Last year, on January 1st, I made a New Year’s resolution not to say thank you anymore and 12 months later, I’m pleased to say that it was a commitment I mostly kept.
Lest you think I became an ill-mannered cabóg sadly lacking in basic manners, I was still expressing my thanks, but using a phrase that everyone knows but that we are slow to use for a myriad of reasons.
So since last January 1st, I resolved to always convey gratitude by saying go raibh maith agat, a phrase that we don’t hear often enough, because for all that polls show Irish people love their language and want it to be more visible, we’re often conditioned to think that its only for use with other Gaeilgeoirí or at events specifically designed to promote the language, or that its for those who have a fluency greater than we can master.
Visibility is enormously important for a living language, as is preservation: its why the work done by the late Manchán Magan in gathering words, and reminding us of the richness of our language, is so important. The uptick in content as Gaeilge on social media – from young people in particular – is also hugely positive, and that positivity is strongly building momentum for more engagement, more learning, more demand for the language to be recognised as a central part of who we are.
Most days I am now reminded of a word I had forgotten, or hear a phrase for the first time, and am captured once again at the draíocht in the unique sound and the old echo that stirs a recognition from somewhere deep in the tangle of our DNA.
There are literally hundreds of accounts to follow on social media, doing a sterling job of sharing phrases like “rámhailligh na Nollaig” – losing track of time over the Christmas period – or sharing information about classes, or encouraging us to use the Gaeilge that we have and not to be afraid of making mistakes or feeling foolish about pronunciation.
We moved house in recent years and started going to a local mass as Gaeilge, where the choir and much of the congregation seem to be mostly made up of the sort of learned and deeply knowledgeable people that I’ve always been slightly in awe of: people with a depth and breadth of eolas about Irish and history and music and composition and etymology and musicology and things that matter a great deal. Bíonn comhrá sabhair le fáil ina measc siúd.
To me, almost everything sounds better as Gaeilge: there’s a richness and musicality that’s not always found elsewhere, and at Christmas my favourite carols are those uniquely Gaelic sounds, sometimes wrapped in an ancient traditional air, such as Carúl Loch Garman, or Seán Óg Ó Tuama’s achingly beautiful Suantraí na Maighdine
But there’s no point is loving the language if it remains a well-kept secret while the country turns into pit stop for Microsoft and Starbucks, and while I speak Irish everyday, the language would benefit – and so would we – from making it central to everyday public exchanges we have with scores of people in shops and cafés and parks and supermarkets.
So I took the small step of trying to always say go raibh maith agat in 2025 and it taught me a few things:
First of all, we say thank you a lot, probably more than we realise, so swapping it out for go raibh maith agat meant I was having dozens of exchanges a week as Gaeilge with strangers, or at least with people I don’t know well. And that was lovely.
Secondly, sometimes, as expected, people responded with ‘you’re welcome’ but I was pleasantly surprised by how many said, or came around to saying, fáilte romhat, or ná habair é or slán leat. This gave me a whole year of warm cosy feelings to be honest, and sometimes a whole conversation would ensue as Gaeilge which was marvellous and felt part of the rise in goodwill and positivity towards the language. In truth, whatever very small service I felt I might be doing for our language was repaid a hundred-fold in how delighted I was in the responses I received.
Thirdly, a very significant number of people told me that they wished they had greater proficiency in the language, to which I would usually reply that I often felt the same but that it was good to use what we had, and to listen to Raidió na Gaeltachta, or sign up for a class, or follow content creators, and include Gaeilge in our everyday life.
Of course, there were many occasions where I forgot and said ‘thank you’, but that’s the pattern with all resolutions. But making 2025 a year of mostly go raibh maith agat felt very good to me. Go raibh maith agat, by the way, as you all likely know, means ‘may goodness be yours’ – a lovely way of thanking someone.
Our language is all around us too, in place names and historical references which seem to be getting more attention of late. The surging nationalism being seen across Europe is also being expressed in a search for identity and belonging here, in a country where centuries of occupation was accompanied by a deliberate, sustained attempt to destroy our ancient culture. As I have written before, the most remarkable thing about Gaeilge is not that it has diminished, but that it managed to survive such sustained oppression at all. But it did – and whether the naysayers like it or not, is it part of our DNA: woven into our collective memory, a vital, pulsing thread in our history, shaping who we are as a people.
So for 2026, I’ll add more to the daily exchanges: Slán always, instead of ‘goodbye’: Gabh mo leithscéal, instead of ‘excuse me’. Labhair í agus mairfidh sí. Tá an teanga fós linn.