‘Is féidir linn’ echoes as far as the Big Apple

IT’S HOT AND HUMID in Hell’s Kitchen but in a stuffy classroom on the second floor of the Irish Arts Centre, Elaine Ní Bhraonáin wants to turn the noisy air conditioner off.

She needs silence because one of her students, Elyse Mattiaccio, is loading up a YouTube clip on her iPad of the Queen talking ‘as Gaeilge’ just a few days beforehand, a huge source of pride for the energetic Irish language teacher.

Just hours earlier, Barack Obama had spoken Irish on College Green. It’s the last class of term and Ní Bhraonáin couldn’t be happier with the gift-wrapped introductory topic she’s been handed by two of the world’s most famous heads of state.