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Tito as Gaeilge

Last year, two key events stirred something in the Irish collective consciousness like nothing I’ve seen before:

  1. Kneecap, who rap in the Irish language, were thrust further into the international spotlight when the UK government attempted to try Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh as a terrorist

  2. The death of Manchán Magan, an author and broadcaster who in life I’m sad to say I wasn’t as aware of as after his death. Magan was a proud proponent of the Irish language

Trying an Irish language rapper as a terrorist shows that the UK government has the self-awareness of a former colonial superpower struggling with its relevance on an increasingly complex world stage. Their profile has surged since, and along with it a worldwide interest in the Irish language. See Kneecap’s latest album for further commentary on this particular matter.

Alas, all too often it’s in death that a character such as Manchán Magan finds further renown. One of his life’s missions was to revive the Irish language, a task that has struggled to reach critical mass over the centuries since the British essentially killed the language except for in a few small pockets of Ireland. 

My family connection to the Irish language is strong: for a time my uncle was chief translator for the Irish government, so when the country suddenly decided that it was time to learn Irish, I felt like I had to rise to the challenge set by Kneecap, by Manchán Magan, by my uncle.

My uncle also made a contribution to Tito: he did the initial translation of the Tito Classic checkout experience as Gaeilge. Tito Pro also already has an Irish-language translation ready to go, although we haven’t yet had a customer need to use it.

Over the years, Tito hasn’t been the ticket provider for all that many music shows. Lamentably, the music market is somewhat beholden to big companies with deep pockets, monopolistic tendencies and a love of additional service fees. Where folks do use Tito for music events, as a massive music fan and a lifelong lover of playing music, I get a particular delight.

Last year saw a great collision of all of the above. Oireachtas na Samhna, the world’s largest festival for Irish-language speakers, has been using that translated Tito Irish-language checkout for the last number of years. For their 2025 festival, the lads from Kneecap themselves played host in Belfast.

I’m looking forward to attending the 2026 festival in Killarney this year. I’ll buy my tickets just as soon as my Irish improves enough that I’ll be able to read their website.

I recently visited Helsinki to attend Tiny Ruby (another Tito customer). Part of the conference featured a walking tour of the city, where I learned that Finland and Ireland actually share a lot of history. Where the British colonised Ireland and forced folks to speak English, Finland was invaded by Sweden and then Russia. Street signs in Finland are in Finnish and Swedish, like in Ireland signs are in Irish and English. I had always thought that Ireland’s 4pm population maybe was too small to keep its own language. Finland: 5.5m people. I also learned that Estonia is a country of 1.5m people and they still have their own language.

Irish is a fantastic language. A lot of my peers growing up resented having to learn Irish. Its usefulness day-to-day in Dublin is certainly not much. But a language is only as much as it is used. However strict folks who advocated for being very serious Irish were in the past (a bit like my uncle in fairness), today I’ve heard folks with a new message: just use a few words, here and there. This easing in is what I needed. Last year Jeremy Keith blogged about completing Duolingo Irish, and I’ve added that as a goal for myself. I found myself in London with him in February at State of the Browser. It’s probably the last place you’d expect to hear Irish spoken, yet we had an earnest conversation over lunch, using as much as we could.

I tried the same trick at Monki Gras a month later: “Dia duit” I said to a fellow Irish attendee who had come over to introduce himself, thinking he was the sole Irish attendee. As it turned out, he had attended Gaelscoil (immersive Irish school) and he had also been attempting to resuscitate his use of the language in the last year through weekly “Ciorcal Gaeilge” (Irish circle) conversations with his workmates.

Offering Tito as Gaeilge is our way of supporting efforts to revive Irish as a rich language that we’re proud to use, to live with, and to converse in. The tools available for language learning today are better than ever, and so the opportunity to enrich our lives with Irish is bigger than ever. Is teanga bheo í, agus focal ar fhocal a fhásaimid.