Growing up in Macroom in the 1980s, speaking Irish wasn’t exactly cool. In fact, I did everything I could to avoid it.

My parents had a huge love for the language. They spoke Irish to each other and were actively involved in promoting it locally. But their enthusiasm wasn’t something I shared as a child.

They had spoken Irish to my eldest sister when she was young, but when she went out to play, other children laughed at her for speaking it. She turned against the language, and apart from isolated words, our parents no longer conversed with us in Irish in the same way.

They continued to speak it among themselves, but for me, it became something I was quite happy to leave behind. I was embarrassed by the Irish language and wanted very little to do with it.

It took moving to Belfast, of all places, to reconnect with a language that had been part of my family and upbringing all along. There, the Irish language was a different story; people were proud of it and wanted to speak it.

There was a vibrant community of young Irish speakers. When Northern Ireland Screen launched its Irish Language Broadcast Fund, over 20 years ago, the language flourished, funding new films, TV series, and supporting a generation of young Irish speakers to be producers, directors and storytellers.

I was lucky enough to be at a company (Waddell Media) that supported a team of young producers and me to develop and produce TV programmes through the Irish language.........

© Evening Echo