My middle-aged bid to finally learn Irish

IT’S not often many of us find ourselves in the same, hugely embarrassing situation as Stephen Fry, the oh-so-English actor who famously — and bravely — appeared as a hilarious walk-on part in the Gaeltacht soap, Ros na Rún, a couple of years ago.

During that mortifying performance, Fry — ever the bumbling, tweed-suited, posh country gent — fumbled his way through speaking Gaeilge, an Irish-English dictionary in hand, as he balefully tried to get directions to the Aran Islands.

Fast-forward to today, and I kind of know how he felt. Because despite living on the edge of the Connemara Gaeltacht, and with friends and neighbours fluent in our ancient tongue, like many Irish ex-pats and former émigrés returned home, I was educated in England.