An American soldier who used two weeks combat leave to speak Irish and ‘chill with a pint of Guinness in the Gaeltacht’? What’s all that about?
With all due respect to our native tongue, it’s pretty hard to find an Irish person bothered to speak our own language. What was it about the ‘cúpla focal’ that had our American friend so entranced?
Well for starters, he’s not your average American soldier. His name, Seamus Ó Fianghusa is something of a giveaway to the fact that he was born to an Irish father, Ó Fianghusa (Fennessy) not being the sort of name that slips off the tongue in Seoul (his mother hails from Korea).
Like many expats across the Atlantic, Seamus’ Dad reared him to be fully aware of his Irish roots when he was growing up in Brooklyn and Seamus took it upon himself to immerse himself in our native language six years back.
Fair play, apart from when I’m talking about the Seoige sisters, Sharon ni Bhreoláin or Evanne ni Chuilinn, I don’t think I’ve uttered a word of Irish in years.
And you probably don’t have much of an excuse for your negligence either. Seamus, on the other hand, was studying the language online in his spare hours when he wasn’t fighting the good fight for the ole U S of A in Afghanistan, where he spent nine months on patrol in the Logar province.
OK, so he’s able to hold a conversation in Irish better than I can. But does he know his Peig Sayers from his, eh, Peig Sayers?
Oh, the man’s committed. He started learning Irish online in 2006 and by his own admission, had pretty much mastered it a year later. Not only that, but he liked Ireland so much on his first visit in 2008 that he’s been back eight times since. EIGHT! And he was never obliged to come back, it was of his own free will.
In fact, he loves our rain-soaked, economically doomed land so much that he used two weeks of combat leave to visit the Gaeltacht in Donegal. We can only assume that all the hotels in Hawaii or other such exotic places were booked out.
As he says himself: “I was out in the middle of nowhere in Central Asia between life and death and then the next thing I am chilling out with a pint of Guinness in the Gaeltacht.”
“I pressed for those dates because I wanted to go home and sing and speak my Irish.
“I went to the Gaeltacht and I found that everyone spoke like me. I was in heaven,” he added.
God, he’s either deluded or a fierce interesting character altogether. So when we can we expect to see him on the small screen?
Seamus’ story will be shown on TG4 next Monday at 7.30pm. It’s one part of a four part documentary called ‘Dushlan’ which is about different characters captured in a variety of extraordinary circumstances or places.
In Seamus’ case, we’ll see him in New York, where he is a member of the renowned 69th ‘Fighting Irish’ regiment, in Belfast and also in the heat of battle in Afhganistan, where I’m sure his use of a few choice words would have caused confusion amongst the locals.
So what’s next for Seamus?
Not sure exactly, a few pints with Irish language tweeting sensation Stan Collymore, perhaps?
