![\"Raine](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/MMUBGGDV5NE45EYKBQHLDILDXE.JPG\")
Raine Greenhart and partner Charles-Rose Greenhart. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\nCharles-Rose (31) and Raine (29) Greenhart, from the USRaine Greenhart and partner Charles-Rose Greenhart. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n
Charles-Rose Greenhart (31) and their partner Raine Greenhart (29) moved from Seattle in the US to Dublin<\/a> in April and are enrolled in an intensive Irish-language<\/a> course. <\/p>\n Charles-Rose was adopted by American parents from Nicaragua and grew up in a tiny fishing village island called North Haven in Maine. <\/p>\n \u201cI had a graduating class of eight, and we were a very big class. One to three is the usual maximum \u2013 three of the students in my year were my cousins.\u201d <\/p>\n Raine is originally from Los Gatos in California<\/a>. \u201cWe met in Seattle after the pandemic once we both had had our vaccinations,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n The couple\u2019s move to Dublin was prompted by Trump<\/a>\u2019s victory in the presidential election last year. <\/p>\n Charles-Rose says: \u201cWe were looking at different places but Ireland was definitely top on that list, and thankfully my wife was able to get a transfer from work to their Irish branch.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWe both wanted to learn Irish as soon as we learned that we were going to move to Ireland because we thought that it would be a wonderful thing to do in general, and it\u2019s a good way to learn more about Ireland and to feel a bit more at home here.\u201d<\/p>\n Charles-Rose has not found learning Irish from scratch with Conradh na Gaeilge<\/a> too challenging. <\/p>\n \u201cIrish is not the most difficult language that I have ever tried to learn. It makes sense grammatically. There\u2019s a few small things here and there but overall, it\u2019s definitely not the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n [\u00a0Thousands march in Dublin to demand greater Irish-language rights and help for GaeltachtOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Spanish was Charles-Rose\u2019s first language. They only began learning English when Charles-Rose was adopted. <\/p>\n \u201cI have lived in Italy and Korea and I have learned a bit of Japanese and a few other things. So I have been exposed to a lot of different languages.\u201d <\/p>\n Varya Fadieieva (28), from Ukraine Varya Fadieieva (28) moved from Ukraine<\/a> to Ireland in the aftermath of the Russian invasion. <\/p>\n \u201cI stayed in Kyiv for the first nine months of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but then winter came and that was quite tough,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Fadieieva had a friend who had already moved to Dublin, which influenced her decision to move. <\/p>\n \u201cI thought that I would probably stay here for a few months but I came to love this country, its nature, people and architecture. And later I realised that I can\u2019t imagine my life now without Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n Before moving she had written a science-fiction book that featured a lighthouse in Ireland. \u201cI have this feeling that God, through my art, led me here.\u201d<\/p>\n She describes choosing to learn Irish as an \u201cobvious\u201d decision. <\/p>\n \u201cAs Ukrainians we know how it feels when your language is destroyed and banned for many, many years. I think language is so important. It\u2019s a history of the nation that\u2019s written between the lines and between the words. It\u2019s a worldview just hidden in those phrases. The way we form phrases in different languages and talk about our feelings about everything \u2013 everything is kind of coded into language.\u201d <\/p>\n But Fadieieva\u2019s experience of learning Irish has not been straightforward. <\/p>\n \u201cAt first I was trying to learn [Irish] by myself, which was really hard. Later I went on some courses, but I didn\u2019t learn much because although these courses say they are for beginners, most people already had some Irish. I was feeling kind of duped.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was praying to St Patrick because he somehow learned this language even without courses and teachers, but in the end I saw this advertisement from Conradh na Gaeilge. I think it was advertised in some Ukrainian groups as well as it\u2019s for people who had no Irish at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Fadieieva is taking her third Irish-language course through Conradh na Gaeilge. <\/p>\n \u201cI feel quite lucky because now we can ask any questions we want. And sometimes there\u2019s events where we can attend to learn to sing something in Irish and use new phrases, which is cool.\u201d<\/p>\n Fadieieva feels that learning Irish will be very significant in her future in Ireland. <\/p>\n \u201cI would like to be a fluent Irish speaker, even just for myself. I just love how we describe things in Irish. It just feels right. I would love to give tours in Irish as well.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Varya](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/LUMVWEH4FZHKTLMSR7ZJRJSTXI.JPG\")
Varya Fadieieva is a tour guide on the Jeanie Johnston tall ship. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n