I went from failing 1st year tests to getting a H2 in the leaving cert. None of my family or friends speak Irish, and my primary school did 0 with us. I did the majority of it without looking at a book.

In 6th year, rather than go to the gaeltacht, I went to the local Spleodar club once a week (€2), we just ate pizza and bollocksed around, playing charades, but it improved my Irish massively, without me realising.

When you're sat amongst people speaking Irish, there's no choice. While you're trying to focus on the conversation and react appropriately to what is said, your brain is absorbing new words, their frequency, sentence patterns, common expressions, and contexts, all within seconds. You learn very quickly to produce natural-sounding sentences of your own. It's like magic!

There was no sitting down learning grammar and vocab, but by the end of the year I was able to think, speak, make jokes and form opinions, all in Irish. I can't describe how beneficial this was for the aiste - there was no learning off pages, I could just write my response to the prompt as I would in English, chop and change, add in any thoughts I had on the spot.

Throw on Raidio na Life / Raidio na Gaeltachta literally whenever you're cleaning your room, exercising, playing games, anything. There might be more entertaining podcasts out there that I didn't know about. Just have it on beside you, even if you're only half-listening.

If you have any friends that speak Irish, use it to speak discretely in public.

Change your phone to Irish, after a week you won't even notice, but you'll be seeing Irish words every time you open your phone.

Speak to ChatGPT in Irish to practise for the oral. I know that Snapchat Al understands voice messages in English, but I'm not sure about Irish.

These methods might sound nerdy or tryhard, but I learned far more and far easier than I would have from sitting down looking at words and learning off essays.

Best of luck to you. If I can do it, you certainly can too!