By SHELAGH BRALEY STARR
RELATED ☘️ Staff
The Irish language has been many things: a political lever, a declaration of identity, a controversy—even sadly for some, a source of generational shame.
Now Mollie Guidera wants to transform it into what it was always meant to be: a comfortable birthright, at home and abroad.
The Irish teacher-gone-viral has been a vanguard in something of a movement, a language revival, where learning Irish is a simple act of love.
“My grandmother—she said, ‘grá mór,’ big love—she was showing me it’s a living language, which was very positive for me. When she died, I was already teaching Irish. I wanted to keep her alive through the language. I think many people are trying to do that now, to honor their ancestors by learning and speaking Irish.”
And right now, it’s as hot a topic as it’s ever been. “It’s now a Gaelic revival, like that of post-Famine times,” Guidera said, “when there was a national revival of folklore, sports, and music. It’s what (linguist, historian, and former president of Ireland) Douglas Hyde wrote about, the necessity of de-Anglicising Ireland, recovering what’s been lost.”
Ireland is still making its way through that process, almost a century later. And Guidera, and many others, are taking their chance to push for progress. Guidera says she is focused on creating a bilingual Ireland in her lifetime.
“(Irish-language author) Dr. Gary Bannister, he wrote that he envisions a bilingual Ireland in his lifetime, and I read that, and I thought, ‘Wow, ambitious.’ I’m 40 years younger, and if he believes it, then it should be.”
The times when native Irish speakers outnumbered the English speakers in the country are long gone. True native Irish speakers, she said, are few—the speakers for whom Irish is their first language. But new Irish speakers are making strides and creating what she called “urban Gaeltacht,” areas where the primary language is Irish. And the enthusiasm is only growing.
“My classes have over 10,000 speakers learning, reading and writing,” she said. We’re definitely hearing more people use Irish. There are more schools that speak only Irish, gaelscoilenna. That’s a step in the right direction.”
The resurgence, she said, is part of an acceptance process, where people who didn’t learn properly in school or still felt subject to negativity that made it too hard to carry on are letting go of those old influences. They’re saying they want to come back to their own language and love it. But it has taken significant effort to get that far.
“It’s a great story of influence,” she said. “We’re a young country in terms of freedom. So, it’s a bit of, first must come understanding, undoing, unravelling what actually happened. Oh, wow, that was a genocide,” she said, then paused. “I think learning Irish and speaking Irish and living life through Irish is a healing journey.”
She speaks thoughtfully about the Ireland of the past, where even she did not grow up with Irish as her first language, and was even dismissed from Irish-speaking camp for speaking English. There are real barriers in her quest, and she grapples with them every day, including the barrier that Irish people themselves don’t always connect with the purpose of speaking Irish.
“The threat is dealing directly with that deep belief—it’s true, they don’t believe they can learn (Irish). They don’t believe they can connect with and feel the beauty and the wisdom of the Irish language. Irish people struggle with the idea (of Gaeilge), believing English is superior. But diversity is so magical.”
She said part of the disconnect generationally came from how the Irish language was taught in schools in Ireland, which made it even more difficult to recover what had been lost. But as a culture, she sees it as an imperative part of recovery.
“We must do this in order to heal history, so we can be our full selves. I am Irish, but I speak English. Being trapped in speaking English doesn’t serve us,” she pointed out.
It’s clear in how Guidera talks about her students and their learning journeys, how much she treasures the moments of clarity that come.
“I have a student whose father asked, ‘Will you mow the lawn?’ He answered, ‘yeh.’ He said, ‘Will you?’—and ‘Yeh, yeh—I will.’ He asked until he answered with understanding.” She laughed.
There is no verb to have in the Irish language, which she said is significant psychologically. And there are no words for yes and no. “It seems too blunt. Are you Mollie? I am. We are echoing the speaker. That’s very intentional, it helps us process language in a much deeper way.”
Not to get too grammatical, but the Irish language doesn’t do a first-person construction. “Went I to the place, saw I this thing,” she said. “It’s more about the action and immediacy, the verb-first quality. It’s why I love Irish conversations so much. We start with the verb, to mean that we are bringing urgency and action to the sentence, emphasis on what happened rather than who did it. There is part of the Irish identity in that,” she said.
READ A FULL REVIEW OF MOLLIE’S BOOK, THE GAEILGE GUIDE, HERE
Speaking again of her grandmother, Guidera said she spoke a good level of Irish, and set an example for lifelong learning—which is a big lesson she shares with her students. “She went to the ciorcal comhrá (the conversation circle). We can’t underestimate hearing that (the language being spoken in the wild).”
She pointed out the importance of influential adults reflecting a positive attitude or at least a neutral stance about the language. “Kids say, my favorite subject is Irish and parents are like, really??” But in order to thrive, the language must be available and seen in a positive way, so students feel free to express their connection, and get inspired to continue their studies.
There are many expressions in English that prove a thread of Irish continues within, even when we don’t realize it, she said. “That’s part of the generational trauma of being Irish. Many things teach us what we want, but in Irish the verb to want and to need are the same. It forces us to ask, Can we want anything? Wanting is a luxury. Not having a verb to possess or own, all of these things help us realize if they are talking about the psyche of the Irish experience, it doesn’t really exist without the language. The psychology is the language.”
She appreciates the number of students that have reached out to her from around the world, interested in the Irish language, committing to learning it. It’s touching, she said, because without that influence, the movement wouldn’t be nearly as far along.
“It’s like Ireland is an ancient oak, and its trunk has grown weak. But its branches are all over the world, and the branches have dropped seeds, and they’re feeding all these nutrients back into the tree,” she said. “That’s had an amazing impact on this language and on this cultural revival. I have huge respect for people looking into their ancestry. They want to support Irish knitwear, eat Irish food …’
“Here’s it’s not that cool. It’s—I want to learn Japanese and eat other food. They’re not as into the mysticism of the land and the connection to the place,” she said.
The interest in the Irish culture from descendants abroad has deep meaning for Guidera, acknowledging that sense of loss that isn’t fully understood.
“The people of the diaspora talk about a lost childhood, they were ripped of the chance to grow up in Ireland. Your ancestor had a chance to make it in another country, maybe they were the strongest or the smartest. (Their parents said) ‘You’re the one that’s going to get on the boat and go.’ When people (with Irish heritage) come back, they’re really excited to meet family, they have a different energy. And people here can be turned off to that or they can welcome it.”
Guidera said she had taught English for years before realizing something profound was occurring for her, which forced her to ask herself the tough question.
“I love teaching, I love my students—is it fulfilling for me to teach English?” She ultimately had to reckon with that truth, and why it matters. “I’m not just teaching language, I’m connecting people to their identity, their history.”
Her advice for students or even the Gaeilge-curious who feel called to the language: “I would say, Labhair í agus mairfidh sí—Speak her and she will live.”
“Irish is an endangered language, and it holds the memory and the soul of the Irish people,” she said. “Speaking the language is the rhythms that rise from the land. You’re not really learning something new, you’re remembering. It’s a beautiful way to connect.”
You can find out more about Mollie Guidera’s Irish language programs at www.irishwithmollie.com. You can follow her on Instagram @irishwithmollie and find her on TikTok as well, with a combined following of nearly 300,000.
She has generously offered a special program for Irish by Ancestry members that you can learn more about HERE.
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