--- title: Eoin Ó Conchúir description: Interview with Eoin Ó Conchúir on love.irish. Eoin started Bitesize Irish to help people around the world learn Irish canonical_url: md_url: last_updated: 2023-12-23T05:54:16Z --- # Eoin Ó Conchúir Eoin started Bitesize Irish to help people around the world learn Irish Eoin started Bitesize Irish to help people around the world learn Irish. He is the host on a popular podcast series and has produced a course on Udemy for Irish pronunciation. ## Resources - [Bitesize Irish website](https://bitesize.irish) - [Podcast](https://www.bitesize.irish/subscribe-to-podcast/) ## Questions & answers **Q: What are some initiatives or upcoming events you’re excited about?** Earlier in 2019, I attended the launch of the cyber-Gaeltacht “Trasna na dTonnta”, which is run on Twitter each year. It was fantastic to connect with people across the world who wanted to use what little or much Irish they had. I’m even more excited about **Ceardlann an tSamhraidh** that we’re running at [Bitesize Irish](https://www.bitesize.irish/ceardlann/). It’s a unique workshop aimed squarely at getting people to converse in the Irish language daily, because speaking it daily is a high-leverage approach to learning the language. We’re offering structured conversation, so that anyone can dip in, and probably more time for some “free conversation” in Irish. I want to specifically help people who normally attend Irish classes, but whose classes are not running during summer. I want their teacher to say after summer break, “Have you been to the Gaeltacht this summer??”. **Q: How did you learn Irish?** Irish was my first language, as my parents had made a conscious decision to “run” the family in Irish. I grew up in Ennis, County Clare, which is not the most traditional of places to be brought up with the Irish language. I did attend Irish language schools all the way through. While we got into some of the intricacies of the language at school, I never personally took to the idea of learning too much grammar. Perhaps if I tried now I would give it a better chance. **Q: What is your favorite Irish word or phrase?** **A: _Suaimhneas_** It’s a lovely word that translates to [peace](https://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/peace) or tranquility or calm. It’s a neutral calming word, perhaps not as extreme as “tranquility” is used English. **Q: What are some resources that all beginners should know about? Chrome plugins? Apps as Gaeilge?** If there was one resource I would recommend, it’s [focloir.ie](https://www.focloir.ie/) which is an English-Irish dictionary with audio recordings. Apart from that, I just believe in immersing yourself in the language daily (just look at youngsters in non-English countries being exposed to English daily, they are growing up understanding it). You have to find a way to establish a “minimum viable immersion” into your daily life \[[podcast 93](https://www.bitesize.irish/blog/podcast093/)\]. **Q: What made you start Bitesize Irish?** While running Irish Gaelic Translator, I wanted a more direct way of helping people to learn to speak the language. So around 2009, when working at a marketing agency, I thought about daily “bitesized” emails. It would be an email course that would last for a month and would be paid for. With feedback from others, I quickly realised that people would want to be able to hear pronunciations. Around 2012, I quit my university job to join a six-month startup program to develop Bitesize Irish further. I soon realised that their approach of quick-growth large-debts was not my style. These days I wholly appreciate being part of Bitesize, it’s a creative outlet for me. **Q: Were you also an entrepreneur Bitesize Irish or did you stumble into the role?** As you hear many times with business people, there was always an entrepreneurial inkling in me. I remember when I was perhaps 7 years old, I bought a packet of multi-colored rubber bands at the local shop. I brought them into school and sold individual rubber bands to my class mates. That afternoon, my mother was horrified (perhaps too strong a word) that I took people’s money, and she had me give back the money the next day. Jumping forward to around 2001, that was when I started a paid web site for the first time (it was called irish-sayings.com). When starting Bitesize, several people accused me of harming the Irish language by making paid products for learning it. For me, however, revenue is an enabler to build greater things. Bitesize has a couple of fantastic part-time employees, and in 2019 we made our first donation to [Feachtas youth organisation](https://www.feachtas.ie/)! **Q: What are some of the challenges working with Irish in software and technology?** Day-to-day, writing in the Irish language is still hard on a computer. Mobile tech has absolutely out-shined computer tech. The Android keyboard I use on my phone seamlessly lets me write as Gaeilge, and it usually auto-corrects and puts in all the fada accent marks needed. As a person with fadas in my surname, I do see that Irish people are still implicitly trained to avoid typing the fada. Aer Lingus have gone so far as to call my name “invalid”. A side-effect of EU legislation brought in is a more legal right to [insist on your fada](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/omission-of-fadas-from-irish-names-by-public-bodies-investigated-1.3780757). **Q: What were some of the challenges with building an online community for a minority language like Irish?** You have to show up regularly. You have to give more than you take. Earn people’s trust. Produce content that people anticipate, and will complain if they don’t get it. Since 2010, we have been sending out a weekly email newsletter from Bitesize Irish, which is received by thousands of people. So the real challenge is to keep reminding myself what a privilege it is to have anyone interested in what we’re putting out in the world. **Q: I know that you ran a forum for Irish enthusiasts in the past. Can you provide more information about this?** Back in the early 2000s, I had been getting many emails looking for translations requests. I had tried unsuccessfully once or twice to open a forum. I did a bit of “keyword research”, and found the “Irish Gaelic Translator” was a term often searched for. This was in the days before Google Translate appeared. IrishGaelicTranslator.com grew into its own veritable online community, and I was only a facilitator. At its peak, the site was getting 400,000 page views per month. I was struggling with keeping the server running and admin work with the forum, so when someone approached me to purchase the site I was very much open to that. In retrospect, I could have hired someone part-time and the forum would have survived much better. After the sale, despite assurances of the new owner, the forum was littered with extra pushy advertising, and the community fell apart. Core members set up their own new forum [irishlanguageforum.com/](http://irishlanguageforum.com/) which still seems to be running today. **Q: What are some of the biggest challenges that you have noticed that beginners have with learning the Irish language?** I think the biggest challenge for any learner is internal, not external, and I even [wrote a book on this](https://www.bitesize.irish/products/book/). We’re all only human. We compare ourselves to others. We beat ourselves up about not having studied or “tried harder”. We tell ourselves “I’m too old”, or “I should have done this years ago” or “I don’t understand Irish, so what’s the point in listening to people speak it?”. The most successful learners I have come across consistently make the language part of their every day life. They don’t beat themselves on the head with the language. Instead, they follow their curiousity. **Q: What got you into programming and tech?** This was just a natural thing for me. Doing computer science in university was the natural choice. From an early age I found myself drawn to computing (which I struggle with to this very day, since my profession is to be at the computer, like many others). I’m not a complete tech-head. Because I’m “connected” so many hours of the day, I’ll happily put my phone away out of sight in the evenings. I have been very lucky to be on the technical side of things, as I’ve merged that with my love for the Irish language for over half my lifetime now. **Q: An chun aimhleas teangacha mionlaithe an teicneolaíocht sa bhfadtréimhse?** _Translation: Is technology detrimental to minoritized languages in the long term?_ Absolutely not. OK, we live in a globalised world that’s becoming more homogenous. But in parallel, the internet has enabled members of niche interests to connect with each other, and share motivation together. Thankfully, the Irish language has embraced technology (just for example, we have accepted words like idirlíon for internet). The real challenge for us is human: to find the courage to connect with others through the technology that is available to us. **Q: What was your favorite project to work on?** Podcast? Udemy course? Website course? Forum? I regularly get fired up when recording the [Bitesize Irish Podcast](http://www.bitesize.irish/podcast). It’s a highly-meaningful way for me to share my thoughts on the Irish language, to motivate people to using it. I believe in you don’t need permission from anyone to create something, and that includes sharing the Irish language with those around you. The podcast itself is in the English language. It’s not my intention to directly teach Irish during the podcast, but more to help motivate learners along their journey. _Read the full interview at https://love.irish/interviews/eoin-o-conchuir_ ## More information - [Search love.irish for Irish & Celtic records (codex, library, collections, events, people, topics)]() - [Full markdown index of the site, every page (handy to browse, share, or hand to AI)]() - [Love.irish home]() --- Source: https://love.irish/interviews/eoin-o-conchuir Made with ❤️ from love.irish – learn Irish (Gaeilge) through community, resources and a little adventure.