St. Patrick’s Day may have come and gone, but that doesn’t mean Irish culture is shelved here for the rest of the year. The traditions and culture of the Auld Sod are alive for the nearly half-million residents of Cook County who, according to the Census Bureau, claim some Irish ancestry.
And two Southland residents are actively promoting that culture by bringing the Irish language to south Chicagoland.
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That’s the charge for Gaeilago, the Irish language school that operates out of Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood. The Irish word for the language is Gaeilge, and combining that with Chicago gave the school its name.
Gaeilago was started in 2014 by Shannon O’Brien and Aine McGillycuddy.
O’Brien became interested in the Irish language after visiting Ireland, where she has family on the west coast.
“I traveled through Ireland for about three months by myself, and had done my own studying. When I moved to Chicago, I was looking for some additional opportunities to pick up the language,” said O’Brien, who lives in Beverly and works as a client services director for a company that handles disability claims.
Finding no Irish language classes on the South Side, O’Brien searched social media to find someone who spoke Irish and connected with McGillycuddy, who had just moved to Beverly from County Wicklow, Ireland.
“I was an Irish language teacher in Ireland for 15 years,” McGillycuddy said. “They require teaching the Irish language in every school in Ireland up until you are a senior in high school.”
They started with an initial class of six people at Gaelic Park in Oak Forest. In time the classes grew to about 30 people, and along the way they moved to a meeting room at Barney Callaghan’s Pub on 106th Street and Western Avenue.
They were joined by Sean Kelly, now an instructor, who spent his early years in Beverly and now lives in the west suburbs.
“I started studying the Irish language about 25 years ago, first teaching myself, then taking some classes at a college and at a school on the North Side. When I met Shannon and Aine, I started with them as well. I do the North and South Side groups as time permits.” said Kelly, a scientist with Abbott Laboratories.
Ireland now is primarily an English-speaking country, but much effort has gone into preserving the original Irish language before it goes extinct.
“There are still rural sections of Ireland where the Irish language is primarily spoken, mostly on the west coast, in Donegal, Galway, and Kerry,” McGillycuddy said. “There are a few sections in the east as well, like in Waterford. There are more and more Irish language schools, too, grade schools and high schools, where everything — math, science, history, geography, foreign languages — are taught through the Irish language.”
There has been a resurgence in interest in the language, as well, and some people have picked it up as a second language.
“For a while, it kind of seemed like an elitist thing, where the people with money were sending their kids to an all-Irish school,” McGillycuddy said.
Kelly’s interest in the Irish language started as a teenager.
“I realized this is not a dead language. Irish Americans are brought up knowing very little about the language and you have this idea that they don’t really speak it any longer. At some point, I realized that people do still speak it. The more I read about it, the more I realized how endangered it is. One big driving factor for me was that if Irish people aren’t going to learn this language, then who is?” he said.
Gaeilago concentrates on the technical aspects of the language while spending a lot of time on conversational Irish.
“We understand people want to be able to speak it and not sound like they’re coming from a textbook,” O’Brien said. “We place a lot of emphasis on talking to each other in class, breaking out into groups. Of course, we also spend time practicing writing, reading biographies and short stories, that kind of thing.”
Studying the Irish language is mostly a cultural endeavor, but there are practical aspects as well. O’Brien said there are businesses that look for people who can speak the Irish language or translate documents. McGillycuddy has provided this type of service.
These days, Kelly is the school’s main instructor, and McGillycuddy, who has young children at home, serves as an expert resource, providing teaching materials and direction. She has also developed the Irish grammar app, Gramadach na Gaeilge, for Apple and Android devices. O’Brien handles the administrative work and marketing; they call her “the principal.”
They are joined by a core group of students who have been with them since 2014 who help with other aspects of the school, such as social media and special events.
Special events have included Irish immersion weekends with sessions on language, history, music, dancing, and other Irish cultural experiences that were attended by people from around the country and Canada.
Kelly leads a summer book club, where participants read an Irish language book and translate it and discuss it in Irish. They also take field trips to see Irish language movies with English subtitles.
Gaeilago held an after-school club at St. Cajetan School where the students could sign up for an Irish language class, play games, and engage in more child-focused language learning. The students received certificates at the end of the six-week club.
O’Brien and McGillycuddy have worked with the Irish consulate in Chicago, which has annual meetings with people in the Chicago Irish community as well as Irish language enthusiasts about spreading the Irish culture globally, and networking and sharing resources including grant information.
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Gaelic Park invited the school’s participation in its 2016 installation of a memorial recognizing the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising in Ireland, an event that helped pave the way for Irish independence. Gaeilago representatives read the Irish proclamation of independence in the Irish language.
School representatives marched in the South Side Irish Parade earlier this month, helping to celebrate Irish American Heritage Month as proclaimed by the federal government since 1991.
“It was nice to have the parade back and see all the smiling faces again; it was a really fun day,” O’Brien said.
Though the pandemic curtailed Gaeilago’s activities for the past two years, O’Brien said the school is ready to go for the future. New classes for beginning and intermediate students will begin April 5 and run to May 10 at Barney Callaghan’s. Those interested can contact O’Brien through the Gaeilago Facebook page or email [email protected].
“We invite people to come in, sit in on a class and see what it’s like,” she said. “An important goal of ours is to make this fun — no one wants to feel they are back in school being forced to learn this; it’s all being done for fun.”
Carol Flynn is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.