Former Irish F1 driver Eddie Jordan has claimed that he was reprimanded by the BBC for attempting to speak Irish with Hollywood A-lister Michael Fassbender in 2013.
Jordan, a former Formula One team owner and founder of Jordan Grand Prix, which competed in Formula One from 1991 to 2005, is best known for his involvement in the racing circle.
In March of this year, Jordan, speaking on his podcast "Formula for Success," claimed that he met several celebrities in the pit lane in 2013 in Montreal. These included the likes of Al Pacino and Fassbender, who was educated in Kerry and is fluent in the Irish language.
Jordan met the X-Man star and conversed with him in Irish on the BBC, and according to Jordan, he was given a stern talking-to by a BBC producer.
“Michael, with such a strong German name, was actually brought up and educated in Kerry, Ireland, and he’s a fluent Irish speaker,” Eddie said in March. "I remember going on the pit walk, and I started to speak as Gaeilge—in other words, I was speaking Irish—to Michael as I normally would have done.
"I remember the producer from the BBC; he went absolutely ballistic—what was I doing speaking a foreign language on the great BBC?! I said, 'Oh, get stuffed' or whatever I said to him, I forget.
"But anyway, I enjoyed it. Fassbender tells this story to everybody because it is so unique that someone should just broach an Irish language story. As a result, I keep in touch with him all the time; he needs to know who's doing what—you can't imagine how involved he is in Formula One," Eddie added.
The clip has now emerged from 2013, where Fassbender and Jordan could be seen speaking the Irish language.
Jordan said, "Micheál, conas atá tú?" ("How are you?"), to which Fassbender responded, "Tá mé go maith, agus tú féin?" ("I'm well, and yourself"). That was as far as the conversation went before they went back to English.
We say keep on speaking it,
Here's the full clip in question.
