Tho' not a native speaker, I do try a few songs in Irish, having learnt these from a combination of recordings, printed/published versions, lengthy and painstaking production of my own phonetic renderings based on these two elements, and questioning of native speakers about the results. As has been mentioned, it's really essential to understand both the story/situation and the individual words and how these are often "run together", as well as the characteristics of the vocal ornamentation; however, isn't it the case that in Irish singing especially, any degree of personal expressiveness/interpretation tends to be frowned upon, by those who might be considered "purists", in favour of an almost emotionless rendering of a piece? Observations please.

What really gets me is that I can make a better job of any number of Italian songs even tho' I know little about the language other than these songs and a couple of operatic arie!