Oideas Gael is one of the undoubted success stories of Gaeltacht areas. From bringing 34 people to Glencolumbkille in Co Donegal in its first year, it is now worth at least u£500,000 to the local economy annually.
Last year it attracted more than 1,600 people from 26 countries to its Irish language and culture classes.
Ironically, its success has been based entirely on the Irish language, which until recent years was associated in the minds of local people with unemployment, poverty and emigration.
The first time a turban-wearer arrived in a village pub, a local man went up to Oideas Gael founder Liam O Cuinneagain and asked (in Irish): "What does that man want to be learning Irish for? When I go on to the boat at Dun Laoghaire I throw the language over my shoulder."
That incident reminds O Cuinneagain of his own childhood embarrassment when his mother spoke Irish during family visits to Donegal town, and of country people who changed to English once they reached the outskirts of Glencolumbkille village.
Things may have changed but O Cuinneagain, a member of the new all-Ireland language body set up under the Belfast Agreement, has some stark warnings about the continuing fall-off in the use of Irish in Gaeltacht areas. He believes strong measures need to be taken and suggests, for example, that all primary schools in the Gaeltacht should have one teacher with the sole task of fostering the language.
The renewed interest in Irish in cities and towns will not be as sustainable if the Gaeltacht areas are allowed decline further and further, he points out.
"There are very few Gaeltacht schools where the language of the playground is primarily Irish. I would see that as the primary test."
He says one mystery he has never managed to figure out is why some couples in the Gaeltacht opt to rear their children exclusively through English, while next door a couple will pass on the language.
The negative associations of Irish were something he and his co-founder, Prof Seosamh Watson of UCD, wanted to change when Oideas Gael was started in 1984.
"There was huge emigration and people were very negative about the language. They didn't see any value in it. One thing we tried to show was that it had an economic value," he says.
In contrast, there has been no shortage of foreign students fascinated by the Irish language and Celtic culture. Some 50 per cent of course participants last year were from outside Ireland.
Irish people, it seems, are often disconcerted to find themselves sitting beside a Japanese or American student whose knowledge of Irish is superior to their own.
Mr O Cuinneaga in says Oideas Gael courses provide a second chance for people - a large majority of the population - who feel they cannot speak Irish despite having studied it for years at school. Many Irish people who take part have lived abroad for a time and have come to realise that this is "the only country in Europe where we don't speak our own language."
The emphasis is on conversation and all classes, be they in hill-walking or archaeology, are taught in bilingual form, with the aim of ensuring that people learn in a non-pressurised environment.
Formerly a teacher at a Dublin inner-city national school, O Cuinneagain is not alone in finding it "ridiculous" that despite spending what amounts to one out of the six years at primary level learning Irish, most people leave the school system without the confidence to speak it.
"The syllabus being presented just wasn't relevant enough at all to the day-to-day lives of the children," he says. There have been some changes but he believes there is still not enough focus on conversational Irish and "too much bias towards the academic."
In addition, changes in the curriculum need to be matched with a greater relevance in the wider community. In this regard TG4 is important, as children can at least go home now and watch Irish language programmes on TV.
In the Glencolumbkille Gaeltacht area, only about 25 to 30 per cent of people speak Irish on a daily basis, and he says that there has been a 10 per cent decline in the use of Irish with every generation.
Things have started to change in the past five years, and there is a new-found confidence. But there is often a lack of awareness or focus on the language issue within households.
Some parents may still not value the language highly in terms of their children's future, although local people have always been very supportive of Oideas Gael.
He believes something can be done to stop the decline and he is optimistic about a new commission being set up by the Department of the Gaeltacht. This will examine possible interventions, and Mr O Cuinneagain suggests a more persuasive approach with parents, a network of properly funded pre-schools, and a positive bias in terms of teacher/pupil ratio towards Gaeltacht schools.
Each school, he says, should have one teacher to focus solely on the language, to take it out of the academic sphere and use it in a practical way with computers, TV and other activities.
He also believes the time has come for Gaeltacht children to be offered intensive summer courses centred on activities and games, similar to those offered to children from other parts of the State in the Gaeltacht every year.
As a member of the new all-Ireland language body, the remit of which covers Irish and Ulster Scots, O Cuinneaga in says the status of the Irish language needs to be addressed. He would like people to see its intrinsic value and that it can be spoken without being a threat to anything.
"It lives alongside a majority language but it doesn't have to be smothered by it."
Oideas Gael runs courses for adults in Irish language and culture throughout the summer and at other holiday weekends. Activity courses, taught in a bilingual form, include hill-walking, archaeology, environment and culture, painting, pottery, dance, music and tapestry weaving.
This year, Oideas Gael has also launched its "Cultural Tours of Donegal", which include hotel accommodation.
Oideas Gael can be contacted at 073 - 30248, www.OideasGael.com, or e-mail: oidsgael@iol.ie.