Amanda Brunker said Donegal is a magical place and she can’t wait to return

Former Miss Ireland Amanda Brunker says that taking part in Réaltaí na Gaeltachta was better than getting the opportunity to present The Late Late Show. 

The stunning blonde says she fell in love with Rann na Feirste and made a lifelong friend in her bean an tí, Maighréad Mhic Grianna. Like many students who come to learn Irish in the Donegal Gaeltacht, Amanda said she cried on her way home and is counting the days until she can return to Donegal.

“It seems like another lifetime and I am heartbroken that I haven’t been back up since. We recorded it last September and we were blessed that we had the most beautiful weather and let’s be honest, is there anywhere more beautiful in sunshine than Donegal? I have to say it was the most magical thing that I have done in the last five years. I just fell in love with the place, I fell in love with the people and I cried on my way home, I didn’t want to go back, it was lovely.”

Broadcaster Des Cahill, comedian Fred Cooke, Mayo footballer-turned-AFL-player Oisín Mullin and Tiktok star Lauren Whelan all enrolled alongside Amanda at Coláiste Bhríde in Rann na Feirste to spend a full week speaking nothing but Irish. 

Amanda and her bean an tí became really close during the filming of the RTÉ series and she longs to come back to see her and her bunk bed: “Maighréad, like we are still great mates, we message all the time - we were facetiming last week ahead of the first show, she is great, she is super.”

The mother of two teenage boys the TV star and author says life is very busy at the moment:  

“They are in the junior cup and the senior cup at the moment. I am a fulltime kind of rugby mum at this point. It is all consuming and weekends don’t really lend to driving up for four hours to Donegal,” she said. 

The show where five stars were immersed in the Donegal Gaeltacht has become an overnight success and the 49-year-old says it ignited a huge interest in people turning back to the Irish language and relearning it: “I think we had more viewers than The Late Late show last week. Phenomenally, four hundred thousand viewers tuned in and that didn’t include anyone watching on the player. We had an instant hit which was fantastic. Clearly people are interested in relearning Irish which is brilliant because that is what the show is all about to try and encourage people to learn Irish. Seven hundred people signed up to the free online Irish course after the show which was phenomenal and I am sure there will be more. I thought that was a real success, I was really thrilled.” 

While in school Amanda didn’t enjoy learning Irish: “There was nothing really positive about the way it used to be taught and you have to remember it has been a long time since I’ve been in school but it was so boring and so dull but I can only speak from my own experience,” she said.

The bubbly blonde said that on her way to Donegal she felt embarrassed that she had very few Irish phrases: “I am a proud Irish woman and it is terrible that I could speak more Portuguese, Spanish and German than Irish. It was so lovely though because when you are immersed in an Irish-speaking area with other people, you start to remember how to say - certain things you wouldn’t be able to think of otherwise.”

The Dubliner said she feels it is unfortunate that there aren’t more places where people can speak Irish together in a comfortable environment. 

“It was really, really good. When I came back I was throwing in phrases because I had got to the point where I could carry small conversations - let’s not lose the run of ourselves now but I could carry small conversations and then I had nobody to speak Irish to and within the space of two weeks I had given up which was really upsetting because I had no one to converse with.”

She said that over the last number of days she has very much enjoyed people speaking to her in Irish: “We are very rusty now but we are not back to where we were before we went up but we are not far off it unfortunately which is a bit tragic.”

As she prepared to come to Donegal she was afraid people may be insulted if she got words or phrases wrong but what she found was a blanket of support and encouragement: “A Dub like myself going up - going into a Gaeltacht area, it is actually really intimidating. I am not at all a quiet character so it is going to kill me to be mute but they were so accommodating and so warm and lovely not all what I expected, it was so lovely and they didn’t laugh at you if you made a mistake, they encouraged you. I hope people will become less intimidated when they see some of the craic that we had.”

Céilí’s and singing are not the former Miss Ireland’s favourite past-time but she very much enjoyed kayaking and going to Gola Island. One of her greatest regrets is that she couldn’t spend the night on Gola Island: “It was absolutely stunning and I do think that Donegal should do well off the back of this show because it just looked stunning throughout the shows.”

Watch the full series here.