As I mentioned in my previous post, I live in the West of Ireland. More specifically, I live in Connemara, in a place called Carna. It's really just a place on a map, there aren't really many landmarks or unifying features to turn it into anything more than that. Still, it's home.
I grew up with my parents in an Irish speaking household. Similarly, both the primary and secondary schools I attend(ed) are all-Irish schools. Well, they are in theory, but in my secondary school, the principal is always complaining that we don't speak enough Irish amongst ourselves. He has a very good point. Teenagers around here all speak English far more than Irish. In a school of over a hundred students, a lot less than that will reply in Irish, if you speak to them in Irish.
If I'm honest though, I can't complain about the education I've received here. True, there was a lack of subjects when I was choosing my final 7 Leaving Cert subjects, but overall, anything I've wanted to do has been accommodated. I'm the only one in my year studying Honours Maths, but I've never been pressured to drop to Ordinary just because I was the only one, either by students or teachers.
The people are nice too. No one has ever given me grief about my hand, or, really, about anything. Back here it's a really close-knit community, you know that everyone really will work together if something really important comes up. But you do have that old thing of everyone knowing everyone else. There are no secrets here, anything that happens is known by the whole village within hours. There's a great Irish expression, "dúirt bean liom gur dhúirt bean léi", which means, literally, "a woman told me that a woman told her". That's really how it is back here.
Naturally, there is, of course, good WiFi. The coverage is good too, provided you're willing to put up with 2G, and the occasional Vodafone fail.
Right, that's life back here covered. Till the next post :-)
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