Can you learn a language from a primer or grammar book? Well apparently that is what Liam Ó Briain (1888-1974) did when he learned Irish by himself as it was not taught in his school in Dublin when he was growing up. I have just written an Irish Diary in the Irish Times about Prof Ó Briain who was an Irish language enthusiast (and Francophile). Read it here.
Ó Briain was involved with the founding of An Taibhdhearc - the national Irish language theatre, in the 1920s. He was also involved with An Club Leabhar, an initiative that sought to get people reading Irish books as a way to promote the language. I was not able to find much information on this club but there are references in various newspapers to meetings of Irish language book clubs happening in universities. I wonder how widespread it was around the country and what the take-up was like among ordinary citizens!
If you would like to find out more about Liam Ó Briain - this is his entry in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, there is a good lot of information on him (in Irish) on the Ainm.ie website and there is an interesting blog post here from Dublin City Libraries.
