INTERVIEW: 'Nuacht'is produced out of the west once again, and broadcaster Siún Nic Gearailt made the move from Donnybrook to the Connemara Gaeltacht, writes LORNA SIGGINS
TWELVE YEARS AGO Siún Nic Gearailt, a young Kerrywoman and native Irish speaker, was among the first group of journalists hired by the then Teilifís na Gaeilge. Now she is back in the west as anchor for RTÉ’s new decentralised Irish- language news service, Nuacht.Having spent almost five years at RTÉ in Dublin, she now presents a daily news bulletin from Galway. For her, it’s a challenge that extends way beyond a new studio environment.
“It’s a national news broadcast, 16 minutes before RTÉ Six One, so it’s very exciting in that sense,” she says. “Take the decision during the summer by the two Sligo Fianna Fáil TDs, Jimmy Devins and Eamon Scanlon, to resign the party whip over the transfer of breast-cancer surgery to Galway from Sligo. That was happening as we were on air. It was great to be able to lead with it, knowing we were ahead.”
So don’t be misled by any “TG4 babe” tag, because Nic Gerailt is a newscaster with an extensive background in hard-news reporting.
Reared as one of three children in the Feothanach Gaeltacht of west Kerry, she worked in the family pub, An Cúinne, during school and college holidays. It was while pulling pints that her mother, Eileen Ní Chléirigh, instilled it in her to treat all customers equally – and her love of languages grew as she encountered customers from all over Europe.
She studied Irish and German at NUI Galway, which she followed with a higher diploma in journalism and broadcasting. She freelanced for Clare FM and Raidió na Gaeltachta, and then, in 1996, Michael D Higgins, then minister, initiated Súil Eile – alias Teilifís na Gaeilge – and she landed a news reporter job with the fledgling station.
She covered the western seaboard for several years before moving to Dublin to present Nuacht from RTÉ’s Donnybrook studios. “It was meant to be for nine months, but that extended to nearly five years. So Dublin became very much home.” It also felt like home for some unexpected reasons: her maternal grand-aunt, Siobhán Ní Chléirigh, from west Kerry, had been a member of Cumann na mBan, and was imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol. She went on hunger strike, and died from the consequences after her release at the age of 24.
“My grand-aunt had been an associate of Mary McSwiney, sister of Terence McSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, who died in Brixton prison after 74 days on hunger strike. She had been a nurse, and was helping to provide for her siblings, so it was an awful blow to the family at the time.”
Her grand-aunt’s cousin also lived in Dublin. Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha, known as “An Seabhac” (the hawk), edited one of the most extensive collections of Fenian ballads.
“I felt that when I was walking around the city I could put both of their lives in context.”
The move back west means she will see more of her husband, TG4 news presenter Ailbhe Ó Monacháin, from Donegal. The couple were married in Kerry in December 2007. This brings the conversation neatly on to the differences between the Irish dialects, and how she and her husband manage to communicate.
“To be honest, there are many phrases that Donegal and Kerry have in common, but some in Connemara that I’d have found completely foreign when I first came to Galway,” she laughs. “It was the Aran Island Irish that I understood best – perhaps because of the close sea links between Aran and Clare.”
She is quietly passionate about Irish and its future, and is full of admiration for parents living outside the Gaeltacht regions who educate their children through the language. She believes the language has become fashionable, thanks largely to TG4, and that comedian Des Bishop’s series, In the Name of the Fada, also initiated a whole new constituency that is eager to learn.
“My grandmother had a great love of Irish, but she would switch to English just to communicate,” she says. “I suppose one has to draw inspiration from the men and women involved in the political and cultural renaissance which helped form the State. Their idealism and their view of the language as part of our landscape and heritage is as valid now as it was back then.”
Meanwhile, the irony of “decentralising” Nuacht, an Irish language programme, from Donnybrook in Dublin 4, to Baile na hAbhann in the Connemara Gaeltacht, hasn’t been missed locally. This response might be loosely translated to echo the famous Private Eye line – shurely shome mishtake?