Lynette Fay: Get ready for a celebration of all things as Gaeilge in Béal Feirste

WE gathered just outside Áras na Gaeilge, the then very modern home of Irish language studies on campus.

I was nervous but very excited. Myself and fellow students from what was then known as University College Galway were going on a road trip to Belfast for Oireachtas na Samhna.

This would be my first trip to the Oireachtas. I didn’t know what to expect.

The best way I can describe this annual festival is a gathering of Gaeilgeoirí (Irish speakers) to celebrate and promote indigenous arts and culture.

Singing, dancing, dialogue, music competitions, all conducted through the Irish language and including some new compositions, championing new writing in Irish, breathing new life into old songs, poems, writing.

It is the mecca for anyone interested in the Irish language. All dialects are spoken, celebrated. Think the Fleadh for Irish.

It’s also great craic and sees families and communities come together each year for the get together.

Until then though, it was a world that I didn’t understand.

By the same token, my peers didn’t understand my world either.

The bus arrived. My stomach started to churn. It was green, white and gold. We would be travelling to Belfast in a moving tricolour, and staying in the youth hostel on Sandy Row. Who organised this trip?

I remember there being a nervous excitement in the group. Not many of them had ever been to Belfast. In truth, neither had I. I had deliberately left the north to go to Galway to escape the conflict.

My peers then presumed that I knew Belfast well and before I knew it, I had assumed the role of the tour guide, trying, very poorly, to explain the history of the city. The truth is I knew very little about Béal Feirste cois cuain at that time.

I now call the city home and was honoured to host the prestigious Gradaim Chumarsáide awards last night in City Hall.

These awards acknowledge the best of Irish language media across TV, radio and online – which is now a booming business both in Ireland and worldwide.

Thirty years ago, TG4 was approaching its first birthday, there was no sign of GaelTok, social media and very few Irish language programmes on state broadcaster channels.

RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta – the Irish language state radio station – was the only constant, along with Irish language programmes on BBC Radio ulster.

Now, we have a growing, in-demand sector making world-class content, much of which is made in Belfast.

As has always been the case in Belfast, there were pioneers on the ground working selflessly to promote Irish and the indigenous arts who worked tirelessly to bring the Oireachtas to the city for the first time.

Thirty years ago, Gearóid Ó Cairrealláin was Uachtarán Chonradh na Gaeilge (President of the Gaelic League) – he would have been in the thick of it over the next few days, and loved the fact that Belfast was hosting once again.

He was honoured last night at an event in Raidió Fáilte, the community station he helped set up 40 years ago.

His son Naoise – Móglaí Bap from Kneecap – is performing at the festival tonight. The gig is a sell-out, as you might expect, but Kneecap’s presence will be well documented on socials and guarantee online visibility.

Ó ghlúin go glúin, generations will celebrate over the next few days, that’s the beauty of it.

Social media has been buzzing in the build-up to the return of An tOireachtas to Belfast. The Irish News, Meon Eile, BBC Gaeilge will be churning out digital content over the next few days. A new generation will experience An tOireachtas their way with a range of contemporary fringe events to come.

It is serendipitous that the current Uachtarán Chonradh na Gaeilge, Ciarán Mac Giolla Bhéin, is also a Belfast native, and that after much delay, the Irish language commissioner is finally in post.

The official announcement was made on Tuesday. Comhghairdeas le Pól Deeds, another Belfast man, who has been appointed to the role.

For anyone who is learning Irish, curious about the expression of arts, get yourself down to the ICC, Europa or Ulster Hall this weekend and soak up the atmosphere.

I look forward to the craic and the catch-ups. It’s always different as Gaeilge.