By Christine Hickey

THE unlikely location of Babylon, Long Island is home to the most extensive Irish language instructional program in North America. Every Thursday night, volunteer teachers assemble at the Ancient Order of Hibernians Hall to instruct students of all ages — from childhood to retirement age — in the Irish language, for free. 

The Gerry Tobin Irish Language School was founded in 1988. The school is named for Gerry Tobin, who came to New York from Limerick in the 1940s. 

In the 1970s, when people said that the Irish language was dead, Tobin began to teach Irish in homes and halls in the Babylon and Bay Shore area. His love of the Irish language and Gaelic culture inspired his friends to found the school in his name after his death in 1988. Three of the founders are still active as teachers and organizers in the school today.

The school offers a complete range of classes in the Irish language, beginning with pronunciation and working up to a workshop in which only Irish is spoken. The pronunciation class takes students through the basics of the language, including phonetics and grammar. 

After pronunciation, students graduate to intermediate levels in which they learn from a text called Progress in Irish, which they refer to as “The Green Book.”

After completing the lessons in Progress in Irish, the students follow a series of advanced workshops. The first advanced workshop is conducted in English and Irish and is where students begin to become fluent in the Irish language. 

Advanced Workshop II is what instructor Jerry Kelly calls “complete Irish language immersion.” 

“It is the equivalent to a university level course, and even more so advanced because we are teaching Celtic studies in Irish itself,” Kelly said. During these workshops, teachers of the earlier classes join the advanced students to explore ancient Celtic culture, mythology, modern literature, poetry, short stories, and other areas of cultural interest in the Irish language.

In the long hall, each class gathers around a table with one or two teachers to work at their specific level. It is an intimate setting that allows teachers and students to get to know each other and make learning fun and more comfortable. 

“The classes are very laid back and easy going. I really have gotten close with everybody here; it’s like a family,” Caitlin ni Mhurchu, student of three years, told the Voice.

It is amazing to think that this kind of instruction goes on for free, an idea that Kelly says extends from the old Gaelic League. “Speaking the language is like a birth right, you can’t pay for that,” he said. 

The school exists solely on the willingness of volunteers to teach. Finding teachers, however, can be a trying task according to Lugh de Paor, curriculum secretary who is also in charge of recruiting teachers. Fortunately, many of the students themselves develop the skills in the language that allow them to teach it.

“The teachers are so dedicated to teaching. They really put in an extra effort and it comes from the heart. It doesn’t make a difference that I am not Irish. They make you feel welcome anyway,” Vilma Valentin, a Spanish American who has been taking classes here for almost two years, said.

The love of the language and the sensation of being able to practice it extends beyond the classes. After the advanced workshop finishes, the many teachers and students who are also musicians hold a musical seisiun. 

They bring their instruments — flutes, bagpipes, guitars — and their voices into an adjoining pub where they play and sing folk songs and songs they have composed themselves in Irish. Brian de Vale’s album Raise Your Glass emerged from these seisiuns and features many of the teachers from the school.

This June, Seamas O Neachtain, who has been with the Gerry Tobin School for seven years, published a book of poems in English and Irish, An File ar Buile (Poems for America). O Neachtain wrote all of the poems in Irish, then he and some of the other teachers and students translated them back into English. 

This fall, the school is adding a new course. to its 10 course curriculum, a “Mommy, Daddy and Me” program that will allow children to learn the language along with their parents. The school has held classes for children since 1995, but this is the first time that they will open their doors to children younger than seven years old. 

“We are trying to get children to start at an earlier age because by the time they turn nine and 10 years old, they are being pulled in so many different directions because of other activities, and many decide to give up the lessons,” Jerry Kelly said. The Mommy, Daddy and Me program will run at 7:15 p.m. 

The fall semester will begin on September 9. During fall and spring semesters, an average of 75 students attend the Thursday night classes, with variations in individual class size. 

Some semesters, Kelly stated, have seen as many as 140 students total. The summer session sees fewer students due to vacations, etc.

Not only does the school hold classes, but their website, which can be viewed in English or in Irish, allows students anywhere in the world to take virtual language lessons. The site takes students through step-by-step pronunciation of vowels, consonants, and words, including dialect variations. 

Kelly, publicity secretary on the school’s board of officers and pronunciation teacher, provides the digital instruction with video flashcards. 

The Ancient Order of Hibernians Hall is located at 27 Locust Avenue in Babylon, one block northwest of the Babylon train station. Babylon is a one-hour train ride from Manhattan, and the school has had many commuters from Manhattan. 

For more information about free classes, call Jerry Kelly at 516-679-0465. Also, visit the website at www.scoilgaeilge.org.