Conorín – Work away. Be my guest.

As for Irish classes, I strongly recommend Gaelchultúr in Temple Bar. Don’t go for any of the traditional providers like Conradh na Gaeilge or Gael-Linn, those’ll just bore you to death and put you off the language for ever.

And by the way, I disagree with you on the pronunciation of lán, Primal. Only bog-trodden savages from Donegal pronounce it like that.

Rosie – Do you do laces? caught her off guard so she didn’t know what to do and just complied. Folk will do that. Try this: Walk down the street. Pause beside a total stranger and in a conversational (not friendly or stern) tone ask what’s in the bag? They will tell you. Don’t spoil it by hanging around. Move off briskly. Works ever time.

Gayé – Maybe flees had connotations of defeat. As in fleeing from the victor in battle.
I had a disaster of a Latin teacher but what I did pick up was of great help to me in my primary degree which was a biological science one. Plant and animal taxonomy was easy.
I use the English equivalent of advocatus diaboli daily – in my work, finding potential faults before they occur is vital.
Ask An Cainteoir about Irish courses. I reckon he’d know. I expect you’ll find Irish easy as it has a phonetic aspect too, in that all letters are pronounced and always the same way, even though it may not appear so on first hearing it spoken. There is really only one tricky sound to master (one that is generally ignored by most teachers) and that is the glot sound made from the base of the throat in words like lán. If not mastered, then the Irish lán sounds exactly like the English lawn.

A Chainteoir – Man, what a list. There is plenty there to distract me for hours. How do I go about getting mine in there?