When I visited Ireland with my father and heard the people on the farm talking, I couldn't believe the gift of language they had. I felt very untalented.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Sometimes the archaism of the language when it's spoken is why we are all in love with the Irish today.
My first language is Gaelic.
I went to Cork, Ireland, and stood on the dock some of my ancestors had left from. I felt their ghosts gather round me, and I cried to imagine what it must have felt like - leaving that beautiful land and those beloved people, knowing it was forever.
I used to go to a Gaelic class on a Saturday morning, but I never felt myself that I could speak it properly.
Growing up, I was brought up around Irish music, Irish traditions.
When I was 18, I left Dublin and moved to Paris. I didn't speak French. I didn't know anyone. I felt like a fish out of water.
My father's parents were Irish. Only a year before my father died, he and I went back to Ireland for a week to look at the old homestead.
Being Irish, I always had this love of words.
Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity.
I grew up in a house where language was appreciated and cared about. I'm sure that, although I wasn't aware of it at the time, it must have made an impression on me.