Míorúilt

Dear All,

If you ever want to experience a real miracle, go and start learning Irish Gaelic. I mean it.

When I began to learn it two years ago at the university as an optional course, my teacher started the first lesson with quite a weird statement: Irish Gaelic is spoken by ridiculously few people as a first language, and instead of it, English is used in almost every household in Ireland, yet if you're a foreigner and have even the most basic knowledge of Irish, and you move to Ireland, there you will be incredibly popular.

Actually, back then I didn't really know if I should have taken it literally or not, but it wasn't important. I started that course just because I'm fond of languages in general. I'd never tried learning any Celtic languages before, and Irish seemed to be such an exotic and interesting one that I just couldn't miss this opportunity to study it for free from a professional teacher. And that was all for a while.

For several reasons, I've been intending to relocate to an English-speaking area after finishing my university studies. My main goal is to get rid of my Hungarian accent and pick up a local one as some years later I'd like to have a job related to talking in English, and right now I'm not very good at that. During my years at the university, I got interested in Irish culture and history, partly thanks to the language course I mentioned above, and partly because of other courses and Irish movies we watched in class (not to mention the fact that some of my favourite actors are Irish, either from Northern Ireland or from the republic). So I decided to give it a try and look for a job in the Irish Republic. A few years ago when I needed a job in Spain, I was recommended an online database for au pairs. In the end, I spent some months in Madrid as an au pair, which I absolutely enjoyed. So I registered again to the same website and tried to look for an Irish host family this time.

When I sought a Spanish job, I wrote hundreds of applications (I think, literally), yet I didn't get any positive replies for many weeks. I don't remember exactly, but I think it took about 3 months to actually find a family and arrange the journey. In general, the number of registered au pairs is around 3 or 4 times more than the number of job opportunities, so most of the au pairs do not even find a job. One of my biggest fears was that I wouldn't be lucky this time - Ireland is a much more popular place than Spain, so families would probably not even notice me among all those candidates. Nonetheless, I filled up my profile, where I also mentioned that I have a very basic level of Irish Gaelic. And what followed was just amazing.

In less than a month, I got tons of applications from Irish families. I didn't even need to browse family profiles and contact people myself - I was contacted several times from all around the country: Dublin, Galway, Cork, Donegal, etc. I couldn't even decide which family to choose! Some of them mentioned it's great that I speak a little bit of Irish because it's a compulsory subject in primary schools in Ireland, so I can help the children with their homework and practise the language with them, too. Others wrote that it's nice to see that some foreigners are this passionate about Irish Gaelic, because it's slowly but surely heading towards extinction. I've never felt so popular in my life. I was swamped with positive feedback: it is worth learning Irish Gaelic, and my teacher was right about it. So all I can say is that I'm really grateful for being given this opportunity.

Now it seems that in the beginning of February, I'll fly to Letterkenny, Co. Donegal (more precisely, I'll fly to Dublin and will be picked up by car at the airport), and I'll spend 6 or 7 months there with a very lovely family of five. But right before that I need to survive a state exam, so wish me good luck!