I was born and bred outside Navan. I would curl my hair and suck my thumb until the age of 12. My dad took me out to the field one day, a fresh day, the cattle had been in the fields. When you have cows in a field where there’s good grass, you’ve fresh cow dung, which means it’s runny and hasn’t been dried by the midday sun. He grabbed my hand and thrust my thumb into the cow dung and held it there. When I took it out, the smell of it, the idea of placing that inside my mouth, by God, did it work! The same man taught me how to wipe my bum in the countryside with a dock leaf. These are all little things you get in the countryside.
Dad ran a drapery shop and had a side-business where he had three red carpets. Every Saturday would be booked doing weddings. We’d have two massive rolls of red carpet in the car, and we would go to these country churches. My dad showed me how to genuflect in front of an altar and I’d watch what he did. He would start at the altar, bring it down the steps, and kick this massive roll of red carpet. It would roll like a big snowball down the middle of these churches and out the door and into the sunshine. Forty minutes later, the bride would be there getting the photo with the red carpet.
The church was everything to my mother. She ran a parish bookshop in the shadows of St Mary’s Church. She knew the Bible inside out. She would sit with Tommy Tiernan at Christenings and Communions in our house and they would talk about the scriptures. When my mum passed away, it was really sudden. I was working on Today FM, and she didn’t answer the phone. So I went down and I found my mum. She had passed away in her sleep. She had the Bible in her hands, pages open.
My mother made one of the greatest decisions of all time: to send me and my brothers to the Gaeltacht, which was 15 miles from Navan as the crow flies. At eight years of age, I was shipped off for three weeks. I started getting the basics of the Irish language, I fell in love with it. By the time I was 13 or 14, I was going back for two or three months a year. I wanted to speak Irish because it was beaten out of us and it was colonised, taken away from us.
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I never thought the language would be with me as my career. I never dreamed I’d write a second book [about the Irish language], but there are so many good words and there’s so much more emotion in these words than in the English language.
What are some favourite words from the book? I love “foirfe”, which means perfect. “Ráiméis” [nonsense] is a great word. The word for a “flat white” is “báinín”, a “little white”: isn’t that beautiful? The Irish language is so successful at the moment because there is no embarrassment about speaking it any more. People are going, “I’m going to go on Duolingo. I’m going to put on Raidió na Life, I’m going to listen to TG4, and I’m going to be proud to speak my cúpla focail”. Language is thriving.
I’m doing a live show at the moment called Galavanter. Tommy said to me a couple years ago on the podcast: “Your mother never stopped your gallivanting.” And maybe I’ve just always been gallivanting from the first year I went to the Gaeltacht. I’ve travelled the world. I’m more humble now because of the places and people I’ve met. I’ve learned about the importance of just stopping and shaking a hand and saying hello.
We go to the Amazon in December, and then we start a new TG4 series, a new trip to South America. I’ve been with TG4 25 years: it feels like TG4 is my family. The Irish language is an ancient language, and TG4 maybe was a springboard, a temple. The man who started that temple is about to leave Áras an Uachtaráin and we will miss him. Michael D Higgins stood up in Dáil Éireann in 1993 and [said] he wanted Irish-language TV channels. Where would we be without that President? The whole country should be hugging him. There are so many people in public life in this country who don’t have enough quality.
On my TG4 show, I met Irish people on my travels in Brisbane or Perth or New Zealand, young people who had left Ireland because they can’t live here. Why is this country so expensive?
[ As Ireland has become richer, more Irish people are heading to AustraliaOpens in new window ]
I’m happiest in the parish, seeing my young lads play football or going down the pub having a pint. I’ve always been a stay-at-home dad. My wife is working as a teacher. So I was always able to pick the kids up at school. Shane is 19 and Rían is 21. They’re like my mates; they don’t tell me everything, but they tell me enough. I like running the house. I love being outside in the garden, planting. I’m a hippie. Galway has always attracted bohemian heads. That’s why we live in Galway: a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, reggae music out the back.
In conversation with Nadine O’Regan. This interview is part of a series about well-known people’s lives and relationships with Ireland. An Irish Word a Day by Hector Ó hEochagáin is published by Gill. A new season of The Tommy, Hector & Laurita Podcast is available now on podcast networks.
