Bernadette NicGabhann, HDip IT, HDip Education, MA.

Class Description

The Course ’Taste of Irish, Blas Gaeilge’ covers three areas:

[1] Achieve a basic standard of conversation and communication through Irish.

[2] Recognition and basic information on the phonetics and sounds of the language to achieve a basic level of pronunciation and reading.

[3] Exploring the enduring links between the language and our music and singing heritage.

Biography

Experience – Bernadette is a full time Irish language secondary school teacher at home in Ireland. A fiddle player from County Meath, Bernadette first came to the Catskills Irish Arts week to enjoy the music and sessions with family and friends. She has traveled throughout the world playing and promoting the Irish Arts. Competing successfully in numerous Fleadhanna in her youth, Bernadette then traveled as Fiddle player with Michael Flatleys Lord of the Dance. She has recorded most recently with the trans-Atlantic band NicGaviskey, who released their debut album Home away from Home in 2011. Bernadette comes from a musical and dancing home, and also step dances regularly. With her experience of teaching the Irish language, and her understanding of its links within the music, she developed a recognition course to highlight those links to music enthusiasts at CIAW.  Combining music & Irish energies, Blas Gaeilge was developed to expose Irish enthusiasts to the basic formations of the Irish language. This course has been delivered with great success for the past five years.