“Irish is not my hobby. It’s a bridge across generations.”
Zachary (Secaría) Harmon resides in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where he serves as pastor at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church. He first attended Irish classes with Let’s Learn Irish in Washington DC in 2013, and he currently attends the weekly online B2 class.
We recently asked Zachary to tell us about his own motivations for learning Irish, and he outlined his answer via three questions that he is often asked. As Zachary states, “A lot of questions can come up when someone learns that I regularly study the Irish language. At first, the questions they ask can seem simple and easy to answer, but they usually prove to be fairly difficult in reality, as the answers come from deep within my heart. I figured I might give my best effort to answer these questions here.” Read below for Zachary’s reasons for why he’s learning Irish in New Hampshire, USA.
I don’t know if I’ve met anyone who studies Irish Gaelic.
Is it an interesting hobby?
To start with, the Irish language is not my hobby. It might be a hobby for some folks (and that’s great for them), but it’s not a hobby in my case. It’s a bridge across generations. When I was a child, I often heard about some of my Gaelic forbearers and about the bad life of poverty and famine they faced and about their immigration to America in the 19th Century. When I was eight years old, I also learned that the Irish language existed, and I made the decision in that moment that I would learn Irish as a way to bridge the divide of the generations and heal a wound.
Additionally, I believe there is something of the Resurrection in Irish. After all, the Irish language was the language of St. Patrick, St. Brigid and St. Columba. Over the centuries it has been devastated by violence and racked by injustice, and yet light and consolation can be still found in it. The Irish language is not extinguished but continues to shine out.
Irish is not really useful, so what are you going to do with it?
Isn’t this a strange question? The world is full of magnificent languages, and there are plenty of things to do with the Irish language. When I was living in Washington DC, I enjoyed a fantastic Irish language conversation group with Let’s Learn Irish. I also enjoy the literary treasures of the Irish language in the beautiful lyrics of Sean-Nós songs and in the poetry. For example there was this amazing poet named Eilín Dubh Ní Chonaill. Her poem, the Lament for Airt Uí Laoghaire, is so full of sorrow, fieriness, beauty and power. A couple years ago I visited Doire Fhionan to see the house and land where Eilín was born and raised. The tour guide there was very helpful and spoke Irish with me too! Doire Fhionan is also famous as the home of Daniel O’Connell (Eilín was Daniel’s aunt). The site was fascinating with its depth of history, from ogham stones to forests as old as the mist. This visit to Doire Fhionan, and seeing the layers of history there deepened my appreciation and understanding of the older Irish Poetry and for the story of the O’Connell family in Irish history.
Also, some years ago, when I was a student at the National University of Ireland, Galway, I was able to take a Sean-Nós singing class. The music, the lyrics and the styling of the music were all so amazing. I still remember those evenings- the beauty and the magic. I remember our voices all singing songs like“Eileanór na Rún” or “An Droighneann Donn” together and the way it made my heart warm.
Isn’t Irish an almost dead language?
Why don’t you learn a more useful language?
As you can see above, the language is alive in conversation, in music and in literature. It also lives in intercultural connections. Once, when I was working with Mending Wings, a non-profit working with at-risk indigenous teens on the Yakama Reservation in the US, I experienced the power of the Irish language and other endangered languages. At an indigenous cultural event there I was invited to sing a Sean-Nós song, and I sang one I had learned back in Galway. The next day a teen there came up to me and told me that he had heard my song the night before, and then with sincere devotion, he recited a prayer he had memorized in Ichishkiin (Ichishkiin is an Indigenous language from the tribes on the Columbia Plateau, and it has endured cruelty and oppression. There are not many people who speak it fluently today as a result). Following that prayer, he told me “Let’s continue and keep our languages alive.” Perhaps minority languages are not spoken globally, but they have power, strength and spirit to connect us still.
But what about utility? Well, what kind of utility do you mean? I regularly use Irish in preparing sermons, and in my thinking about problems. Irish opens new ways of thought, like Eithne Ní Uallacháin sang in her song, Bilingua: “It’s in my perception, it’s in my thinking… it’s in the future.” Truthfully, Irish is very useful, as it opens new windows to see the world. For one example, the Irish language reveals a paradox in Irish-American life. In the Irish language we experience a powerful story and legacy of resisting colonization, but at the same time our Irish-American community is a colonizing one here in America. What should we do about such a dynamic?
The Irish language opens beautiful, challenging visions in the midst of the constellations of other minority languages throughout the world. It is not some rusty engine or a calculator, but a bridge across generations. Bígí linn!
Bígí páirteach!
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