The controversial Irish-language soap opera, Ros na Rún, has become the latest tool in the campaign to revive interest in Irish among secondary school students.
The TG4 series is to be used during transition year as a cutting-edge resource for Irish teachers battling to make the subject come to life in the classroom.
The popular serial uses storylines often featuring issues such as teenage pregnancy, wife-beating, gay marriage, rape and adultery. More than one hundred schools have already expressed interest in a pilot programme sponsored by Foras na Gaeilge, the all-Ireland body set up under the Belfast Agreement to promote the Irish language.
The project involves lessons based on the next series of Ros na Rún which will be e-mailed each week to participating schools.
The series goes out on TG4 every Tuesday and Thursday, receiving more than 200,000 viewers a week.
The lessons, usually a list of questions on specific episodes, are compiled by qualified teachers in association with national co-ordinators of the transition year.
Workshops to explain the programme to teachers are already being held around the State.
Mr Robbie Cronin, Irish representative of the National Committee for Curriculum Assessment, said using the popular soap-opera to teach Irish was "an excellent idea".
"Anything that stimulates interest in the subject is to be welcomed," said Mr Cronin, an Irish teacher at Marian College in Ballsbridge, Co Dublin.
"We are constantly battling to get pupils interested. Much of the current curriculum is just not relevant to young students".
He said Ros na Rún would have the same positive impact on learning Irish as the story Dúnmharú Ar An DART (Murder On The DART) by Rory Ó Báille which is on the current curriculum.
In it, a student tells a teacher: "Téigh abhaile agus faigh bás" or "Go home and die".
However, he added, the development may not be favoured by some more traditional Irish teachers. The Ros na Rún series producer, Mr Trevor O'Clochartaigh, said he was delighted to be part of the project.
"It's a fantastic way of stimulating students' interest in the Irish language and encouraging them to learn the language properly," he said.
"We have cutting-edge story lines and top-class acting. What better way to learn Irish than by watching a soap-opera broadcast in our very own native language."