iteach Aerach Gaelach
By Eoin Mc Evoy (sé/é)
With AerachAiteachGaelach, we seek to upskill our members through workshops in acting, writing, sewing, dancing and other artforms, and to increase the representation of queer characters and stories in Irish language media. Agus tá Corcaigh linn! Cork has joined this queer Irish language renaissance through the joint activities of AerachAiteachGaelach and the people of Cléire (Cape Clear). Under the direction of island language planner, Ruairí Ó Donnabháin, the island held its first ever LGBTQ+ Pride Festival, Bród Chléire 2023, a roaring success full of queer music, poetry and conversation through Irish and showcasing An Foclóir Aiteach (the Irish language queer dictionary). Ten artists from AerachAiteachGaelach then spent a week on the island in March developing projects on our Todhchaíochas Gaelach | Gaelic Futurism arts bursaries and learning from the people on the island. These bursaries were partly supported by Meitheal Chléire and partly by the prize money AerachAiteachGaelach received for coming first in the Irish language category of the National Lottery Good Causes Awards last year. If you want to join this community but your Irish is rusty or you don’t speak any Irish, keep an eye out for our big plans this summer, when the first ever LGBTQ+ Gaeltacht summer camp for adults will take place on Cléire with the support of teachers and artists from the island and from AerachAiteachGaelach. This week-long course, which runs from the 12 th -18 th August 2024, will create a space on the island for daoine aiteacha (queer people) to learn the language through classes, creative activities and fun social events. Bród Chléire 2024 will draw further visitors to the island on the 17 th August for a mix of social, community-led and arts events, one of which will be the
AerachAiteachGaelach play Grindr, Saghdar agus Cher by poet-playwrights Ciara Ní É, Eoin Mc Evoy agus Sam Ó Fearraigh. As Colin Crummy said of the play in his article for the Guardian on the current Irish revival, ‘Grindr, Saghdar agus Cher is a modern play about hook-ups, dating apps and going on a bender’. This Irish language play with English subtitles was nominated for three awards at the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival 2023 and selected by the Taibhdhearc for the Galway International Arts Festival. This ‘Grindr play’ will be popping up at a number of locations around the country this year, as will the award-winning play, An Chos Eile, by Seán Mac Dhonnagáin, which tells the story of a budding romance between two young men on a GAA team. Keep an eye on www.aerachaiteachgaelach.net for details of this play and our other upcoming events and use Instagram to check out the Queercal Comhrá get-togethers dotted around the country. Cuireann Aerach Aiteach Gaelach fáilte i gcónaí roimh bhaill nua agus roimh an gcomhoibriú le grúpaí agus ealaíontóirí eile. Cuirigí bhur gcuid smaointe chugainn agus fáilte. AerachAiteachGaelach is gradually increasing the dialogue between the queer world and the Irish-speaking world and it’s changing hearts and minds about the place of the Irish language in queer society.
When I was growing up, I never thought that the Irish language space was somewhere I could thrive as a queer young man. I knew Irish only as a dry school subject and had no experience of the Gaeltacht and urban communities who laugh and tell jokes in the language, who fight and cry in the language, who enjoy full and rich lives through Irish. And because I hadn’t seen this and because nobody had mentioned it to me in school, I also couldn’t imagine that there were queer people living happily in these communities. Now, in 2024, a life without my queer Irish language community in the arts collective AerachAiteachGaelach and the social group An Queercal Comhrá is unimagineable. Through these two groups, I and many other LGBTQ+ people have become a part of the Irish language community and learned that there is not only space for our queer identity within it but that, by speaking Irish, our social and creative life is greatly enriched. AerachAiteachGaelach first came together in 2020 in the Abbey Theatre when poet-playwright Ciara Ní É and I sent out a call to gather queer Irish-speaking artists under one torch to see what art we could create together. We are now a 100-member strong group and have hosted a glittering list of events for the LGBTQ+ community, from our Irish language Snatch Game during the pandemic, through three successful plays on queer experience, to each year’s highlight, An Bál Aiteach, a community event inspired by the Harlem Balls documented in Paris is Burning – but with an Irish language twist.
Labhraímid an Ghaeilge anois sa bhaile, ar choinní (on dates) agus úsáidimid í inár gcuid ealaíne.
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