Celtic Soul: Gaelic Lesson
Celtic Soul Extra: Jay Baruchel learns Gaelic with help from Eoin O'Callaghan, Irish scholars Emer O'Toole and Daithí Mac Fhlaithimh, and a pint of Guinness. Emer and Daithi are both professors in Irish studies at Concordia Univeristy in Montreal, Canada.
See additional footage from our documentary feature "Celtic Soul" at celticsoul.ca, and check back every Wednesday as we release a new video from Jay and Eoin's #CelticRoadtrip!
Celtic Soul follows Canadian actor and funny man Jay Baruchel on an epic road trip through Canada, Ireland and Scotland with his new friend, well-known Irish soccer journalist Eoin O’Callaghan. It’s a story that spans 200 years of colorful history and that will take the duo eastward from Montreal to Westport, Ireland – where Jay’s ancestors set sail for Canada, like so many others – and finally Glasgow, where Jay will fulfill a lifelong dream: to watch a match at Celtic Park, one of the wildest and most hallowed grounds in world football.
Transcription:
00:00:01
Eoin O’Callaghan: When I was in Winnipeg, there was an Irish Festival. So myself and my missus were like, OK let's do this, and we're like OK let's go along. You know we won't have any preconceptions. Walk up to this venue. At the front door, there’s a man dressed as a leprechaun. Walk up to the door, and the guy goes…
00:00:21
Leprechaun: Oh, how you doin, where are you from?
Eoin O’Callaghan: And we said Ireland. And his face just dropped.
Jay Baruchel: Laughs
Awkward silence
00:00:32
Eoin O’Callaghan: Do we want to try some Gaelic?
Jay Baruchel: Oh fuck yeah, I'll try my best.
Gaelic lesson ensues
00:01:10
Eoin O’Callaghan: There’s something Irish about let’s take 10 words to say this.
00:01:12
Daithi: That’s what I’m saying, it’s a beautiful language.
Jay Baruchel: It is though because there’s some nice shit, like, there’s far less possessiveness in it. You can’t say “you have a cow”, you have to say “there’s a cow with me”.
00:01:24
Emer: Irish people will still ask you: “what's on you?”.
Jay Baruchel: It's like hunger. Happiness. Malaise.
Eoin O’Callaghan: That is a question: “What is on you?”.
00:01:45
Eoin O’Callaghan: Why is it Celtic (soft c), and not Celtic (hard c)?.
Daithi: I don't know.
Eoin O’Callaghan: This is just one of these weird things.
Daithi: It must be just some kind of an English trend went through or Scots I don’t actually know any other way.
Jay Baruchel: It reeks of like, yeah, English repurposing for polite culture
00:02:05
Daithi: Maybe trying to appeal to the North American market. There you go.
00:02:11
Jay Baruchel: It was a slow burn. They were like, there’s gonna be this one fuckin kid, 1982.