“I wouldn’t be a native speaker in that I wasn’t brought up speaking Irish at home. But I was sent to a summer Irish college, Coláiste na Bhfian as a seven or eight year old. It was quite a strict place – one word of English and you’d be packed off home. That’s where I got the grá for the language, though the fact that I was meeting girls there as well could have been something to do with it. By the time I was 14 I could speak it very well – not that I speak with a deep Conamara accent or anything like that.
“I’ve found that going round the country more and more people are coming up to me speaking Irish. Even people hanging around chip shops in Galway come up to me and shout, ‘Hey Hector conas a tá tu’.
“I was in UCD last week showing some films and we had a questions and answers session in Irish in one of the biggest lecture rooms. Half of them spoke Irish and there was a good vibe going. I hate people who say it’s trendy to speak Irish…we’re Irish people and it’s something unique about us. Why should it be seen as trendy?
“My show wouldn’t work if I didn’t speak Irish – it’s as simple as that. Whether I’m with the Chippendales or in the Playboy Mansion with Hugh Hefner, who hadn’t a clue what I was saying. I was able to get away with murder when all those nice girls were passing by. I was on the set of a porn movie once and the bloke was having er, let’s say, some problems performing – in other words the wood went! I was able to turn to the camera and say ...‘nil lad an lad ag obair’ which means, ‘your man’s lad is not working properly.’ There’s no way I could have done it in English and got away with it.
“The future of Irish language depends on good teachers. If you’ve got a good teacher who shows a passion for the language it will rub off on the students. They’re getting better all the time. In the past the language was taught all wrong. They had no love for the language themselves, how could they make the pupils love it? Now they’re a lot more interested.
“With gaelscoilleanna growing all over the place, you can go to an all-Irish school in Kinnegad or Thurles or Dublin, wherever. And when you come home and put on TG4 you’ll realise that the language has been assimilated into the wider culture.”
“Meas mór ag dul amach go dtí an Irish posseeeeeeee…”