Help Breandán keep teaching

I am very grateful to everyone who helped me after I lost everything in the Lismore flood at the end of February 2022. With the help of donations from my students, friends and acquaintances on GoFundMe and elsewhere I was able to replace many of my textbooks and resume teaching Irish quickly.

After that, I had to go on the dole for the first time in my life to supplement a shortfall in income. I then transitioned to a government scheme for self-employed people to learn how to build their businesses and have been applying this to my teaching and music activities.

However, the allowance portion of the scheme ended in October and as I have been launched into self-sufficiency, I have found myself able to cover basic rent and living costs but not yet able to put enough money aside for larger expenses such as car registration (including CTP) AU$1280, motor insurance (AU$800), internet hosting costs (AU$500), business insurance (AU$300), etc. I need the car to get to gigs such as the Eltham session, weddings, and the class starting in the Gabba next month, as well as to visit my kids in Lismore.

I've been busking to supplement daily costs such as food and petrol, and my flatmate is helping by sourcing free food.

I have expanded my teaching to Japanese and English. I'm also considering music lessons but those are more difficult to organise due to noise restrictions.

There is also an opportunity for me to teach Irish to a class of Irish children regularly here in Brisbane, but this will require me getting a blue card (working with children check) (AU$80), which in turn requires applying for a replacement birth certificate (AU$70) (I lost the original in the flood.)

So, I am now resorting to another GoFundMe, this time to help make ends meet until I can get enough students to become completely self-sufficient.

For larger donations I am offering private lessons in Irish language (Gaeilge), Japanese (日本語), English (英語), or (tentatively) Irish music (tin whistle, Irish flute, uilleann pipes, bones, spoons) as follows:

Eleven (11) 45-minute lessons for US$200 (~US$18.18/lesson)

Twenty-four (24) 45-minute lessons for US$400 (~US$16.67/lesson)

Fifty (50) 45-minute lessons for US$800 (US$16/lesson)

One hundred and four (104) 45-minute lessons for US$1,600 (~US$15.38/lesson)

For direct lesson enquiries, feel free to contact me via social media.

For those who don't know me that well, I speak the Cois Fhairrge dialect of Connacht Irish but can also speak and teach Ulster Irish and am working on learning more Munster Irish.

I majored in Japanese translation to postgraduate level and lived in Japan for eighteen years. I was a professional patent translator from Japanese to English for 28 years. I used to teach Irish to Japanese adults in Japanese in Tokyo.

I have been playing Irish music (and some Old-Time American and Bluegrass) on tin whistle for nearly forty years now and have picked up Irish flute, uilleann pipes, spoons and bones along the way.

Any assistance you can give me in getting on track would be greatly appreciated.

Brendan Weightman

aka Breandán an Píobaire