Learning Irish has never been so easy - marrying culture and technology, learning Gaeilge online

Eoin, Sasa & Uisce (the dog)

Learning Irish, with Bitesize Irish Gaelic, has never been so easy even for me,  a born and bred Irish woman, I learned a few new things when I signed up for their  free 14 day trial. For example, did you know that there only 18 letters in the Irish Alphabet or that the Irish word for zero is (a náid), I didn’t!

This is great, because it is very trendy to be able to speak Irish or labhairt (talk) ás Gaelige (in Irish) these days in Ireland, we even have a dedicated Irish speaking television channel, TG4, which has some of best Irish made documentaries (with subtitles) you will see anywhere and yes you can watch it online.

The brain child of Limerick Eoin Ó Conchúir, a native Irish speaker and computer science graduate, Eoin, has successfully and playfully married culture and technology with the launch of this very easy and accessible online learning, Irish language course.

So, whether you would simply like to learn the basics ie the cúpla focal (a few words) before coming on holidays so as you can meet and greet people, order a drink and more properly ‘have the craic’ as they say in Ireland, this is the course for you. Sign up for the free 14 day trial with Bitesize Irish Gaelic and you will get access to 150 easy lessons instantly, which you can work through at your own pace, with good, clear audio recordings for you to listen and repeat as often as you like. It’s really simple and intuitive and great fun, in fact it will have you speaking Irish in a matter of minutes,  Each lesson is about 5 minutes long, leading up to your first full-on conservation in just Lesson 4.

Bitesize Irish Gaelic is really well written and presented and can be accessed from all devices which is very handy when you are travelling. Even the difficult topics like dialects and grammar are handled calmly and sensibly so you won’t get stuck on any unnecessary hurdles. Eoin and the team build your confidence quickly which is a sure fire recipe for success. Indeed many of his long term clients, that started out with a general  interest in the Irish language as result of tracing their Irish Heritage are staying with the program with a view to becoming fluent one day.

Go n’éirí an t-ádh leo - Good luck to them...

If you would like to watch a bitesize snippet please click here

For full details and to sign up for a 14 day free trial of Bitesize Irish Gaelic please click here.

By Susan Byron author of Irelands Hidden Gems.com

Top ten Irish Christmas traditions - old fashioned and modern Ireland combined

The magic of Grafton Street in Dublin at Christmas

Christmas in Ireland embodies these top ten traditions and less we get too twee (I have included the then and now versions)....

1: Christmas Cakes and Puddings:

Then: People complain that Christmas starts too early these days. Halloween is barely over and the shops have their decorations up. But in actual fact Irish Mammys would have had the Christmas Cakes and Puddings, a rich fruit and nut combination laced with whiskey well made by October at the latest, in order for them to have time enough to mature properly before the big day.

Now: We are more likely to buy smaller (perhaps even gluten free versions) from artisan food shops, bakeries and farmers markets.

2. The 8th December

Then: The feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day was traditionally the day families came 'up from the country' to do their Christmas shopping in one of the larger towns like Dublin, Cork or Galway.

Now: Apart from the facility to shop online 24/7 it is pretty much open season in many of the large shopping centers, like Dundrum and the Kildare Village Outlet from November.

However, there is still something magical about strolling down Henry Street or Grafton St in Dublin, Shop Street in Galway or Patrick Street in Cork at Christmas time.

Read More: The top ten Irish Christmas traditions that make the season - PHOTOS

3. Visit to Santa:

Most likely you would have composed your list and letter to Santa before this but this was the day you showed your face and were on your best behavior.

Then: We always went to see Santa in Switzers (now Brown Thomas’) on Grafton St who cleverly had a sack of blue presents for boys and pink for the girls. Switzers had the best Christmas windows and we would have spent hours (if we were let) with our noses pressed up against them, I am happy to say that Brown Thomas has continued that tradition and all of their windows nationwide are a sight to behold at Christmas.

Now: We have ‘Santa Experiences’ at Bunratty, Belvedere House, Glendeer Pet Farm, Ailwee Caves that are booked up months in advance.

4. The Christmas tree:

Then: Normally didn’t go up till almost Christmas and it would have been an ordinary spruce, from the Dublin mountains, no fancy imported breeds back in County Clare, where I now live, a holly bush was the handier and preferred tree of choice. My Aunts in Whitehall only ever had a small artificial Christmas tree which we thought was very exotic altogether, though undoubtedly a fire hazard, it is a wonder it didn’t go up in smoke as the lights were connected to the light socket in the ceiling.

Now: had a wide variety of imported (non-shed trees) as well as any amount of pseudo cyber trees like the one in O’Connell St which has been ditched this year in favor of a REAL tree.

5. Candle in the window:

Then: This was lit on Christmas eve to signal to Mary & Joseph that they were welcome at our house. as well as any stranger in need of warmth and sustenance.

Now: We have a permanent candle in the window of Aras an Uachtarain thanks to President Mary Robinson who famously re-adopted this custom during her term of office, to remember all of the emigrants that had left Ireland and let them know the candle in the window would always be lighting to remember them show them their way home.

Read More: The top ten best places to celebrate Christmas in Ireland

6. Midnight Mass:

Then: We did not go as children because we were tucked up in bed in case Santa caught us out, but the adults did often after a good night in the pub and then there would be more merriment and sampling of the ham, mince pies and whiskey no doubt.

Now: Midnight Mass is as early as 7pm to facilitate families with young children (and no doubt curb the pub exodus) and a lot of older people especially watch it on television.

7. Christmas dinner:

Then: Christmas dinner was very much a family affair and woe betide you if you did not make it home for dinner on Christmas Day, which was served about lunchtime and consisted of roast turkey, stuffing ham, grave, and vegetables namely the dreaded brussel sprouts that were only ever available at Christmas back in days (no loss many would still say). Christmas pudding or trifle, a layer of spongy jelly with custard and cream and a generous sprinkling of 100’s and 1000’s was served for desert. After which there would not be a peep out of anybody for the afternoon, while Chitty Bang Bang or the Sound of Music droned away to itself on the television.

Now: While stereo-typically it is still a family affair, many extended families have opened their doors and arms to embrace new traditions and cultural differences. Gone are the days of gnawing at a huge turkey carcass for a week. Many buy oven-ready or go out to eat in style on the day.

8. The Panto:

Then: The pantomime in the Gaeity or Olympia Theatre was the next big outing for us on St Stephens Day (boxing day) or sometime after. Our Aunts very kindly took us each year and we loved sitting in the grand circle and roaring ‘behind you’ at Maureen Potter et al. Afterwards, we always visited the Moving Crib on Parnell Square, which is still there 50 odd years later.

The top ten best Irish Christmas food and drink treats

Now: Kids are more likely to go to Funderland in the RDS or Ice-skating, while the adults go horse-racing or do something charitable like a 25 km run or fun swim (sometimes both) or head off up the mountains for a hike.

9. New Years Eve:

Then: was never a big deal in Ireland, it used to be the night of the ;dress dance' with plenty of Ri Ra and Ruaille Buaille (good fun) but mostly people watched Gaybo on the RTE (Irish television) which kicked off 50 years ago this year from Christchurch Cathedral in Dublin.

Now: This year's New Year’s Eve in Dublin is set to be huge with fireworks and a free open air concert to signal the start of The Gathering in 2013. While down the country we are more likely to be at home or at impromptu parties in our neighbors' houses, due to the price of drink out and (quite rightly) very strict drink-driving laws.

10. 6th January:

Then: The feast of the Epiphany, was the day when Christmas officially ended and the decorations were taken down and put away for yet another year. In the West of Ireland it was called Little Christmas or Nollaig na mBan (women’s Christmas) where the men got to do all the work and prepare a meal for the ladies of the house.

Now: In the West at least, the sisterhood has embraced this old tradition, wholeheartedly, over the last few years with many specially organized (ladies only) events.

By Susan Byron author of Irelands Hidden Gems.com and Where to Eat, Sleep & Play in Ireland 2013

St Brigid, a pagan goddess turned christian saint in Ireland

Read more: St. Brigid’s Day, Feb. 1, marks start of Celtic Spring

Read more: How to make a Saint Brigid's Cross - SEE VIDEO

Spring in Ireland officially starts on St Brigids Day which is February the 1st in our calendar? Which may not be accurate as this is a celebration that has its roots along way back in pre-christian times, some 6000 years ago actually when there was no written tradition. Like many other cultures around the world female deities ruled supreme, the similarities between Egyptian mythology and Irish mythology being quite remarkable? For example most people will be familiar with Egyptian ritual from the Book of the Dead, of Isis breathing life into the mummified corpse, well not many know that the same scene is depicted in stone at the foot of a high cross in Ireland.

Similarly our Goddess, had a sacred cow that suckled a king, the same as Queen Hatshepsut in Egypt. Indian and many other cultures that revered the cow as a symbol of nurturing. In fact up until the 12th century children were baptised with milk in Ireland. Fascinating or obvious? these ancient races relied on the land so it is no wonder they revered the female Goddesses that embodied and symbolized mother earth for them. She had to be appeased and celebrated to insure the fertility of the land, animals and people. Celtic mythology holds that the chieftains slept with the goddesses in a mating ritual that crossed the boundaries of physical and metaphysical as these Goddesses could shape shift into birds and other mythical creatures. She could be ‘an old hag’ in human form standing at a crossroads, or the triple goddesses ‘Moriggan’ in the tale of the Tain or the ‘banshee’ in latter years foretelling death in a family.

Having infused tradition in Ireland with a mixture of reverence and fear, for thousands of years prior to Christianity creeping into Ireland, its highly understandable that our ancestors would have been a tad reluctant to banish her completely, which coincidentally is about the time she seems to have morphed into the Christian St Brigid we know about today? Although the signs were there from the start that this was no ordinary mortal woman?

Apparently or so the story goes and we Irish never let the truth get in the way of a good story, when St Brigid was trying to wrestle enough land on which to build her monastery in Kildare from the high king of Leinster, he said that she could have as much land as her cloak would cover. Where upon Brigid laid down her cloak and it magically spread out to cover several hundred acres....!

To read more about Irish Culture and Traditions visit www.irelands-hidden-gems.com/irish-culture.html or visit the excellent Museum of Country Life in Castlebar either in person or online http://www.irelands-hidden-gems.com/museum-of-country-life.html

Beannachtai na Feile Bride by Susan Byron author of Irelands Hidden Gems.com

Read more: St. Brigid’s Day, Feb. 1, marks start of Celtic Spring

Read more: How to make a Saint Brigid's Cross - SEE VIDEO

Keeping warm: Foxford Woollen Mills has winter all wrapped up in Ireland

Ireland is still caught up an icy Arctic spell of wintry weather that has brought a festive touch to Ireland's landscape albeit a couple of weeks too early. Never mind we need cheering up and warming up and what better way then 'throw'ing on something handwoven in Ireland.

Foxford Woollen Mills has been doing just that for generations. It nestles quietly in the shadow of Nephin mountain right in the heart of Mayo and is well worth a visit should you ever come to Ireland. The drive there takes you through high mountain valleys of amber, gold and purple heathers and inky blue loughs, past woolly sheep grazing on emerald green patches of spikey grass snatched here and there from the roadside bogs lined with stacked brown turf.

All of these earthy colors show up in the beautiful hand-woven rugs, blankets and tweeds that have been made at Foxford Woollen Mills for over 100 years now, in the timeless designs of plaid, herringbone & houndstooth. Wrapping yourself up in one of their throws made from the softest lambs wool imaginable rugs is like stepping into an Irish landscape. Which is not something you will find in any mass produced product?

This is Irish tradition at its best, begun in the 1890’s by one seriously ambitious Sister of Charity, Mother Agnes Morragh Bernard to alleviate poverty in the aftermath of the famine. This small mill has survived just about everything, depressions, recessions, water shortages, fire, debt you name it to make it into the 21st century. From its very first order in 1892 for 500 blankets from Ireland's first department store Clery's in Dublin, it went on to become a household name here and throughout the world.

A Foxford blanket was a typical wedding gift in my mothers day and some 50 years on, it is still keeping her family warm....

For the full story visit www.irelands-hidden-gems.com/foxford-woollen-mills.html

Susan Byron author of www.irelands-hidden-gems.com