Irish American Comedian Des Bishop

[OnDoutside]

Interesting guy, brought up in Queens, developed an alcohol problem at 14, so his mother decided to sent him to boarding school, in Ireland of all places ! He became a successful comedian in Ireland, branched into tv work, including one series about going off to live in the West of Ireland to learn the Irish language, so that he could do stand up through the Irish language. That was so successful he did a similar move to China, in order to learn mandarin so he could do stand up in China. Subsequently he was involved in setting up comedy clubs in China. He also did a series about his father's fight with cancer.

Here is an assorted array of youtubes, including an excellent interview about his time in China.

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[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Wow, thanks for posting that.

I'd never heard of this guy before and I'm so glad I now know him.

[OnDoutside]

2. I'm glad you liked it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Oh, I did.

For one think, I'm Irish American. All four grandparents came from Ireland at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, although Irish hadn't been spoken in their families for generations, so far as I know. I can tell you that my mother's mother taught us all two Irish phrases: Erin go bragh and pogue mahone.

I was also very moved by his finding places where Irish is being learned and spoken in this country, and I forwarded the link to that video to a good friend of mine who grew up speaking Italian and English and went on to learn several other languages, including Bahasa Malay when he was in the Peace Corps. I live in New Mexico, and when my friend came to visit a couple of years ago, every time we were out somewhere the next thing I knew he was speaking to someone in Italian. Or French. Or German. Or Bahasa Malay. Yep. While visiting the rio grande gorge bridge near Taos he fell into conversation with some people from Malaysia.

Proof that no matter what language you might learn, you can have the opportunity to speak it.