It is not so well that I remember the Irish learned when I was just a little buachall

CHALLENGING behaviour. That’s what it is called, I believe. Challenging behaviour. Young Persephone has been challenging all around her to speak in Irish and I am finding it quite stressful... Make that very stressful. A fluent and fervent Gaelgeoir, she has taken to wearing a tee-shirt encouraging everyone she encounters to converse in the original vernacular. She flashes her fáinne at total strangers and gives them the full ‘Dia dhuit’, spreading panic wherever she goes. And I am the one who finds himself panicked the most because, while I may be well-disposed and painfully well-intentioned, I am totally ill-equipped to surf the wave of Irish coming my way.

Her brother Eldrick, though an accomplished linguist in his own way, completely ignores Persephone’s one-woman Gaelic revival, in the contemptuous way that only older siblings can. Her mother, the wonderful Hermione - ‘Hermione go hálainn – blusters her way through meal times, asking cheerfully ‘Ar mhaith leat cupán té, a stór?’ or some such.

My problem is that I am keen to take up this challenge while pathetically short of the vocabulary needed to make a go of it. The only word of Irish which I have added to my stock of Irish words since the turn of the millennium is ‘ríomhaire’ which means (as everyone doubtless knows) a computer. It has not proven of any great value. There is no obvious excuse for bumbling up to anyone and asking: ‘An bhfuil ríomhaire agat?’ They might respond, I suppose: ‘ Tá Úll agam.’ Steve Jobs would have loved that.

I left primary school in 1967, a year which was probably the high point of my all too stunted linguistic career. We were blessed with a master who not only took us through the prescribed curriculums of English and Irish. He also thought fit to broaden the minds of the eleven years in his care with introductions to Latin and French. So it came about that I have known for more than half a century that an oak tree in France is called a chêne.

The Latin has proven particularly useful in the understanding of grammar. On the other hand, in a modern world where the so called Classics are generally ignored, there is also a downside. The enlightenment picked up in sixth class included an awareness that words such as ‘media’ and ‘data’ are plural. Now I find that the person who suggests it is incorrect to say ‘social media is…’ rather than ‘social media are…’ quickly acquires an unwanted reputation as a pesky pedant.

The national school experience of Irish left me equipped to this day, not only with an oak (‘dair’) to run in parallel with the French ‘chêne’, but also with a crow (‘préachán) should occasion ever demand. The more obscure stuff is mixed with some easier going material that occasionally surfaces in relaxed company all these decades later.

The problems really only set in during secondary school days when the national language was treated, at best, as an awkward obstacle to be cleared on the way to the holy grail of the Leaving Certificate. Facing an audience bristling with adolescent hostility, our teacher resorted to drumming a series of stock phrases into our unenthusiastic heads.

‘Is maith is cuimhin liom’ – it’s well that I remember. Every essay we ever wrote began with those five words ‘is maith is cuimhin liom’. Unfortunately, it is not so well that I remember the remainder of the sayings and the proverbs which we regurgitated so mindlessly at his bidding. I left secondary with less Irish than I left primary, the lights having been shot out by this travesty of education.

Now young Persephone is exposing my scant working knowledge of ‘an teanga’, leaving me perpetually tongue-tied. Baby steps first is my mantra, bidding people ‘slán’ rather than goodbye. Of course, some may pick up the ‘slán’ as a slurred ‘so long’.

In the effort to respond to the challenge, I have yet to resort to watching ‘Ros na Rún’ on the ‘ telefís’. But I do instead find myself straining my ears to make sense of ‘nuacht’ bulletins on the ‘raidio’, picking up stray words recognised from the generally incomprehensible torrent of Irish.

Is féidir liom, as that well known Offaly man Barak Obama says.