Hello all! 22 yo and I'm new to the language (kind of). I was introduced to it about 6 years ago but now I'm finally taking it seriously. I've been doing a vast amount of research lately on the Irish language and it's current status and the history of it as well as the history of Ireland.
The very first question which I'm sure has been asked here before is if anyone could recommend books/programs for learning.
I want to make it clear that I would prefer books/programs that teach using the Connemara dialect. I've seen a lot of programs using the CO and I'm sorry if for whatever reason it offends anyone, I just don't want to use that. The one program I do have which I really like a lot is BYKI Irish, but unfortunately it ONLY teaches words and phrases. Not any grammar. But I will say that there flash cards work wonders. No matter what, you HAVE to know the words and definitions to move on using BYKI. But I'd like to start with learning grammar rules first that way when I do move onto BYKI, I can already know how to conjugate and add ending and whatnot.

So to summarize, any recommendations that teach through the Connemara or more broadly a Connacht dialect would be fantastic. I can't wait to become a new member in the Irish speaking community and do my part to help revive Irish! Thanks in advance!

"Learning Irish" (book and CDs)- by Michéal Ó Siadhail, is the definitive book on Conamara Irish (Cois Fharraige).

'Caint Ros Muc' would be a good supplement for Conamara Irish. It is a load of recorded conversations in the Irish of Ros Muc, broken down into small parts. The audio is available for free download online. If you search "Caint Ros Muc" it should be the first result there. The website is "School of Celtic Studies". There's also a book with transcriptions of the conversations which you can order online.

"Colloquial Irish" available for free on archive.org focuses on the Irish of Cois Fharraige. There's a link there to audio for the book (pronounced by native speakers from Cois Fharraige). Here's the link: https://archive.org/details/ColloquialIrish

and the link to the audio: http://www.routledgetextbooks.com/textb ... /irish.php

It's a beginners' course and seems to focus on basic conversational Irish. Hopefully it'll be helpful.

I've heard mixed things on the audio. I used to have a conversation session once a week with a native speaker from Ros Muc and he cautioned us against the audio. He said the book portion was fine, but a lot of the audio wasn't spoken as how they'd say it in Ros Muc, but instead used more of a Caighdeánach pronunciation for Ros Muc words. That said, it's only one data point, and I don't have the book myself to really comment on it.

Ah right. Thanks for letting me know Do you know whether the same would be the case with some of the presenters on RnaG? Would they adopt some standardised forms and words that don't reflect the dialectical usages?

What you will usually find on RnaG is that you'll get something of everything. As far as I know (Bríd would be able to verify this) the one area in which you're likely to get pure dialect is in the news and weather reports for particular areas.

Redwolf