Why is Conan O’Brien on an Irish language soap opera?

“It’s sizeable (dialogue), it was wild. His team insisted on that,” said Kevin. “From our side, we would have made it simpler. But his team said they wanted to see him struggle.

“For an American, with not a word of Irish, he did a fantastic job. I had a little bit to do with that but it was the whole cast and crew.”

Kevin hails from County Limerick, like O’Brien’s ancestors, and like the majority of Irish people he did not grow up speaking Irish. While it’s mandatory to study the language in school, the country’s last census shows about 40% of the population speak it at some level – but more than half of those people do not speak it well.

It is the likes of Ros na Rún – and other Irish language broadcasting – that seeks to preserve and promote the language. Which is partly why having one of the US’ most famous funny people on set was such a big deal.

There were challenges, however.

Kevin is responsible for ensuring the Irish spoken on the show stays consistent and correct to the script, which can be tricky given all the various Irish dialects used by different actors coming in and out of the cast.

But Irish-American O’Brien had no previous exposure to the language, said Kevin, beyond some famous phrases like céad míle fáilte (one hundred thousand welcomes).

“Usually when an actor comes on set, they might not have the best Irish but they usually have a cupla focal (a few words),” he said.

“So my job was to get him at ease, have a bit of craic with him and run through the lines.”

That meant guiding O’Brien through some phonetic cue cards before and during filming. Fortunately, the comedian picked things up quickly in between cracking jokes with cast and crew.