Making Irish boring was a feature of the Irish educational system, rather than a bug. Learning Tóraíocht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne (or Pursuit of Diarmaid and Gráinne), the epic retelling of a love triangle between the aging warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill, his loyal follower Diarmaid, and the beautiful and wily Gráinne, should have ensured rapt teenage attention with its tales of illicit sex and bloodthirsty feuds. Yet, I was bored senseless by the focus on grammar and pronunciation, with the wild language tamed into anaemic English approximations. I remembered thinking, as I stared out the window of Mrs. Mahon’s Irish class in Gortnor Abbey, why didn’t old Fionn just let the young lovers be? Why risk all your accomplishments in an obsessive pursuit of a young woman who found you too old and wanted a younger lover?