“The first question people always ask me is, are you from the Gaeltacht? Did you go to a Gaelscoil? And the answer is no,” says comedian Áine Gallagher. We’re sitting in the courtyard of Little Bird cafe in Portobello in Dublin, where she recently completed a residency. For one afternoon a week, she would sit with a sign that said “Leabhair Gaeilge Liom. Please!” (Speak Irish with me. Please!)
She pulls a flashcard from her bag. There’s a photo of a mill, beside a photo of Shaun the Sheep. Milseán! I deduce, after a hint or two (the Irish word for sweet). Prompts such as these served as icebreakers to get people talking during the residency.
“In my true core, I’m quite a dork,” Gallagher admits. “I just enjoy playing and making silly fun.”
Now, she’s made it her aim to “give everyone in Ireland a focal”. In November, she’ll tour her bilingual stand-up show, A Cup of Focals. She’ll use what she jokingly calls “guerrilla tactics” to help Irish audiences lose their hang-ups around Gaeilge. “I just kind of put it in, in the middle,” she says. “I build up the awkward tension and release it by just acknowledging that it’s awkward.”
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This awkward, deadpan style is anathema to some, but Gallagher relishes it.
“A lot of other comedians would say to me: I could never do what you do. A lot of my jokes will have a long lead-up. It’s uncertain where it’s going […] But I just really enjoy that. I don’t know why. When it works, it’s really fun.”
Originally from South Dublin, Gallagher always had a grá for Gaeilge, but it wasn’t until her mid-20s that she began incorporating it in to everyday life.
“When I was about 26, I made a new year’s resolution to speak Irish every day. And I was lucky enough to have a colleague who had Irish, so we’d speak a little bit.”
Six months later, a friend saw a poster looking for candidates to take part in a TG4 reality show, An Gaeilgóir is Greannmhaire (The Funniest Irish Speaker). “I thought: oh, I’ve been practising for six months, my Irish must be good enough to do this. And I managed to get in, but my Irish was not good enough.”
Nevertheless, the experience helped her get out of her comfort zone and find her comedic voice. Gradually, she stopped “trying so hard to translate stuff and make it perfect”, and began embracing her mistakes and inaccuracies.
“When I started to use my more simple way of speaking, and making fun of the fact that I’d make mistakes, a lot of the crew would come up to me afterwards and say: oh, I like you the best, because you’re the only one I can understand.”
After this baptism of fire, Gallagher continued making Irish and bilingual comedy. In 2017, she took a full bilingual show to the Edinburgh Fringe festival. Her journey was recorded in the documentary Grá & Eagla.
“I think, because [Edinburgh] was an international audience, they didn’t have the negative association, or history, with Irish,” she says. “They were a bit more like, oh, this is interesting. And obviously, I get a sense for the audience and whether they have Irish or don’t have Irish. And I’ll always be explaining what I’m saying.”
While many audience members might struggle to understand Irish, there are also those who are highly proficient. Does she ever experience snobbery?
“It did happen once that I did a gig in Conradh na Gaeilge and someone heckled me because my grammar was wrong,” she says.
But this is the exception, not the rule.
“I’ve experienced very little snobbery. I think for me, it’s more perceived judgment from other people, rather than actual judgment. The majority of Irish speakers I know are incredibly friendly, and incredibly inclusive.”
Gallagher has been making her way in the comedy scene for 12 years. What has her experience been like? In the wake of Channel 4′s Russell Brand exposé, some social media commentators insinuated that there were skeletons in the Irish comedy closet waiting to come out.
“It’s a really good question. It’s really hard. […] I try not to engage too much with social media. Obviously, I’m going to watch and be curious about things like the Russell Brand documentary, but there’s so much ... it is a hard industry to be in, obviously, even without all that extra kind of stuff, you know? Just managing your own career, and trying to say sane, and not flipping your lid every time you turn on Instagram just because someone’s been booked for a festival that you haven’t been booked for. I don’t know how the Russell Brand ... how it’s going to affect the Irish scene, or what’s going to come out.”
We talk more broadly about her practice. She’s inspired by “the mundanity of life”.
“[My comedy is] observational, but it’s things that would affect me […] so it’s quite vulnerable. And I think that’s why I’m motivated to do the Irish stuff. I find it a real adventure. Learning and speaking Irish, as mundane as it is, the first time that you’ve managed to have a three-line conversation with someone, it is really exciting.”
She feels that Irish is having a moment – whether it’s Paul Mescal and Brendan Gleeson showing off their teanga dhúchais (native language) on the red carpet, or Colm Bairéad’s debut feature, An Cailín Ciúin, dazzling the Oscars’ academy.
“It really feels like there’s something bubbling,” Gallagher says. “And I think Paul Mescal is a really good example of what we need more of, in terms of people who aren’t perfect who are willing to give it a go. I think that’s what really encourages people.”
Áine Gallagher’s tour, A Cup of Focals, starts November 3rd in Limerick, with subsequent shows in Clonakilty (16th), Dublin (23rd) and Cork (30th). See here for tickets.
