YouTube, TikTok and Instagram are unfortunately rife with poor Irish teachers/educators. They can be useful tools for many things, but when it comes to Irish, these platforms are a minefield.
There are very few Irish social media accounts we would recommend. As noted, the most popular ones for Irish learners are really poor.
This can be a frustrating thing because a learner on their language journey will know no difference between poor and great Irish. Indeed, it is unfortunate that they trust the person because of their popularity, view count or prevalence within Irish communities.
But why are we so naive? Unfortunately, despite Irish being officially the first language of Ireland and despite what the census claims, few people speak/write the language well. We certainly don’t, even though we’ve been learning for quite a while.
The census notes that almost half of the Irish population reported themselves as being able to speak Irish, and while that seems like a lovely thing to read, it simply isn’t true. Most mean that they learned it in school to some level, as it’s a mandatory subject here. But that doesn’t mean they speak it well.
Try popping the people who said that into the studio of Raidió na Gaeltachta and speaking with a native Irish speaker, and you’ll see the contrast immediately.
A summary of whom to avoid:
Irish really is a small minority language, and the fact of the matter is, is that learners outnumber native speakers. All in all, this poses an issue.
Online Teachers
Like the social media issue mentioned, learners will also consistently come across so-called ‘teachers’ or native speakers of Irish on language sites like Italki, Preply, HiNative, etc. that claim to have good spoken Irish.
For tutors on sites like this, only a few are truly proficient speakers. Most are not, and many don’t even teach grammar. It’s both shocking and frustrating that people are paying to learn subpar Irish from these tutors.
The sad thing is, is that the folks teaching it probably don’t think they have poor Irish either. It’s been pointed out repeatedly online by other social media users that there’s one fellow on Preply who says in his intro video, ‘Is as an Éireann mé’. This makes absolutely no sense, and we’ve no idea how he has the confidence to mark that he’s a ‘native’ Irish speaker. It perplexed us even further when we discovered that he had had requests for translations and wedding speeches.
Not only that, he writes, ‘Despite the language not being the official native tongue of Ireland, it has come in great use for holidays away and conversations between fellow Irish’. Not an official language? A strange statement. Irish is the native tongue, and both Irish and English are our official languages.
We recommend two teachers on iTalki: Patchy and Daniel
We also recommend Fionnán Ó Conaola based on Inis Oírr (he shared his email online: gaeilge55[at]gmail.com)
Separately, we do not currently recommend the popular Irish With Mollie, as we have seen in her own publications, errors related to pronunciation using English approximations, e.g. “jukk” for “deoch”. She also incorrectly explains the slender R (page 57) using ‘réalta’ as an example of it and writes it phonetically as ‘hRAY-alta’ for some reason. The R ‘réalta’ is not slender because having an R at the start of the word is not slender. This is not just particular to her book; errors are seen across her socials and newsletters.
We do understand and appreciate the enthusiasm for the language and hope that these resources improve, but we cannot recommend them as of right now.
English phonetics
Be warned, many people use English phonetics to reflect pronunciations. This poses another problem for a few reasons:
- You might not be a native speaker learning English.
- Even if you are a native English speaker, you might be American, Canadian, Australian, English, Indian etc., thus how you pronounce things in English may not be the same as the ‘phonetics’ that are written. You end up with anglicised pronunciation, which sounds unnatural and jarring to native speakers.
- The English phonetics do not reflect the Irish pronunciation. We touch on this in this piece on the síneadh fada. Instead, it is better to focus where possible on the International Phonetic Alphabet (I.P.A.), native Irish speakers, sound files through, for example, fuaimeanna.ie, teanglann.ie, native speakers on Raidió na Gaeltachta, and practice, practice, practice. Take a look at our introductory guide to phonetics here.
Is Duolingo good or not?
Duolingo is another website that poses an issue. It no longer uses native Irish language audio, and they closed their forums (which were invaluable for those who wished to ask questions). These are but a few issues, and while I could go on about it, this excellent post on “Why not Duolingo, and what to use instead?” sums everything up well.
And of course, more recently, in 2025, it was announced that Duolingo will indeed favour AI first instead of speakers. Yet another reason to dislike Duolingo.
This post is not to dissuade you; it’s to make you aware.
There are many excellent resources when you know where to find them and when you know how to use them. The good news is that a lot of them are free. This is something we hope that IrishLanguage.ie. will be useful in highlighting.
YouTube Channels we recommend for high standards of Irish and good learning ethos:
Note: unfortunately, these channels are not updated regularly but thankfully, you can watch the videos back.
- An Loingseach
- Now You’re Talking (Ulster Irish video series)
- Patchy (Note: Patchy also teaches on italki and is one of the few tutors worth connecting with, along with Daniel)
- An Spideog
- dazpatreg
- Guth na Maoile
- Bainne
- Dave Learns Irish
Plenty of very popular Irish language YouTubers come up when you do an initial search, but the vast majority we don’t recommend, despite their popularity, because they often have poor pronunciation.
Instagram Channels we recommend
- Fionnan Ó Conaola (also on TikTok)
- Máire Ní Churraoin (also on TikTok)
- Caoimhghín Ó hEoghusa (also on TikTok)
- Beo ar Éigean (the podcast’s social channel)
- Gaelbhratach
- Foras na Gaeilge
- An Siopa Leabhar
- Molscéal
- Dónall Ó Cnáimhsí
BlueSky
- You can find our BlueSky account here.
Image by Walter Knerr from Pixabay
Haigh a chara, congratulations on the brilliant page. I have been recommending it and am very impressed by your work. I just noticed your mention of my page and valid criticism. In terms of /jukk/ for deoch and /hRAY-alta/ for réalta, these were checked by multiple native speakers when editing my book so it is surprising to know they are considered incorrect. I am grateful to be always learning, as any passionate teacher should, and am curious to know how you would write these phonetically. In terms of errors seen across my socials and newsletters, I am always working to improve and it is my philosophy to be positive and embrace mistakes, and learn from them. I tried to find a contact to write to you personally but couldn’t, so I wrote here in the comments. Coinnigh ort leis an dea-obair – Keep up the good work! Delighted to have such strong support for learners on the journey with this brilliant resource. I hope that we can be a positive and unified force as people who love the language and want to see it grow. Tabhair aire agus beir bua!
A chara,
Go raibh maith agat as ucht do theachtaireachta. We appreciate you getting in touch and it is always great to see one’s passion for the language. Long may that continue. One of the issues we’ve seen consistently across Irish language resources from influencers and learners is the promotion of English sounds as an approximation for Irish sounds.
The issue is you can’t discuss Irish pronunciation using English sounds because Irish has twice as many consonant sounds as English (and most of them are not found in English). For instance, using your example of “jukk”, there is no /k/ (either International Phonetic Alphabet or English “k” sound) in ‘deoch’. Instead it’s /x/, consider the Scottish pronunciation of ‘loch’ or Spanish ‘j’ eg. in the name Alejandro. May we ask who you consulted for your book?
We would advise learning the IPA and promoting it, as that’s what the slashes are used for, they’re not for putting English sounds to a language with an entirely different phonemic structure. We appreciate that you are learning from your mistakes and that you support learners but in consideration that you have paid courses, we are hesitant to promote your work given these types of errors. We hope this makes sense and wish you the best of luck.
A chara,
Go raibh míle maith agat as an bhfreagra – thanks a million for the response. I genuinely appreciate the time taken to explain your concerns and I absolutely agree that Irish pronunciation cannot simply be reduced to English sounds.
I actually learned IPA as part of my work as an English teacher and made a conscious decision not to centre it in the book because I felt, alongside my editors at Hachette and freelance editors from Penguin Ireland, that IPA can sometimes become another barrier to accessibility and inclusivity for learners. Many students are already overwhelmed by Irish spelling and pronunciation systems, which is one of the reasons I focus primarily on video and audio teaching rather than relying heavily on text-based phonetics.
I completely agree with your point that one “can’t discuss Irish pronunciation using English sounds,” and in fact I address this directly in the book itself. On page 51, I write about how forcing English frameworks onto Irish can be damaging, and on page 52 I explain that “I prefer not to use phonemes in my teaching because I think it deadens the music of the language.”
In terms of consultation and editing, Gráinne Ní Mhuilneoir was the primary language editor on the book, alongside other professionally hired editors and native-speaker friends who proofread the material throughout the process.
That said, I’m always open to improving the work and refining explanations where they may cause confusion. If using clearer IPA support in future editions would help learners while maintaining accessibility, I would have no issue making those changes and can easily adjust this for future prints. I’m very keen for the work to be as accurate, useful, and user-friendly as possible.
I suppose my disappointment comes more from the public “not recommended” positioning itself, particularly as it appears to be an official or semi-official platform. I think it is important that such statements are carefully contextualised, transparent, and clearly distinguished from cases involving deliberate misinformation or bad-faith content. I feel it is unfair to be grouped alongside individuals who are actively spreading demonstrably false claims about the Irish language, without a clearer distinction being made between pedagogical disagreements and outright misinformation.
More broadly, I do think this kind of public positioning can have a negative impact on independent Irish-language work and learner engagement at a time when we should be encouraging participation, discussion, and enthusiasm for the language from as many people as possible, rather than reinforcing perceptions of exclusion or gatekeeping within the Irish-speaking community.
In my experience as a teacher, non-native speakers and teachers often bring real value and energy to the language space, and that contribution is something I believe should be actively supported and encouraged. We are all ultimately trying to grow the language movement, bring new people into Irish, and keep them motivated enough to continue learning.
I appreciate the conversation, and wish you all the best with your work as well.
And I sincerely hope that even though I will never become a native speaker, my daily commitment to the language and the community might count for something – if not a recommendation, then at least a quiet acknowledgement that good intentions, effort, and love for the language still matter.
Le meas agus gach dea-ghuí,
Mollie
A chara,
Thank you Mollie for the above and for elaborating on your thoughts. We can see that you’re very passionate about the language, as are we. Delighted to hear that you learned IPA, though admittedly saddened that you and your editors decided not to go ahead with it. Language immersion programmes for other European languages use it and expect the students to be fine with.
To address some of the things that you mentioned: We want to make it clear that we are not an official nor semi-official body affiliated with any Irish language organisation. We just simply run this website and thus the information/posts featured is a collection of resources and opinion from individuals and not of any specific organisation.
Thus “not recommended” is simply our opinion. As mentioned, we feel we cannot recommend your work given some of the errors already discussed along with the fact that you offer learners paid courses / resources relating to the language. We love to hear that you’re very open to improving and keen to adjust things, that’s a very positive thing. That being said, right now, it wouldn’t feel appropriate for us to promote your content on our personal site. We do not charge for content on site.
“I prefer not to use phonemes in my teaching because I think it deadens the music of the language.” – We’re not really sure what you mean by this. By not using phonemes nor accurate pronunciation resources, we would say that people do more damage to the language than good as Irish ends up anglicised. Thus there is a cycle of inaccurate Irish being shared as learners know no different. The sounds of Irish have been passed down by generations of native speakers of Irish, they are what the language is, they are still common in the everyday speech of Gaeltacht communities. One cannot learn the language without learning those sounds.
Those who have studied the language well tend to focus on the proper pronunciation of the language using resources, for example like fuaimeanna.ie or other IPA resources. I’m sure you understand the importance of good pronunciation as you mention having studied IPA yourself.
We agree, as you say that teachers do often bring real value and energy to the language space. There are many Irish learners and speakers from abroad who have excellent Irish, Victor Bayda, Andrea Palandri, Andreas Vogel and Paula Nic Cionnaith for example. We encourage the sharing of accurate Irish here and we welcome being corrected in particular on grammar, pronunciation and other related language learning issues. We very much encourage learners to take time to discover the best Irish language resources so that they are best equipped to respectfully engage with Irish language communities.
Our position in wanting native and accurate Irish to be taught isn’t ‘gatekeeping’. It’s about respect for the communities who’ve used the language for generations and whose survival is an absolute necessity if the language is to remain a living tongue. We hope that along with our promotion of accurate resources, they will continue to thrive. What we share is based on the quality of the resource.
We promote resources that we know have been created and used by native speakers and those who’ve put endless study into the language.
I don’t see why the IPA would be a barrier, especially when it makes things clearer. I’ve done language immersion camps across the world, in various languages, and Ireland’s the only country that’s been scared off of using the IPA. Indeed, French teachers used it regularly to help explain minimal pairs with vowels that don’t exist in English! Yet in Ireland, we try to force Irish into English phonetics. I believe the IPA will actually *help* them with Irish spelling and phonetics since it’s quite regular once you actually understand how it works (.i. what slenderisation does to consonants).
Your sentence on page 52 makes no sense as well. You *must* use phonemes in your teaching, if you’re teaching sounds at all. Phonemes aren’t the written part on paper, but the actual sounds used in a language. If you’re not using Irish phonemes when teaching Irish, you’re not teaching Irish, but some type of English with weird words. As for the bit on ‘deoch’, it should absolutely be distinguished. /k/ and /x/ are distinguished in auslaught in a few words, and if you’d transcribe ‘loc’ and ‘loch’ the same way, there’s a huge problem.
> east a quiet acknowledgement that good intentions, effort, and love for the language still matter.
The road to bad Irish (which actually damages native speech communities!) is paved with good intentions.
“Many students are already overwhelmed by Irish spelling and pronunciation systems, which is one of the reasons I focus primarily on video and audio teaching rather than relying heavily on text-based phonetics.”
Hello Mollie, with all due respect, as a learner myself, resources teaching ‘deoch’ as ‘juk’, and teachers and less competent speakers pronouncing words like that, were obstacles for me in my learning, it added to confusion because the orthography seemed to be arbitrary. If it is pronounced ‘juk’, and if the English ‘j’ sound can be accepted as an approximation of the slender d, then why not spell the word “deoc” since the sound used would be essentially the same as the broad c sound in Irish found in words like cupán, roc, leac, poc?
It was thanks to some of the people and resources recommended on this website that I learned that there is in fact a logical system matching Irish orthography to Irish pronunciation, and reasons for why it is the way it is, something I never got from any of the many Irish teachers online teaching ‘broad with broad’ as some kind of arbitrary spelling rule with seemingly no link to the spoken language, while themselves making all of these much too common pronunciation errors.
Thank you for your comment, Paul. We’re delighted to hear that you’ve found this website useful. Wishing you the best of luck with your Irish language studies.
Ádh mór ort.
I agree, Paul! My experience has been much the same.