Ask almost anyone who went to school in Ireland for a sentence in Irish and there's a fair chance you'll get this one: An bhfuil cead agam dul go dtí an leithreas? May I go to the toilet? It was the sentence that got you out of the classroom, and for a lot of people it's most of what survived a dozen or more years of compulsory lessons.
That says more about how Irish used to be taught than about the language itself. If you want to learn Irish as an adult, the approach that works is the opposite of the old exam drill. Learn how the spelling maps to sound first, then a handful of verb-first sentence patterns, then pick one dialect to listen to, and use the language a little every day rather than a lot before a test. Twenty minutes a day for a month gets you greetings, introductions and simple sentences about yourself.
Irish, Gaelic or Gaeilge?
In Ireland the language is called Irish in English and Gaeilge in Irish. "Irish Gaelic" is mostly a name used abroad; at home, Gaelic is more likely to mean the football. Irish is a Celtic language of the Goidelic branch, together with Scottish Gaelic and Manx. Irish and Scottish Gaelic both descend from the Gaelic of medieval Ireland, and a speaker from Donegal can follow some Scottish Gaelic, but today they are separate languages (our guide to Scottish Gaelic covers the other side of the water).
The Irish constitution names Irish the national language and the first official language, and since 2022 it has been a full working language of the European Union. In the 2022 census close to two million people in the Republic said they could speak it, and around 70,000 said they spoke it every day outside the education system. The Gaeltacht, the areas where Irish is still a community language, lies mostly along the west coast, in Donegal, Mayo, Galway (Connemara and the Aran Islands), Kerry and Cork, with smaller pockets in Waterford and Meath. There are Irish speakers in Northern Ireland too, and Irish-medium schools, the Gaelscoileanna, all over the island.
What English speakers find easy, and what they don't
Start with the good news. Irish has just eleven irregular verbs, and the regular ones really are regular. The alphabet is the Latin one you know, plus an accent, the fada, which marks a long vowel. And if you live in Ireland the language is all around you: on road signs, on TG4, the Irish-language television channel, and in names. If you know how Niamh and Siobhán are said, you already know that bh and mh often sound like v or w, and that the spelling is telling you something.
Then come the parts that slow everyone down.
Broad and slender consonants
Most Irish consonants come in two versions, broad and slender, and the vowels around a consonant show which one you're dealing with. That's why so many words seem to carry extra vowels: they're signposts for the consonants. The fada matters as well. Fear is a man and féar is grass; sean means old, while Seán is a name.
Mutations
Like Welsh, Irish changes the beginning of words. Lenition adds an h: bád is a boat, mo bhád is my boat. Eclipsis puts a new consonant in front: ár mbád is our boat, and Dublin, Baile Átha Cliath, becomes i mBaile Átha Cliath when you're in it.
The verb comes first
Tá sé fuar means it's cold, word for word "is it cold". Irish has two verbs "to be": tá for states and places, and the copula, is, for saying what something is, as in Is múinteoir í, she's a teacher. There's no word for yes or no either. An bhfuil tú ag teacht? Are you coming? You answer Tá, or Níl.
Things are "at" you and "on" you
There's no verb "to have". Tá carr agam means I have a car, literally "a car is at me". Feelings sit on you: Tá ocras orm, I'm hungry, "hunger is on me", and Tá brón orm, I'm sorry.
Which Irish to learn: the three dialects
Irish has three main dialects, Munster, Connacht and Ulster, and a written standard, An Caighdeán Oifigiúil, used in schools and official texts. The differences show up in the most basic phrase there is:
| Dialect | Where | "How are you?" |
|---|---|---|
| Munster | Kerry, Cork, Waterford | Conas atá tú? |
| Connacht | Galway, Mayo | Cén chaoi a bhfuil tú? |
| Ulster | Donegal | Cad é mar atá tú? |
Learn the standard written forms, and choose one dialect to tune your ear to, ideally the one spoken by the people you want to talk to. Speakers of all three understand each other.
First words in Irish
- Dia duit: hello, literally "God to you". The traditional reply is Dia is Muire duit, "God and Mary to you".
- Tá mé go maith: I'm well.
- Is mise Áine: I'm Áine.
- Cad is ainm duit?: what's your name?
- Go raibh maith agat: thank you. Go raibh míle maith agat is a thousand thanks.
- Le do thoil: please.
- Sláinte: cheers, literally "health".
- Slán: goodbye. Slán abhaile means "safe home".
School Irish and the adult learner
There's plenty of Irish in Ireland, but much of the teaching material was shaped by school: written for children and pitched at the Leaving Cert, not at an adult who wants to chat with a neighbor in Connemara. Outside Ireland, language schools rarely offer Irish at all. The dialects complicate things further, since books, teachers and speakers don't always agree on how to say even "how are you". An adult who assembles a course alone can end up with a greeting from Kerry, a verb table in the standard and a pronunciation from Donegal, and no thread running from one week to the next.
Your first month
- Week 1. The spelling rules: broad and slender, the fada, bh and mh. The greetings above, until you can run the whole exchange without looking.
- Week 2. Sentences with tá: how you are, where you are, what the weather is doing. Twenty nouns from your own life.
- Week 3. Agam and orm: what you have and how you feel. Then the copula for jobs and names.
- Week 4. Questions and answers with tá and níl, one mutation pattern at a time, and five written sentences a day. Add some Irish to listen to: TG4 with subtitles, or An Cailín Ciúin, the Irish-language film that was nominated for an Oscar.
Doing this alone? Our guide to learning a language on your own has ways to keep going once the first burst of enthusiasm fades.
Learn Irish with Qlango
Qlango teaches Irish at A1 and A2. By the end of A2 you can handle short, routine exchanges about family, work, shopping and where you live, and describe your background in simple terms. Lessons are short. Spaced repetition brings words back just before you'd lose them, and flashcards let you run through the ones you keep missing. Building sentences trains the verb-first order until Tá mé tuirseach comes out the right way round, and writing answers yourself puts the fadas where they belong. Premium adds offline lessons and an AI teacher you can ask as many questions as you like about lenition, eclipsis, or why it's orm and not agam.
You also choose the language you learn through, so the translations in each lesson appear in English or in another language you know well, and the course is free to start. The Premium plans and the full table of languages and levels are a click away.
For a lot of people, school Irish came down to one sentence about the toilet. Twenty minutes a day in Qlango, starting at A1, will give you more useful ones, and Dia duit can be the first.
