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The title of the essay is ...
"Gaeilge mar mheán Cultúrtha" (Irish as a cultural medium).
And the thing that I wanted ...
the opinion that I wanted to express in that article was ...
that Irish is very important as a cultural medium and ...
what I mean is, as the carrier of a particular culture, and that's Irish language culture, firstly.
And, as well at that, Irish culture in general.
And it's very important that we're using Irish in that capacity, and not English ...
because it's .... if we use Irish, that leaves ... that means that we're ...
focusing completely on Ireland and not looking at it "through the eyes of English", as you'd say.
from the perspective of English history.
And that's very important because Ireland, and Irish culture, get the most important focus.
And, Irish culture, what's involved is ...
the Gaelic games, sean-nós dancing and singing, and so on.
And you don't have to do it through Irish, you don't have to play football or hurling though Irish, and you often hear ...
English somewhere in the Gaeltacht while the local people are playing football or hurling.
And why is that? Maybe they feel that they (the games) don't belong to their own culture, Irish language culture ...
but that they belong to, those games, that they belong to this all Irish culture, an Irish culture as part of an all Irish culture.
and that English is the main language of that culture.
I had an interest in language from I was about, I don't know, thirteen years old, maybe ...
and I had English before that and I started to learn Swedish, for example, and then when I went to university ...
it was Dutch that I did as my main subject in university and then I started to learn Irish as well.
Well you could say that I fell in love with the language.
And Irish is a wonderful language, not only because of pronunciation, for example, that the language has ...
but it's very interesting when it comes to structure.
The people are very friendly and very interesting and I like the people in Ireland and ...
certainly, it helps you to learn the language if you have an interest in the people that speak the language.
It's worth learning every language and each language has its own particular worth.
They're ... it doesn't depend ... we don't have to look at the success and the function of the language internationally, you know, and in business.
That's what people usually do. They think it's worth doing something if it makes money, but I don't think it's so.
So, Irish is very important if you want to get an understanding of Irish culture and of Irish history, certainly, and of everything Irish.
So, if you don't have Irish, you can't understand this country as well as you could if you had Irish.