If you want to learn to speak Irish, this is the book and tapes for you. To me without the tapes it would take twice as long.
The language is a difficult one. For many reasons. And as another reviewer stated there are so many letters in words that are silent. The pronunciations are very different from ours, for example the authors name is pronounced Meal O'Sheal. But this book is so detailed they even tell you how to place your tongue in your mouth when pronouncing sounds. I started to take notes on index cards to help me, but everything I tried to short cut that way was already listed exactly that way somewhere in the book already as a quick reference guide. It's not something you'll learn over night, but this will definately teach you.

I bought this book based on the great reviews in this section, so I feel compellled to add my comments. I have studied seven languages over many years, three of them extensively, and am quite familiar with the methodology for learning a new language. This is far and away the WORST textbook/tape series I have ever encountered. I can only deduce from the other reviews that the reason people rate this course highly is that it is better than all the other alternatives for learning Gaelic. Perhaps, but it is still abominable, in terms of the methodology. In each chapter, a list of vocabulary words is given. This is pretty standard for language texts. However, in all the other language texts I have used, what follows is extensive practice exercises and grammar rules, so that you use the vocabulary in context over and over before going on to the next chapter. In this book, by contrast, what follows is one or two extremly compact (to the point of being unintelligible, in some cases) grammar rules, with almost no explanation, followed by an extremely terse list of "text" sentences, using some pretty odd subjects as examples. At the end of the chapter is one paragraph, as short as possible, using every word in the vocabulary section not used yet - which means there are a lot of silly, non-sequitur sentences placed one after the other. As for the tapes, as is mentioned in another review, they could be of better quality. More important, there is NO SPACE left on the tape to repeat the phrases given - absolutely unconscionable for something presenting itself as a language course. So, if you want to actually repeat the phrases, you have to keep pausing the tape between every phrase. This might be a minor issue if Irish were a language that was written as it is spoken; as most people are aware, this is not the case. You cannot learn Irish without listening to it.

I know that Irish is a difficult language to learn, and that there is a dearth of good books from which to learn it. My issue with this book is not that it is difficult. My issue is that it is extremely terse, with almost no explanations and virtually no practice exercises. It would be better off presenting itself simply as a book on Irish grammar and vocabulary rather than an instructional textbook, although it would be difficult to use even as that, because it is not indexed well. I wouldn't recommend this book as the SOLE text for anyone. I plan to keep slogging through it, but am searching now for a supplement, to get some useful practical exercises.