Galway summer college students’ remix goes global – as Gaeilge!

Suddenly the Irish language is cool again!

Teenagers attending a Coláiste Samraidh in the Connemara Gaeltacht are helping to revive the image of the Irish language through an upbeat ‘as Gaeilge’ translations of modern pop songs that have gone viral on the internet.

The Cailiní agus Buachaillí of Coláiste Lurgan in Indreabhán have recorded their version of Avicii’s ‘Wake Me Up’, with the lyrics of the chart-topping song performed as Gaeilge.

It has been an absolute internet sensation and in just four days since being released it went viral and had been viewed more than 1.1 million times on video sharing website YouTube. It continues to rack up the ‘views’.

This latest video, ‘Wake Me Up’, is the most successful so far in a series of modern Gaeilge twists on popular and well known songs that the teens attending the Irish college have been involved in.

It was performed by the students of Chúrsa Three, who were at the Coláiste for the past three weeks. A new ‘batch’ of Gaeilgeoirí has arrived this week. 

When it is put to manager of the Irish language summer school that the performances have made Irish ‘cool’ again, Micheál Ó Foighil is quick to point out that: “Irish was always cool”.

“It’s just another way for people to engage with the language. Irish was always cool. The quality of production is good, which helps people to engage. People have a huge grá for the language, end of story. They may not have a fluency to express that grá but scratch beneath the surface and people love Irish,” he said.

Mr Ó Foighil stressed that Coláiste Lurgan is not a performing arts school, it is a language school and this is just one of the activities that goes on during students’ three weeks’ stay. Past pupils and teachers help in the production, which he agrees is very professional, but the children involved in each video are the ‘real stars’.

The first video that was recorded by students attending the course was Thriller, a Michael Jackson tribute, done four years ago when it was “teaming rain for a week”. It took off from there and now there are over 100 videos on YouTube.

This Summer around 1,800 pupils will have attended Coláiste Lurgan during four, three weeks’ courses in the Summer. The Coláiste Samhradh is on the go now for around 40 years.

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