I nodded along and spoke in a few platitudes before, around Cavan, Des copped that I had even less clue about GAA than I did about the “modh coinníollach”. At this stage we didn’t need to talk Irish, so you’d think it would have been easy, but sadly Des speaks another language in which I have zero proficiency: football. That’s a long time to spend chatting to Des Cahill in the back of a van. To get to Gaoth Dobhair, I had to travel first to Dublin, where I hitched a ride on a cosy minibus to Co Donegal. Living in west Co Kerry, Irish is around us all of the time, but I still jumped at the chance to go as far away as possible from my family because that’s how committed I am to the, ahem, language. My beloved wife Julie said I’m the only person she knows who left a Gaeltacht so I could learn Irish in another one. I know it’s about me, but I’m powerless to interfere. I’m like a Spanish waiter in Majorca faced with a couple from Dundalk complaining about the bill as Gaeilge. Yes, the other two members of my family speak Irish at home a lot of the time and, no, I generally have no idea what they’re talking about.

When I was initially asked to learn Irish for a week in the Gaeltacht, I was excited to brush up on my vocabulary, but not as excited as I was at potentially working out what my wife and son were constantly talking about.

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