Memory game to help with Gaeilge

A WOMAN with ties to West Cork has developed a new game designed to encourage people to speak ‘as Gaeilge’ to refresh language skills as well as to help expats teach their children cúpla focal.

Rachel Daly, whose dad Jimmy, is from Guerteenasowna, Dunmanway was first inspired to create the memory game ‘Memorise’ by her daughter Sophia.

‘Irish was never a big part of my life. It was a subject at school with homework and learning off irregular verbs, but we never spoke it,’ said Rachel, who lives in Germany.

‘Then one day my four-yearold asked me why I spoke English to her. I told her that I am Irish, that her dad is German, that she is half Irish and half German, and so she speaks English with me,’ said Rachel, who is originally from Milford, Carlow but spent summers in West Cork growing up.

‘A few weeks later Sophia said to me that she was half German and half English. Unbeknownst to me at the time my voice jumped and I bulldozed into her sentence, telling her she was Irish. I had not noticed my knee-jerk reaction until later on that day she told our neighbour that she was half Irish and half German, but she was not English. It taught me how being Irish needed to be more about the richness of our culture, not a description of what we’re not.’

That was a lightbulb moment for Rachel, a graphic designer, who explained to her daughter that Ireland had its own language that is over 2,000 years old.

‘She asked me what the Irish for milk was, and from there it progressed. Something for me also changed. Speaking a cúpla focal, I felt better in myself. It allowed me to feel Irish through the little things, even something like getting the bainne out from the fridge!’

Memorise is a memory game with 20 pairs. All cards are placed face down. On each turn you can pick and look at two cards, then you put them face down again. The aim of the game is to find a pair, so you have to remember which card is where. The card has a picture and the Irish word underneath.

It comes with an online learning platform, 40 new cards, and activities and lesson plans related to grammar, culture, and society.

Rachel was awarded three gold medals by Gradaim last year, and the game is stocked in Ireland and the US, while schools around the country are also using it. Games are also on their way to the United Irish Cultural Centre in San Francisco.

Ahead of Seachtain na Gaeilge (March 1st to 17th), Rachel said the game is designed for all ages to bring family and friends together.

‘Who knows where it might lead to, a cúpla scéalta being told, like it used to be,’ added Rachel who is already looking into designing a new game.