Learning Irish in Conamara
Gaeilge á foghlaim i gConamara
by Kate Reilly Brinkley
January 28, 2021
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam
May her soul be at the right hand of God
When my friend and H.R. guru Sharon Armstrong asked me where I saw myself in five years, I said, “Studying the Irish language in the west of Ireland.” Never one to shrink from a challenge, Sharon responded, “I have just the person for you.” And that is how I met Eleanor Max.
Eleanor, a native of County Meath, taught Irish on Mondays at the Stoddert School in Glover Park. When I arrived the first evening, I found Eleanor with Pat and Jack, who had been studying with her for a year or two. I introduced myself and sat down. Eleanor showed me the book they were working through and said, “We’ll start over.” I was horrified, “Oh, no. Please continue wherever you are, and I’ll catch up.” Eleanor gave me a look that clearly did not invite a response and said, “No, you won’t.”
She was right. Irish was incredibly hard to start. And it only became slightly less difficult as time went on. But class, which soon moved to Eleanor’s dining room table two blocks away from the school, was fun. Eleanor, Jack, and Pat lived in Glover Park and soon my knowledge of the neighbors was at least as good as my Irish. There was a lot of comhrá, mostly in English.
When Eleanor found out I had a love of literature, she invited me to a lecture on Yeats at the Smithsonian. I picked her up in my car, which was at the end of its long life. I told her I had gotten an estimate to fix the air conditioning that was more than the car was worth. “This car owes you nothing,” she declared. Again, I had to agree.
We walked into the lecture hall and found seats halfway back. When the lecturer, a Yeats scholar from an eminent university, was introduced, he proceeded to speak for more than an hour about his grandfather who had worked as a gardener at the Yeats estate in Sligo. No Lake Isle of Inisfree — not a single work of Yeats was mentioned. When he invited us all to enjoy intermission, Eleanor stood up and announced that she had “learned quite enough about Yeats’ gardener.” I could stay, she said, but she was going home. I could not have agreed with her more.
On Wednesday, November 9, 2016, Eleanor and I had plans to see the Irish author Colm Tóibín at Georgetown University. We were going to give Yeats another try, this time with the author of Brooklyn. But it was the day after the 2016 presidential election. When Eleanor answered the phone, I told her I would pick her up at six o’clock. “I don’t really have the heart to go out tonight,” she said. “I feel like staying in the house for the next few years.” I understood.
When I got a scholarship to study Irish over the summer in Conamara, Eleanor told me I was her star pupil. I beamed at the compliment, not mentioning that there were only three of us.
Eleanor taught Irish to inner city children in Dublin and at Catholic University after moving to Washington. It was clear she had a gift for teaching but, more than that, she loved the Irish language. It expressed a complexity of human experience that English could not.
To understand who Eleanor was, it may be necessary to have a little Irish. She was smart. And funny, in a quick, but subtle way. She was kind and gracious to all, but she did not suffer fools lightly. She expected the best of us all, knowing that she would likely be disappointed. But now and again, her expectations would be met.
Sharon was right. She had just the person for me. Five years from that conversation, I was studying Irish in Conamara in the West of Ireland. And now when I study my bit of Irish or have a conversation in Irish, I will remember my friend Eleanor who is now at the right hand of God, brooking no foolishness.
Kate’s original blog post is here.
