Adele's Hello In Irish: TG Lurgan's Cover As Gaeilge

This is Adele’s Hello in Irish, sung by Shannon Bryan and a student choir at Coláiste Lurgan, a summer Irish college in Connemara. TG Lurgan posted it in September 2016 and it has since passed 2.3 million YouTube views. It’s moody, beautiful and a fine advert for the Irish language. No Irish needed to enjoy it.

Did you ever stop and wonder what Adele’s ‘Hello’ sung in Irish would sound like? Probably not! But it will not disappoint, I promise.

The singers are teenagers at Coláiste Lurgan, an Irish-language summer college in Connemara, Co. Galway. They post their covers on YouTube under the name TG Lurgan.

They have done many covers in Irish over the years but this is my personal favourite.

Turn the volume up for this one.

Adele’s Hello as Gaeilge: the story of the cover

TG Lurgan posted the video on 16 September 2016. The YouTube description credits Shannon Bryan on lead vocals, backed by the choir from Course A, one of the college’s summer courses.

The Irish Examiner covered it the day it came out and noted how closely it borrowed the look of Adele’s video.

The paper also joked that Dia Dhuit would have been the obvious Irish title. It has a point.

How fast it spread

Within a week, the Irish Post reported that the cover was going viral, with hundreds of thousands of views. By December 2016 the Irish Times put it past half a million.

The Leinster Express reported it passing a million views in August 2017. At the time of writing, in October 2026, YouTube shows more than 2.3 million.

Not bad for a song in a language most of the world has never heard spoken.

Who is Shannon Bryan?

Shannon was a Junior Cert student when it came out. The Leinster Express gave her age as 15 in August 2017. She is from Co. Laois.

She told the paper she expected only Irish people to watch it. Instead, it was being played in lots of countries.

Adele and her Irish fans

Adele seems to have a soft spot for Irish fans. RTÉ reported in March 2016 that she brought Glenn Murphy and Ronan Scolard on stage at Dublin’s 3Arena after their medley video spread online.

I wrote about those two Irish lads and their Adele medley too.

Who are TG Lurgan?

TG Lurgan is the YouTube name of Coláiste Lurgan, an independent Irish-language summer college. It sits in Indreabhán (Inverin), in the Connemara Gaeltacht, on the coast west of Galway city.

A Gaeltacht is an area where Irish is still the language of the community. The college motto is Gaeilge gan Eagla, which means Irish without fear.

Coláiste Lurgan’s founder and director

Pól Ó Foighil founded the college in the late 1960s, according to the Irish Times and RTÉ Archives. His son, Mícheál Ó Foighil, has run it since 1996. RTÉ now describes him as director of TG Lurgan.

How the videos started

The Irish Times reported in 2013 that the videos began in a very rainy summer in 2009. They were a way to keep students busy indoors.

Students and staff make them, with local professionals giving their time. Mícheál summed it up to the paper: “It started off as a bit of fun, and it’s still a bit of fun.”

The fun added up. The Irish Times counted 24 million views across the college’s covers by late 2016. RTÉ put the total past 43 million by 2020.

Life at the college

In a normal year, RTÉ reported, the college takes about 500 students and 100 staff each summer. Covid closed it in 2020, so it moved online as Lurgan Ar Líne.

Students stay with local host families, about 11 to a house, according to the college’s website. For 2027 it lists three 21-night courses at €1,290 and one 15-night course at €985.

In February 2023, RTÉ reported €10 million from the Department of the Gaeltacht for a new education and community centre on the site. RTÉ said it was due for completion in 2026. I haven’t seen confirmation that it’s finished yet.

Síoraí Spraoi: Cheerleader in Irish

The second video in my original post is a sunnier one. It’s OMI’s Cheerleader, renamed Síoraí Spraoi, which translates roughly as endless fun.

RTÉ covered it in July 2015 and noted that it was filmed on a beach. Here’s the beach party version.

Other famous TG Lurgan covers

Hello wasn’t their first hit, or their last.

Lig Mé Saor (Avicii’s Wake Me Up), 2013. The breakthrough. Stiofán Ó Fearail sang lead and talked about it on RTÉ 2FM that August, when it had passed a million views. RTÉ said it was over 8.5 million by February 2023. It also got them onto The Late Late Show with Ryan Tubridy, RTÉ said.
2013 and 2014. RTÉ listed covers of Daft Punk’s Get Lucky (An tÁdh ‘Nocht), The Cup Song, Blurred Lines and Coldplay’s A Sky Full of Stars.
2014 and 2015. By July 2015, RTÉ said, they had also covered Hozier’s Take Me to Church, Mumford & Sons’ I Will Wait and Wiz Khalifa’s See You Again.
Late 2015. Sia’s Chandelier and Hozier’s Someone New (Bealach Nua). The Irish Post singled both out when Hello came out.
2017. Neamhaird, an original song written by a student for the college’s talent show, which the Irish Examiner featured that August.

The Welsh connection

During Covid, TG Lurgan teamed up with Urdd Gobaith Cymru, the Welsh youth organisation. RTÉ reported in 2025 that the partnership had released seven co-productions.

In 2024 they did bilingual versions of songs by Beyoncé and Florence and the Machine. In 2025 it was Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams. RTÉ said around 500 people were expected at the gala concert in both 2024 and 2025.

Why Irish language covers matter

The 2022 Census shows the gap. The CSO says 1,873,997 people said they could speak Irish, about 40% of people aged three and over in the Republic.

But only about 72,000 said they spoke it daily outside the education system. That’s down slightly on 2016.

Ask anyone who went to school in Ireland. Plenty of people did Irish for years and came out able to ask to go to the toilet, and not much else.

Gaeltacht courses try to fix that. Teenagers spend up to three weeks living through Irish, with host families and classes.

The videos do the rest. They make Irish feel like something young people actually use, not just a subject for the exam.

Mícheál Ó Foighil’s point to the Irish Times was simple. If learning a language feels enjoyable, it sticks better.

It is great to see how they are promoting the Irish language in a new and modern way. Well done guys!

How to actually say hello in Irish

If you came here to learn the word rather than hear the song, here it is. Hello in Irish is Dia duit, said roughly DEE-uh gwitch. It means God be with you.

The reply is Dia is Muire duit, roughly DEE-uh iss MWIR-uh gwitch. That means God and Mary be with you. You’ll also see it spelled Dia dhuit.

There are plenty more in my guide to Irish greetings.

Learning some Irish from abroad

You already know more Irish than you think. Galore comes from go leor, and smithereens probably comes from smidiríní. My list of English words from Irish has plenty more.

Coláiste Lurgan also runs an online language lab called OIDE. Check its website to see who can sign up.

Adele’s Hello in Irish: FAQ

Who sings Adele’s Hello in Irish?

Shannon Bryan sings lead, backed by a student choir from Coláiste Lurgan. TG Lurgan posted it on YouTube on 16 September 2016.

What is TG Lurgan?

TG Lurgan is the YouTube channel of Coláiste Lurgan, an Irish-language summer college in Connemara. Students and staff have made covers of pop songs in Irish since around 2009.

Where is Coláiste Lurgan?

It’s in Indreabhán (Inverin), in the Connemara Gaeltacht in Co. Galway. That’s on the coast, west of Galway city.

What does “as Gaeilge” mean?

It means “in Irish”. Gaeilge is the Irish word for the Irish language.

Adele’s Hello in Irish: The TG Lurgan Cover Sung as Gaeilge