Sometimes we don’t realise we’re in the middle of a period of significant change until we take our nose out of the everyday and zoom out. Case in point: the revival in interest and grá for the Irish language that is being reflected and fostered across the arts. This isn’t just some short phase. It’s a game-changing moment for Irish culture and identity across a multitude of genres.

We see this reflected in the statistics — the most recent census in 2022 reported an increase of 6 per cent since 2016 in the number of people (almost 1.9 million of them) who said they could speak Irish. Unfortunately for me I was a terrible Irish student, preferring French classes in secondary school to my own native language. In my 1990s milieu, it wasn’t particularly cool to speak Irish, so my lack of progress didn’t matter much. Irish seemed all about hanging out on islands wrapped in shawls and feeling miserable, whereas French was the epitome of coolness, with its kissing on both cheeks, croissants and jaunty berets. My classmates and I who found Irish difficult put the blame on the way it was taught, and on the language itself. I now feel sad to have left school thinking Irish just “wasn’t for me”.

And yet, despite this reductive thinking, I’ve always felt strongly about the importance of the language in our culture. I’ve had the sinking feeling that by not knowing enough of it, I’ve been damaging my own relationship with my Irish identity. Discovering that my great-uncle had been an Irish-language presenter on RTE radio was a moment of slight mortification.Off beat: Áine Gallagher, a “guerrilla Irish teacher”Over the past two centuries or so there have been resurrections of interest in the language and its attendant culture, such as the late-19th-century Gaelic Revival and the Irish folk revival associated with the 1950s to 1970s. Now we’re lucky enough to be living through another period of change and a new embracing of Irishness through culture.The Irish language is cool in a totally new way — a more relaxed, but still determined, way. We can see it in music: there’s Kneecap, of course, who rap as Gaeilge. And then there are bands like Lankum and the Mary Wallopers, who have their own take on trad, proving that it’s a musical genre ripe for reimagining. Authors like Hector Ó hEochagáin and Manchán Magan have been teaching people Irish afresh through their bestselling books. In film, An Cailín Ciúin showed that the Irish language can be the perfect means to tell an impactful, universal story.In comedy we can also find a (gentle) Irish push. Take Áine Gallagher, a self-described “guerrilla Irish teacher”, who uses offbeat humour as a way of encouraging people to speak the cúpla focal they know, and learn a few more. She’s been running a campaign called Cup of Focals that uses the element of surprise to encourage people into speaking Irish. She’s also bringing her show For the Love of Milseáin (“milseáin” meaning “sweets”) to Dublin, Cork and Berlin. Gallagher’s shows are bilingual, and you can turn up with no Irish and just a sense of curiosity.• How Kneecap made the Irish language cool and sexy“We all agree Irish is ‘sexy’ now,” Gallagher says. “It’s ‘everywhere’, apparently. In reality, however, unless you’re at a Kneecap concert or the Oscars, it’s hard to actually find it. People are still too nervous to give it a go, the interest is there, but people can’t work up the courage to walk through the door.” This makes sense to me.I don’t know if it’s acknowledged enough that it can be embarrassing or even shameful when, like myself, your Irish isn’t up to scratch during an era where the language is cool again.But we can perhaps take a sos beag (little break) from our anxieties about all of this. From what I can see in the Irish arts, there’s a far more welcoming and relaxed attitude now towards Irish than what people of my elder millennial generation experienced in school. It’s OK not to be perfect.People are welcome to chat using a mix of Irish and English, and don’t have to understand the dreaded modh coinníollach tense. Bilingual podcasts, such as How to Gael, are hugely popular. There’s a queer céilí club night called Sí-bín. And did you know that even Peig Sayers, author of one of most-feared Irish language books when I was in school, is being reclaimed as a feminist hero? Times have changed, and luckily for those of us who have to catch up, there are now plenty of fun ways to give a focal about Irish through the arts. Go han-mhaith ar fad.