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Irish-language influencers: ‘TikTok is where young people’s eyes are nowadays’

Mollie Guidera, known to many as Múinteoir Mollie from @irishwithmollie, is among the biggest on the scene

“There’s a great tenderness that’s built into the language that I think in schools people were not aware of,” she says

Conor Capplis
Sat Dec 30 2023 - 06:00

“I’ll start with elephant. What’ll we say elephant is in Irish?” says a Limerick man holding a notebook, pen in hand.

“Eilifint, maybe?” Another replies and diligently types it into a computer.

“Perfect! All right next one: Zebra.”

“Maybe, Zebra? Is there a ‘z’ in Irish?”

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“Nah I don’t think so, use an ‘s’ instead ... and a dirty e-fada.”

When the pair decide on a translation for snake – nathair nimhe – all hell breaks loose.

The Rubberbandits-esque scene, depicting a haphazard creation of translation from English to Irish, entitled How the Irish Language was created , is the work of Séamus Lehane (32), better known as @seamboyseam on TikTok. Playing both characters in a video recorded on his phone at home, he captures the lighter side of translating.

The primary schoolteacher from Limerick shares humorous videos on Irish language and culture to some 170,000 followers on the social media platform and boasts 7.7 million likes. The scene about the animal names was his first big hit online in July 2020, racking up 220,000 views to date.

Séamus is among a growing community of Irish-language influencers, who, in one way or another, are furthering interest in the language online

“I just got a huge reaction,” Séamus says. “I wanted to make comedy, but I wanted to make things that Irish people could relate to.”

Keeping busy during the rolling pandemic lockdowns, he trialed various video styles, and soon realised he was on to something with TikToks as Gaeilge. “They did a lot better than I expected,” he says.

Séamus is among a growing community of Irish-language influencers, who, in one way or another, are furthering interest in the language online.

“My goal was always to make people laugh,” he explains. “I wasn’t really thinking of the educational side to my videos, but if people learn a bit then that’s great as well.

[ Food hacks from TikTok: How to deal with hard butter, stale baguettes and sticky clingfilm ]

“TikTok and Instagram: that’s where young people’s eyes are nowadays. It’s really important that there’s an awareness of Irish and it gets airtime and young people get exposed to it ... There’s been a few videos that have [gained popularity] in other countries and it’s amazing when you see people’s comments and reactions. A lot of people from around the world don’t even know that Ireland has a language. So in that respect it’s promoting the language. But I just think it’s important that young people can see it being used, give them an opportunity to discuss it.

“For a long time, Irish has been restricted to the classroom. You do your 40 minutes in the classroom and you don’t hear about it again until the next day. But at least if it’s on social media they’re seeing it on a more continual basis and maybe learning a bit from it too.”

As well as videos as Gaeilge, Lehane is a sharp mimic and does impressions of Irish politicians; Father Ted; comedian Tommy Tiernan; RTÉ's Brian O’Donovan and a particularly popular Conor McGregor.

Creators have gained traction offering content on the more purely educational side too. Mollie Guidera, known to many as Múinteoir Mollie from @irishwithmollie, is among the biggest on the scene. “People have this kind of grá (love) for Gaeilge,” she says.

On Instagram, where she boasts her biggest following (128,000 followers), users will find posts alternating between videos linking the language to everyday sights and flashcards around a certain theme, alongside a recording of her slow and ‘neutral’ pronunciation. She teaches people phrases that some might not have learned in school or associate with Irish such as, “I got my period”, or, “Do you have a tampon?”

“I’m trying to remove the fear and shame around the language, and embrace the fun,” she says. “We are speaking a foreign language in Ireland, and even the way we speak Hiberno-English, it is haunted by the ghost of Irish. So we have a great advantage and are able to look at structures and say: That’s why we say, ‘So it is’, or ‘To be sure, to be sure’. And yet there’s this burden that comes from having being taught it very badly maybe, and people are a bit scared of it.”

[ TikTok and Meta challenge EU’s landmark digital rules ]

With her online content, she aims to make learning the language “digestible, accessible and vibrant as possible – making Irish more meaningful, playful and relevant”, she says. She also runs a website, irishwithmollie.com, where she tutors enthusiasts around the world and offers online exercises and services such as a 24-hour Zoom drop-in room where learners can practice with each other.

Many of her students claim to have a “visceral connection with Ireland”, even if they’ve never visited, she says

“There’s a great tenderness that’s built into the language that I think in schools people were not aware of,” she says. “There’s so much to demystify about Irish ... I didn’t love it as a school subject and I don’t believe it should be an exam subject actually because it’s a living language.”

Many of her students claim to have a “visceral connection with Ireland”, even if they’ve never visited, she says. Some of her students are native to this island, but a significant proportion are part of Ireland’s large diaspora. Mollie teaches everybody from young people to those still keen to learn into their 90s. She estimates 30 per cent of her students are Irish, living in Ireland and might have studied the language in school; 40 per cent are US-based Irish diaspora; and the rest are Canadians, Australians,New Zealanders and British people.

“Connecting individuals from diverse backgrounds to our ancestral language is really at the core of what I do,” she says. “I love redefining the Irish language for a global audience. There is a great appetite for the language worldwide ... It’s resonating with people and making them feel this homesickness for Ireland or this nostalgia to [the way] our grandparents speak, which is kind of fading away with new accents or dialects of Hiberno-English.”

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Conor Capplis

Conor Capplis

Conor Capplis is a journalist with the Irish Times Group

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