'Learning Irish was not part of my plan after war forced me to flee my hometown'

Legendary Ukrainian poet Lina Kostenko once said that nations don’t die from heart attacks. First, their language is taken away

Ukrainian national Yuliia Maltseva, who has begun learning the Irish language, says she has always loved languages and finds Irish especially beautiful and musical to listen to. Picture Chani Anderson

Learning to speak Irish fluently had not been part of my plan after war forced me to flee my hometown in Sumy, Ukraine, for a new life abroad.

And yet here I am, four years later, taking classes with Nasc in Cork, in the hope of achieving the ambitious but hopefully not impossible. The dream is to become fluent in Irish, regardless of how long this will take.