Liam Ó Bruadair, who has died aged 86, was my father’s best friend. In the late 1960s, Liam, a working-class man from Belfast, and his wife Cristín McGuinness, together with eight other couples, including his brother, Donnchadh, and his wife, decided they wished to raise their families in the Irish language, which they had all learned to speak as adults.
Knowing that the language would have to be reinforced outside the home, they built nine houses on the Shaws Road on the outskirts of West Belfast, and opened a primary school, Bunscoil Phobal Feirste, in 1971.
