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Céad míle fáilte romhat 's beannacht Dé dhuit!
A hundred thousand welcomes before you and the blessing of God on you as you come to visit us!
This is the Internet home of the Gaeilic League of Central Ohio. Our purpose is the preservation, propagation, and practice of the Irish language (Gaeilge), sometimes improperly referred to as "Irish Gaelic". Irish is a distinct language from Scots Gaelic, which is the native language of Scotland. With Manx, the tongue of the Island of Man, Irish and Scots Gaelic for the Goidelic branch of the Celtic language family, whose other extant members in the Brythonic branch are Welsh, Cornish, and Breton.
Irish language is the historical and cultural matrix within which traditional Irish culture has grown, affecting Irish poetry, literature, music, song, dance, as well as our social political and religious heritage. To speak Irish is to find your mind drawn into connection with a continuous cultural heritage over 3500 years young.
Even one's self understanding changes when one uses Irish to thing with. To call oneself by English word "Irish" ties one to a geographic location, for most of us here, that means the land our ancestors came from and a matter of past events; but to be "Gael" is to bear the name of a tribe with 4 million members in the parishes east of the Atlantic Ocean and 40 million in those on the west. Irish is both an precise, elegant and venerable conceptual tool, and a way of thinking and relating to the world which is fresh, rich, and lyrical in its expression. Irish is a language for poetry, love, song and prayer, and a cultural key to understanding and renewing in our day the rich traditions of our ancient people
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