Yahoo Groups

Since I spend so much time at my computer, I'm always on the lookout for new online resources to help learn Irish. Years ago, I was a huge USENET fan -- it still exists, of course, but it's become a hotbed of spam and porn, and not much use for anything anymore.

However, the creation of chat groups in Yahoo has spawned a number of lists dedicated to learning Irish. Some are using a particular text, others just general reference and support. I've found the archives to be very useful, and I belong to a couple of the groups that are focused specifically on the books that I am using.

Most notably, I am a member of the coisfhairrge Irish group - going through O'Siahdail's Learning Irish lesson by lesson, with a lot of additional information from the members. I also read the Progress in Irish group via digest. Both groups have a file and download section that has many helpful documents put together by other learners. It's worthwhile browsing the file sections even if you don't receive emails for the list.

Other groups include:

• TYI Munster -- using the older version of Teach Yourself Irish. which is focused on the Munster dialect.
• Learning Irish - a general beginners group
• Buntus Cainte - all three parts of the populate Buntus Cainte series
• Absolute Beginners Irish - just like it says, for absolute beginners.
• First Steps in Irish - using the Christian Brothers text
• Learning_Irish - a general group for Irish learners, not specific to the O'Siadhail book

The Philo-Celtic Society has a number of groups, geared to different levels of learning. The most populate starting groups are:

• philostartingtolearn - a free online class for first-timers
• Using Progress in Irish, they have the following classes, each for a specific section of the book: Lessons 1-15A, Lessons 1-15B, Lessons 16-30, Lessons 31-45.

There are others of course - chat-type lists in Irish, discussion forum about culture, etc. Just do a seach for Irish Gaelic or Gaeilge at groups.yahoo.com.

I didn't have as much luck on Google groups, which seems to be much less organized part of the Google scheme, and full of advertising and sad groups with only 2 or three members. I didn't find any specific groups for learning Irish there at all.