Resources:

I'm using 'Now You're Talking/Irish On Your Own' (long out of print but available here with audio and some grammar explanation), mostly because it uses Ulster Irish, which is what I want to focus on (I'm from near Belfast and I'm hoping to go to the Donegal Gaeltacht in the summer) - but even if you'd rather learn a different dialect it's still great

Duolingo is surprisingly good! I think if you learn the grammar alongside doing the exercises you'll be fine; I feel like people who dislike it tend to avoid grammar and learn set phrases.

I have an advantage because I live in Ireland but I'm looking at attending some classes soon and if I do I'll share resources from that :)

I've heard this Memrise course is quite good, but I haven't tried it yet. It's in the Connaught dialect, which is the most common/closest to 'standard' Irish.

TG4 and I think RTÉ have Irish-language programmes (not sure if they're available outside Ireland), and there's an Irish-language radio station, Raidió na Gaeltachta, but I'm nowhere near at that level lol

All the textbooks I've found are upwards of £35, unfortunately

does anybody speak irish? i'd make the thread but i've only recently started to learn it and i don't even know how to say 'practice thread' haha

salut ! j'apprends le français depuis environ sept ans et je suis en train de l'étudier pour mes 'A-levels'. mon français n'est pas du tout parfait, mais je crois que mon niveau est entre B1 et B2 donc je serais heureuse d'aider :)

j'utilisais languagesonline pour pratiquer la grammaire, c'est bon aussi d'écouter les informations en français (NewsInSlowFrench ou France24) car c'est plus facile de comprendre si on sait déjà ce qui se passe dans le monde. je vous conseille aussi de lire les journaux et pour ceux qui ne parlement pas assez courrament il y a un journal pour les enfants : 1jour1actu.com

i hate the concept of santa and the whole thing about 'goodness'

i grew up in a very middle-class area and i remember a kid in my class crying when we were about six because we were talking about the gifts we got and most people got bikes and expensive toys and games consoles and stuff and he got crayons (i think) because his mum couldn't afford anything else. and he thought it meant santa didn't love him and he hadn't been good enough

equal state distribution of christmas presents when

history, which kind of makes it worse i think

i saw it on tv ages ago but i found it on dailymotion here

holy shit nvm the best part is when riley says she's a communist and he goes batshit and pulls out the us flag and says 'look at this and choose your next words very very carefully'

you cannot make this shit up

this clip doesn't even include the best part of the episode where the teacher tells them communism bad bc groucho marx funny and karl marx boring

in north korea, children are fed propaganda that teaches them not to question the system

one of these

o7

yeah, people who don't recognise northern ireland as a legitimate state refer to it as the north of ireland, i can see how that can be confusing though (some people say 'occupied six counties' instead lol)

but even in the south people don't really associate british imperialism with capitalism, ireland is unfortunately a lot more reactionary than its history would imply

this is in the north of Ireland

you're still right though

if you liked monte cristo, les miserables is really good! not 'fun' per se given the subject matter but despite the size and its reputation it's not that serious, as you say (it's actually pretty funny and the bits people complain about, like when hugo goes off on hundred-page-long tangents about the sewer system or the church or whatever, are some of the most interesting chapters imo). i haven't read it in a few years but iirc it's about the later socialist(? more left-wing anyway) french revolution, not the main liberal one. even if i'm wrong there it's still interesting

unrelated to anything you mentioned but one of my favourite non-heavy novels is the secret history by donna tartt (satire of new england academic elitism, very funny & beautifully written),

ik this post isn't about ireland itself but the cognitive dissonance among self-declared-left-wing protestant-raised gen z (and i assume also other generations) in ulster is genuinely unreal it's almost laughable. i do understand opposition to the ira, especially from people who don't know a lot about its origins and the british violence it was reacting to (honestly the early ira was good but the ira of the troubles does deserve a LOT of criticism), bc the wounds are so fresh, & i don't really expect people to support them

but the way they manage to justify opposition to irish republicanism in general is unbelievable

i'm from a hardcore loyalist area where people think even considering yourself irish, let alone supporting violence, is borderline terrorism, and i know socialists who say acab, are supposedly anti-racist, would never even consider supporting british colonialism elsewhere, etc., but tie themselves in knots to support the settler colonialist 'state' that is the north of ireland

i don't get it at all because it isn't even from a place of ignorance, they are aware that it is a settler state etc. and they understand that as white people they're oppressors of other races. but they seem to think that in ireland they're somehow equally oppressed. i think it's because as the first post-good friday agreement generation we were raised not to see each other as enemies, but it's contributed to this sense that the troubles developed out of nowhere and that neither side is more culpable than the other. there's also a huge #BothSides type thing that says that loyalists and republicans were Equally Bad and that we should all just forget about everything that happened and sing kumbaya together (although of course while continuing to uphold the colonial status quo!) which is very funny because the people who say this usually also (rightfully) oppose all lives matter. recently a girl i know who would (again rightfully) be outraged if somebody downplayed racism said 'literally only catholics care about sectarianism' hmmmm damn that's crazy i wonder why??? like i get it from actual right-wingers but i just can't comprehend the thought process involved in saying that but understanding the concept of oppression

also this is tangential and like i'm willing to admit i'm wrong on this but i don't really believe in the concept of mutual 'sectarianism' like a) irish republicanism has never been exclusively catholic, many of the early revolutionaries (wolfe tone, the young irelanders, etc) were presbyterian and b) none of it has never even been about religion on our side, like i'm sure there are a handful of old people who think protestants are godless heathens or whatever but 'protestant' is just a synonym for 'unionist' (bc pretty much all unionists were protestant and vice versa) and the focus on catholicism was just because almost all irish people were catholic. idk it just seems insane, like as if white settlers in south africa managed to convince everyone that their racism and a black south african opposing that racism are the same thing

sorry this ended up being very long and unorganised. tl;dr deep ulster is a hellhole