Contact and About - Bitesize Irish

Bitesize Irish is from Luimneach / Limerick in Ireland. We are your direct connection to practising the Irish language every day. Our team has Irish ‘running through our veins‘. Bitesize Irish is what you might call a micro-business. We’re personal. If you’re a member, you’ll get to know us by name.

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Eoin Ó Conchúir

FOUNDER

Dia dhuit! I started Bitesize Irish in 2009 to give you a way to practice Irish every day. I quickly realised that lessons would be no good without lots of audio. Since then, I have been developing ways of bringing the Irish language into your every day life.

Living in Luimneach / Limerick, but I grew up in Inis / Ennis in County Clare. The Irish language is my first language – it’s my family’s language. I attended primary and secondary schools in Irish. I love the vibrancy around Gaeilge, and seeing others find a deeper part of themselves through the Irish language.

EMMA

COMMUNITY MANAGER

Emma specialises in helping our members daily to learn the Irish language.

Having attended an Irish-speaking primary school it seems that I have always found a way to incorporate the Irish language into my life since then. During my college years I was lucky enough to spend time in the Munster Gaeltachtaí, one being only a 15 minute drive from my home.

I got to experience the Irish language outside of Ireland for the first time on my year abroad in Bonn, Germany where I attended Irish classes with German students who were interested in our country and language. After finishing my degree I travelled to Leipzig in Germany where I now teach Irish in the University here. I discovered that having a community or group, no matter how big or small, to support one another when learning a language is very important.

Watch our interview with Emma

SIOBHÁN

FACILITATOR & INSTRUCTOR

Having been fortunate enough to have Irish as my primary home language and having had the opportunity to hear Irish all around me since I was a child, my goal is to help others make Irish their daily language, too. I, too, can understand the struggles of language learning as I am currently learning Russian and have dabbled in other European languages. For the past few years, I have been helping learners of all ages master the Irish language, both online and in a classroom setting. I received a Diploma in Applied Irish and Translation while studying in Carna, Connemara.

I was born in Galway but currently live in Tipperary. Since 2016, I have been helping members of Bitesize Irish understand the intricacies of the Irish language and offer opportunities to practice their conversational Irish, all with the goal of helping learners use Irish on a daily basis.

NIALL

LEARNING CONTENT DEVELOPER

Niall regularly creates new online Irish language learning content for our members.

Being from Tyrone, I didn’t speak Irish growing up, but as soon as I started to study it at secondary school it became my favourite subject, one that I followed to University College Dublin, where I studied Modern Irish, Old Irish and Irish Folklore. I then moved to London and taught English as a foreign language for many years, something which gave me a great insight into all the joys and difficulties of language learning, from phonetics and grammar to personal motivation and culture, everything that affects a learner.

Eventually I brought my experience back to my first love, an Ghaeilge, and I’ve been promoting Irish, teaching Irish and translating into Irish ever since. I’m now living back in Dublin again, in, quite appropriately, an Baile Gaelach – Irishtown.

Watch out interview with Niall

BEN

IRISH LANGUAGE INSTRUCTOR

The Irish language has been a constant companion of mine since, when I was four years, my family re-located from Dublin to the wilds of the West Kerry Gaeltacht, Corca Dhuibhne.

Playing gaelic football for An Ghaeltacht as a child the language was a secret weapon which we would deploy to wrong-foot an English-speaking opposition! Moving to Galway city to study at the university there in the late 1990s, the Irish language was a portal into a rich and vibrant Irish language social scene full of drama, music and after-hours pints of creamy porter.

Though my primary degree is in Psychology, I returned to the Irish language when studying for a higher diploma in Applied Communications as Gaeilge in 2001. Since then I have worked in the Irish language media, variously as a radio presenter for the national broadcaster RTE RnaG, as a music correspondent and presenter for TG4 and as a critic and arts writer for newspapers and journals such as Foinse, Tuairisc and Nós.

As well as the team members above, many of our original lessons were written by Audrey Nickel, in Santa Cruz, California. As an advanced adult learner with valuable perspectives on learning, her lessons came from a stance of empathy, not assuming any prior knowledge of the language.

Contact Bitesize Irish by Email

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