Gearóid gone: Irish language revolutionary, community hero has died

Legendary Irish language pioneer Gearóid Ó Cairealláin (67) passed away today in the Royal Victoria Hospital after a short illness.

A serial founder of breakthrough Irish language projects, he once led the national Irish language body Conradh na Gaeilge. 

However, it was in his native West Belfast that he lit a fire under the Irish language movement — winning the district the title of Ireland’s ‘Gaeilge capital’.

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WHEELCHAIR MONOLOGUES: Gearóid christened his wheelchair Michael Collins because it gave him the freedom to obtain freedom

Among the unprecedented initiatives he led for the Irish language were:

• The daily Irish language newspaper Lá — the first ever in Ireland – saw the light of day in August 1984. Five years earlier the Hillhead man had launched a lively Irish language weekly Preas an Phobail. 
• Raidió Fáilte, the Irish language radio now based in palatial studios at the bottom of the Falls won its licence in 2006 but started out as a pirate radio. Gearóid travelled down to Dublin to collect the radio from a republican safe house where it had been gathering dust. What’s less well-known is that he also launched a (very short-lived) Irish language TV station from An Chultúrlann  – when TG4 was only a dream. His telltale test broadcast was Elvis Live. 
• Coláiste Feirste, the mould-breaking second level college which now has 1,200 pupils on its rolls but, at its birth in 1991, received no grant aid from the authorities. 

• Aisling Ghéar – the professional Irish language theatre troupe which produced homegrown scripts as well as translations of the giants of the dramatic world – Beckett, Po and Pinter. When he wasn’t treading the boards in these bravura productions, Gearóid was playing the part of director. 
• Cultúrlann MacAdam-Ó Fiaich, the eponymous Irish language hub which midwived the Gaeltacht Quarter and remains the most celebrated Irish language centre in the country. 

He was a believer and a dreamer, seeing possibilities for the Irish language despite official hostility and stiff odds. He paid a price for walking the walk – when he refused to accept a road traffic summons in English and demanded an Irish language version he was thrown into Crumlin Road Jail for a week. 

In July 2006, he suffered a stroke which almost put an end to his Gaeilge gallop. However, defying medical predictions of his demise, he emerged fighting fit and rarin’ to go – even if paralysed from the waist down. After enduring a gruelling physio regime, he continued to lead and inspire from his Cultúrlann base. His Wheelchair Monologues — in Irish and English — toured theatre venues across Ireland. And, on the anniversary of his stroke, he married his grá-gheal Bríd Ó Gallchóir.

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ACTIVIST: In Cumann Chluain Ard in the early 1980s, Gearóid (left) with friend Liam Mac Giolla Mheána

His passing leaves a massive crater in the Irish language community he championed. But Gearóid lived long enough to see his aisling of a thriving Irish language community realised. In fact, there is no more powerful ambassador for this new era for Irish than Gearóid’s (and his first wife Aoife Ní Riáin’s) son Naoise, formidable frontman of Kneecap. 

Déanann Grúpa Meán Bhéal Feirste  comhbhrón lena bhean Bríd, lena chlann Mac Ainle, Cairbre agus Naoise, lena máthair agus lena chlann uile. Leaba i measc na naomh go raibh aige.