A Gaeltacht in Dublin?

PeadarCo wrote: »

How would a Gaeltacht region (even equal status) in a cosmopolitian city like Dublin be achieved? I can understand the traditional Gaeltacht regions suffering due the recession and efforts being made to establish Gaeltachts less prone to economic uncertainties. How do Irish language groups plan to get Irish from being primarily a book language and persuade people like me who a conversational level of Irish to actually use it.

An organisation in Galway called Gaillimh le Gaeilge conducted an Exploratory Study into Bilingualism in Galway city.

Dátheangachas i
gCathair na Gaillimhe

It gives a good insight into what a Bilingual City in an Irish Context might look like, though it is taken from a City Planing and Policy view point, rather than looking at spreading Bilingualism on the ground.

Another example worth looking at is the Gaeltacht Quarter in Belfast, centered around Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich on the Falls Road.



When it comes to building a population in an area able to use both languages, then Irish Medium Education is by far the most important factor, and with it, social outlets outside of school where kids can use Irish such as sports clubs run through Irish (Like Na Gaeil Óga in Dublin) and Youth Organisations such as Ógras.
Later on, Children being raised through/with Irish in the home becomes important, that is where organisations like Comhluadar come in.

As far as getting people to buy into the concept of a Gaeltacht area in a City, services being made available in Irish, iniatially by the state, and later by Private business is necessary, and a focal point for the language community, such as An Cultúrlann in Belfast or Áras Chrónáin in Clondalkin are important.

PeadarCo wrote: »

Thanks for the Report

Question. Would it not be better to start with Galway rather than Dublin? I say that because there are Gaeltachts located relatively close and Galway is the only major city near a Gaeltacht and the services and opportunities that come with that. It would also offer greater incentives for busineses. The report shows that there would some potenial of success in Galway but It sounds like ur putting the cart before the horse with the idea of Dublin. It would also be a good idea to conduct a similar study on different areas in Dublin. Give the size and location differences I wouldn't see the study as being directly relevant to Dublin even though its better than nothing.

To be honest I don't think the state can do a whole lot and has a history of failure, even that report indicates that people aren't overly enthusiastic about state involvement.

I would take issue with the report comparing the situation of German Italian to Irish English. German and Italian are not comparable with Irish in terms of numbers speaking on a daily basis. Both are major European languages in terms of use Irish isn't.

The other point is I don't think the Irish language should be the focal point of a community it should be like english just a language that people use in day to day use. I have other things I'm interested in doing. If Irish is a more convinient language for communication I'll use it but its not my focal point.

As far as I am aware, its not really a question of starting with any given area, if an area wants to become a Gaeltacht, the criteria they will have to meet will be set down, if they can meet them, then they can get Gaeltacht status, if not, they don't, It will be up to the areas themselves to fulfil the criteria rather than the government targeting an area and trying to make it a gaeltacht.


The case study on Bolzano/Bozen was just to show how an Existing Bilingual city actually functions, not to suggest that the situation in Ireland is similar to that in Italy.

opti0nal wrote: »

Will the areas self-regulate Irish-language compliance once they've received government approval? A language enforcement corps perhaps? Neighbourhood committees? Screening of new residents? Boycotts of English-speaking businesses? How will the boundaries be marked?

I guess they'll be pretty keen to hang on to the 'benefits', whatever they may be.

Of course, and green watch towers and Irish speaking gaurd dogs too. And anyone found not to speak Enough Irish will have to go to Summer 'Camps' to be re-educated.

Why, what were you expecting?

Permabear wrote: »

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FYP

Permabear wrote: »

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There are no crediable figures on language useage from before the famine, your argument is baseless.

Have a look at the figures you provided, they simply don't add up. The Famine affected the Irish speaking population more than the English speaking population of Ireland due to their relative wealth and backgrounds, yet you would have us believe that there were 1.5 million people in the country before the famine with the ability to speak Irish, and 1.52 million people after the famine able to speak Irish?
Either no Irish speakers were killed during the course of the Famine, or for some reason enough English only speakers from before the famine learnt Irish not only to replace every Irish speaker who died in the famine but to add an extra 20,000 Irish speakers to the total. Do you think those figures represent reality now?


Who are these historians and linguists who have said that Irish was replaced as the majority language before 1800, any links?

The replacement of the Irish Language with English was a long process, and was anything but natural, it was the Policy of the English Monarchy and later the British Government to effect Language shift in Ireland, there is abundant evidence of this.
English was made the language of education and profession, the position of Irish as being the language of the peseant was very much an imposed situation.

Saying that people chose to abandon Irish, after the destruction of the Irish speaking Educated Class, the imposition of English as the language of the state and a several campaigns of wholesale destruction and deportation which predomentally affected the Irish speaking population as well as the plantation of several thousand, if not several hundred thousand English speakers into areas of Ireland thus destroying Irish as the comunity language in those areas, is akin to saying that a patient chooses to abandon a gangreenous limb, not much choice involved really.

You might think that the above is just a case of Perfidious Albion, but its all there in the historical record.

Have you ever asked yourself what effect the wholesale deportation of the native population under 'To hell or to Connacht' Cromwell might have had on the linguistic fabric of the areas people were transported from? Or what effect planting English Speakers with no ability to speak Irish and orders from the Government never to learn to speak Irish into an area might have had?

The idea that everyone in Ireland had Irish bet out of them has no doubt been mytholigised, but the idea that it was a willing choice by the majority of the population is an absoulute fantisy.

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Argument? My argument is that it is a baseless claim to assert that Irish had become the minority language by 1800. The lack of evidence to support your claim backs me up nicely.

You can start with the many historical analyses in Reg Hindley's book The Death of the Irish Language. George Brendan Adams' linguistic map of 17th century Ireland may also make interesting viewing, since it shows how the language shift actually began in the early seventeenth century.

I have not said that the language shift did not begin in the 17th centuary, quite the contrary actually if you read my post.

As for these books, I have not read them, so forgive my not being able to discuss them more fully, but are they based on the same unreliable sources that you have been using?

No matter how you bang on (and on, and on) about the Famine, there's simply no way that it can account for the census returns of 1851, which showed only 320,000 monolingual Irish speakers remaining in the country, out of a population of 6.5 million. By the middle of the nineteenth century, just 23.3 percent of the population (and 2.4 percent of the population of Leinster, the most populous province) could speak Irish at all. That is evidence not that umpteen millions of Irish speakers were wiped out in the Famine (which, inexplicably, all English speakers survived), but that a language shift from Irish to English had been going on for a very long time.

I have not cliamed that the Famine was a singular event which alone was responsible for the language shift, again read my post.
My claim was that figures from before the famine are not credible sources, which I have shown, and which any examination either of the figures themselves, or how the surveys were carried out will show.

I believe that if you read my post you will see that I said: 'The replacement of the Irish Language with English was a long process'

I am not disputing that it was occuring before the Famine, just the claim that it was a choice rather than an imposition by the state.

there's simply no way that it can account for the census returns of 1851, which showed only 320,000 monolingual Irish speakers remaining in the country, out of a population of 6.5 million. By the middle of the nineteenth century, just 23.3 percent of the population

As for this, by your logic 43% of the Irish Population can speak Irish today, because that is what was reported in the 2006 census. Given that the Irish Language was held in low regard at the time, and that there had just been a Famine which had a major influence on the Irish psyche, reinforcing negative feelings twords anything Irish, you don't think that there might have been a tiny bit of undereporting?

dpe wrote: »

Nationalists seem to be firmly of the belief that national identity and unique language are intrinsically linked; that you're somehow diminished as a nation if you don't have your own language. Which is of course absolute rubbish.

Do you think the French national identity would be unaffected if they spoke German?

A nation not having a language of its own does not negativly affect it, a nation loosing its own language however can have a serious impact on a national identity.