Fintan’s grá for Gaeilge helps water flow in Galway’s Gaeltachts

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It’s Seachtain na Gaeilge across the country but it’s Irish Week in An Cheathrú Rua Water Treatment Plant every week of the year.

Uisce Éireann’s Fintan Joyce is talking raw water quality, reservoir levels and leakage savings with plant caretaker Paraic Ó Fiannaigh (Padraig Feeney) and supervisor Breandán Ó hEidhin (Brendan Hynes) and all as Gaeilge.

With ten of Uisce Éireann’s 38 water treatment plants in Co Galway in Irish speaking regions, Fintan is the first to acknowledge his cúpla focal have been a godsend since he took up his role providing technical support to plant caretakers across Galway two years ago.

“Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste ná Béarla cliste (broken Irish is better than perfect English)”, according to the lads but if truth be told Fintan’s cúpla focal are far from broken.

He might not have gone to an all-Irish primary or secondary school. In fact, his entire education was through English and Irish wasn’t the main language at home but he did grow up on the edge of a Gaeltacht area and conversing with elderly neighbours over the stone wall nurtured his grá for the native tongue.

“My mother was from the Gaeltacht area of Ros Muc and had no English until she was 17 or 18 so knew only too well the disadvantage of not having English and my father moved into the Gaeltacht area so Irish wasn’t pushed onto us.”

Today Fintan’s only use of Irish is at work.

“Being able to converse in Irish has made my job much easier. When I joined Uisce Éireann and could have that first introduction with caretakers in the Irish speaking regions through Irish it helped put everyone at ease.

“My written Irish wouldn’t be up to scratch but the lads in the plants don’t care if my grammar isn’t correct or if I don’t know my poets.”

According to Breandán Ó hEidhin, who has 26 years’ experience in water services under his belt, the three rarely share a cross word or an English one.

“We’d always be chatting away in Irish. We can do our day-to-day job through Irish.”

Breandán and Paraic Ó Fiannaigh are neighbours from Leitir Móir. Both completed their primary and secondary schooling through Irish. They speak it at home, their children go to Irish schools but no more than Fintan they too understand that it’s not everyone who has the cúpla focal.

“Ah you know by the hello what language to use,” said Paraic.

“We were encouraged to be good at English, but my mother spent time in America and understood while it was nice to have the Irish it would be more important to have the English going forward in life. You weren’t using it beyond your local area,” explained Breandán.

“Irish is as strong here as it is anywhere in the country. An Cheathrú Rua is the heart of the Gaeltacht. It’s great to converse in Irish here but if you want to do courses or anything you need to have the English.”

The trio are under no illusion that Irish is a language that needs promotion, or it will be lost forever. Fintan continues to live in a Gaeltacht region but where once there were 20 or 25 Irish speaking families in the village now there are only four or five.

“There are a few areas like An Cheathrú Rua where Irish is very strong but outside of those events like Seachtain na Gaeilge ensure that the country makes an effort to save the language.”

“Here in the Conamara Gaeltacht we have our own dialect and the school going children nowadays are taught what we call book Irish, but I appreciate there has to be compromise. You can’t have Donegal not able to understand Conamara or Kerry. There has to be middle ground.”

Creid é no ná creid but being an Irish speaking area is a consideration for the operators at An Cheathrú Rua Water Treatment Plant. Every summer hundreds of students descend on the Gaeltacht colleges and there’s a resulting increase in demand for water.

“It’s never an issue because the plant is so well run but there is great satisfaction when you can deliver clean, safe drinking water to communities all year around.  A lot of work happens behind the scenes and there no doubt that having the cúpla focal can help the process flow more seamlessly.”