigeons when he asked the latter if he spoke a cúpla focal himself.

Yates made no delay in his response, which was delivered in a suitably elegant fashion.

‘Níl focal ar bith agam,’ he said, adding gracefully: ‘I couldn’t be arsed to learn Irish and I’m sorry if you’re offended.’

Dowling was far from it, and he got up excitedly from his seat to shake Yates’s hand, proclaiming happily that he too has no Irish.

Finding a common ground in blissful ignorance, Dowling and Yates had bonded in their disdain for our national language, leading the latter to continue: ‘All this money we put into it, and there’s only 16,000 people in the country speaking it now.’

Now, I’m not an Irish speaker myself, but one key phrase from the Leaving Certificate came to me at this point – ‘Chomh ciotach le muc i sciamhlann’, which roughly translates to ‘as awkward as a pig in a parlour’.

Eh, there’s a Gaeilgeoir in the room, lads! Not that their mutual scorn had ruffled the cool Seoige one iota, who would have rolled her eyes at it all had they not glazed over as soon as Yates started talking.

Seoige’s indifferent demeanour was in direct contrast to our Fionnuala, who was quick to defend her new hobby, animatedly adding an interesting statistic to the proceedings.

‘Booooo!’ she declared. ‘Every 40 seconds a native language dies!’ Well that’s not entirely accurate, but of the world’s approximately 6,900 languages, more than half are at risk of dying out by the end of the 21st century. The biggest reason for this is, of course, colonialism (which from Ireland’s perspective, you would imagine should be all the more reason to be ag caint non-stop).

‘I’m not even having this debate,’ said a glossily nonplussed Seoige, while simultaneously doing just that, debunking Yates’s original point by talking about how Irish is very much thriving in her local community in Spiddal, and how ‘very lucky’ she is that being a Gaeilgeoir is her ‘normal’.

What truly made for TV gold though was how she seamlessly went from English to Irish while speaking, baffling her detractors, who could do nothing but look on with dopey grins as they hadn’t a rashers what she was saying. To my shame, neither did I. But this didn’t make me feel smug. If I’m honest, it made me kind of sad, and a little ‘less than’.

‘It’s intertwined in our culture, our heritage – it’s who we are,’ said Seoige. Everyone understood that part and on this point, nobody could argue. She’s right. It’s in our DNA, whether we like it or not, passed through generations and its essence is still there, albeit diluted. I was surprised at how furious I felt, protective almost, for our native language and the overt disdain for it.

AND whereas the paltry figure that Yates threw out for natural Irish speakers is inaccurate – he explained he based his calculation on Irish speakers living in Gaeltacht areas – the kerfuffle has at least highlighted the fact that as a country, we are clearly doing something wrong.

The latest official figures published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) reveal that the number of daily Irish speakers has dropped nationally, falling by more than 2% since 2016.

The data does, however, show an increase of more than 6% in the number of people indicating an ability to speak Irish – more than 1.8million of us in 2022.

While the majority here would fall into the cúpla focal category, I would be interested in another statistic, mainly what percentage of us Irish citizens regret not embracing our national language more, and putting the effort in to keep it alive.

I studied honours Irish for my Leaving Certificate and actually achieved a B1 for my efforts. But to my shame, I now struggle to make sense of my daughter’s third class Irish homework.

I have a number of Gaeilgeoirí in my extended family, and when we meet for gatherings, I must admit I feel a pang of jealousy as they chat away as Gaeilge.

I dearly want to join in but any Irish I once knew seems to have vanished in my cognitive architecture, having turned to dust from lack of use.

To have a good grasp of the Irish language is a beautiful but sadly rare thing.

It sets you apart, makes you stand out from the homogeneous crowd; a bit like an instrument, its musicality and lilt is both a joy and a privilege to speak and listen to. I’m not sure how we got the idea that learning Irish is a waste of our time, a tedium to be endured as a ridiculous part of our education system.

I thought this too, by the way, when I was younger. But like a lot of things in life, it’s something that many of us (with the exception of

Ivan and Brian) tend to appreciate more as we get older.

Thankfully, Irish has experienced a revival of sorts. The latest census highlights a resurgence in younger people ag caint, with 63% of those aged 15-19 saying they could speak it ‘very well’. Social media has helped transform its reputation as dull, enforced and nugatory into something more fun: an exciting avenue for which to explore our Irishness.

Whether the Government’s optimistic plans to increase the number of daily Irish speakers in the country to 250,000 by 2030 will actually happen remains to be seen. But it’s a thing to be nurtured, lads, not mocked.