Not to brag, but UW-Milwaukee students are somewhat famous in Donegal, Ireland.
“Apparently, all of the locals start asking, ‘Are the Milwaukees here yet?’” Andrew Kincaid said. “We were walking down a little street, and this woman came running out of her house, (calling) ‘Are you the Milwaukees?’ This woman hosted Milwaukee students for over 25 years, and now they come back and their kids come back (to visit).”
Kincaid, an associate professor of English and the director of UWM’s Celtic Studies program, led this year’s summer study abroad in Gleann Cholm Cille, a district in southwest Donegal County. The annual trip allows students to spend three weeks at an Irish language learning school called Oideas Gael, which specializes in teaching adult language learners of all levels.
The surrounding area is unique because it’s a Gaeltacht – a region of the country where Irish, not English, the predominant language.
Cultural education
This year marks the 31st anniversary of the study abroad. The trip was conceived by John Gleeson, an Irish immigrant who founded the Celtic Studies program at UW-Milwaukee, who was himself a former student of the man who founded Oideas Gael. For those 31 years, its purpose has remained the same: “For students to be immersed in the Irish language,” said Kincaid, who is Irish himself.
Students live in cottages in Gleann Cholm Cille and spend five hours each day in language classes at Oideas Gael, followed by an evening activity like singing, dancing or watching films. Each Friday, the students present a short skit featuring the vocabulary they’ve learned during the week. “And then everybody, of course, goes to the pub after,” Kincaid laughed.
But the learning goes beyond the classroom. The students also learn about Irish culture and history through field trips. One day, Kincaid led the cohort into Donegal Town, a market town established by the British in 1610. The students toured the streets; visited Donegal Castle, the ancestral seat of the O’Donnell clan; and explored Donegal Abbey, a famous Franciscan monastery. The group’s second field trip took them to the city of Derry, made famous by the show “Derry Girls” and the site of the beginning of The Troubles, a bloody period of partisan fighting over the status of Northern Ireland.
“The person giving us our tour was a Bloody Sunday survivor,” said Hailey Fox, a political science major who became interested in Celtic Studies as a way to learn about Irish history and politics. “Everybody talks about the political state of things, but at the end of the day, people come together and are there for each other in big ways and small ways, and you see it in everyday life here.”
There have been smaller excursions too, which have been just as valuable to the students’ education.
“I’ve been taking them to a lot of mountains, to beaches. We’ve been swimming. I’ve been showing them the archaeology and explaining the landscape to them,” said Kincaid.
It’s as immersed in Irish language and culture as you can get.
The significance of language
At first glance, learning Irish may seem like a questionable choice. Most everyone in Ireland uses English and there are only a few Gaeltacht regions in the country. It’s not easy to learn, either.
“Irish is such an old language; it’s much older than English. We’re not used to the way that different letters are put together and how they sound,” Fox said. “For example, a ‘bh’ in Irish sounds like a ‘v’ or ‘w.’”
But, said Kincaid, there’s never been a better time to pick up the language.
“Irish is seeing a big revival,” he added, pointing to a surge in Irish word-of-the-day games, Instagram accounts, and even apps that connect Irish speakers in pubs. Students learn Irish in the classroom. There are also special schools where classes are all taught in Irish, and “they cannot get teachers fast enough,” Kincaid said.
There’s a long, bloody history as to why Irish fell into disuse. When the British colonized the isle, they tried to quash the native culture by forbidding Irish music, dancing, festivals and language. Now, Irish is experiencing a resurgence as citizens begin to reclaim their linguistic heritage.
For psychology major Emma Corcoran, who joined the study abroad trip, learning Irish is a way to connect with her grandfather, who immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1950s.
“He sat on the board for Irish events, took my family to Irish cultural experiences, and taught us as much Irish history as he could,” she said in an email. “But he never spoke a word of the language he grew up listening to. Ireland’s tragic past forced millions of Irish people to be embarrassed of our cultural language.”
Reclaiming that culture has drawn Corcoran back to her family’s roots and made her proud to be part of a linguistic tradition that is not just surviving, but beginning to thrive.
Celtic Studies connections
It’s one thing to learn about the language, history, and culture of Ireland in her Celtic Studies classes in the U.S., but traveling to Ireland broadened Fox’s horizons further than she thought possible. She’s especially grateful because she had help to get there: She’s the recipient of UWM’s Berquist Scholarship, which provides financial support for students studying abroad.
“For me, earning scholarships means I have to do everything I can to respect the people who have given money for scholarships, and that means using it in an impactful way,” Fox said. “This is a learning experience, just being there and having that cross-cultural knowledge. That alone will have such a big impact on my education. Immersing ourselves in the culture has been really helpful and amazing.”
Kincaid would love for everyone to be able to have a similar experience. The trip, he said, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live, study and explore Ireland for a relatively small price tag, compared to doing such a journey independently.
The next best thing might be to visit Milwaukee’s Irish Fest, held every year in August, where the Celtic Studies program has a tent. “You can come down and they can practice Irish with us,” Kincaid joked.
Please, practice speaking Irish, added Corcoran.
“Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam (A country without language, a country without soul). Indigenous languages are so deeply important to culture,” she wrote. “An indigenous language dies every two weeks. Learn the language of your culture and keep it alive as long as you can. Irish reminds Ireland of the resilience and courage of our heritage.”
