“Nothing is too much for Gaeilge,” according to the bainisteoir of Gaeltacht school Coláiste Lurgan which has been causing quite a stir with its covers of hits such as Kodaline’s ‘Love Like This’ as Gaeilge on the TG Lurgan YouTube channel.
The slick videos featuring extremely talented and fun loving students were created by a volunteer production team initially as a sort of memento for those partaking in the Irish language courses at the Indreabhán based school. However, the number of videos produced has increased considerably and so too has their popularity with 10 million views received this year and 120,000 downloads.
The latest video, Grá Mo Chroí which is Kodaline’s ‘Love Like This’ had 38,894 views as of yesterday and it is easy to see why as this viewer, whose Irish would not be the greatest, enjoyed this version possibly far more than the original. The school has previously posted Irish versions of songs as diverse as The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’ and ‘Don’t You Worry Child’ by Swedish House Mafia, while Avici Vs Lurgan - ‘Wake Me Up’ as Gaeilge has garnered more than 4 million hits.
Bainisteoir Mícheál Ó Foighil told the Galway Advertiser: “It’s really becoming part of the course. It’s all to make Irish fun and promote the language. We’ve 15 really good videos this summer and will be filming more. Everything is better as Gaeilge”. He added that the videos are all done voluntarily and TG Lurgan is hard at work and “things will really heat up with a few surprises in store before the end of the summer”.