Question for you and Irish culture

Jorge

Hello everybody. I am Jorge from Araba in the Basque Country in north of Spain.

I am living in Dublin for 4 weeks because I am interested in Celtic Culture and Ireland has much of it and i like this country very much. And also your people are very the same as my people.

Also now I am begining learn Irish culture and everything. I like music of Ireland and language of Ireland. I cannot find this special culture in Europe at all.

I visit Wicklow, Cork, Limerick before. I like Dublin and I am living here but I visit Gaillimh last week and there is more good experiences for me in this city. I visit the city and ``An Ghaeltacht`` beside the sea. Also I visit ``Na hOileann Aran`` and is amazing and I love this place. There is very good Irish culture and I really like to move there to learn more about Ireland.

My question for you is I cannot understan the history of Ireland, please help me. I ask my Irish friends but sometimes a never understand what they tell me. I can read English better than to listen.

I do not understand why there not Irish culture everywhere in Ireland and in Dublin the English culture is better? I like to know why many your people do not like Irish language and music of Ireland ? My friend said to me all people in Ireland is from really old celtic people. I think many places in this country that your people are not very celtic but in Gaillimh the people are celtic.

I do not understand that Gaillimh is very different and not the same in Dublin. I think in Dublin that the Irish people are very patroitic but in Gaillimh it is diferent and the people are very Irish without patriotic!

Thankyou for the help. I will read every answer. I am learning and very confused in your country!

Jorge

Dave!

Well basically the English influence is strongest in Dublin because the main English headquarters was there (Dublin Castle -- have you been there yet?)

I'm sure someone else will expand on that, but I won't pretend to be any more educated than I am

Welcome to Ireland!

Kernel

Hi Jorge, the reason why Dublin seems less 'Celtic' is that Dublin was also the capital city of Ireland during the occupation by British crown forces, and this region was known as 'The Pale'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale

British government buildings were situated here, and much trade and employment was carried out. It was not possible to succeed without speaking English - which is why Gaeilge died out. The influence wasn't felt as strongly outside of the Pale because the British weren't all that interested in the boglands - apart from for plantation purposes - because there wasn't a lot to do out there (that is why so many from the country clog up the fine city of Dublin).

The customs of Ireland are therefore different between Dublin and 'the country' because of these reasons and geographical location. The customs of Dublin are still unique, but obviously influenced by the British.

In the end we had the last laugh, when in 1916 brave Dubs rose up in glorious revolution, and defeated the British Empire. Ah, lovely. Now, there will be much debate and criticism from culchies and west-Brits (a new phenomenon of people who think the English are great and want to be like them).

Dave!

Kernel wrote:

In the end we had the last laugh, when in 1916 brave Dubs rose up in glorious revolution, and defeated the British Empire. Ah, lovely. Now, there will be much debate and criticism from culchies and west-Brits (a new phenomenon of people who think the English are great and want to be like them).

Don't confuse the chap with your gibberish!

Rollo Tamasi

Kernel wrote:

In the end we had the last laugh, when in 1916 brave Dubs rose up in glorious revolution, and defeated the British Empire. Ah, lovely.

brave dubs like Michael Collins and De Valera yeah?
anyway...

The reason why irish isn't spoken as much is because up to less than a 100 years ago it was illeagal to speak the language. The British would execute those speaking Irish. Cultural movements where apparant across the country and gave rise to the IRB (who later became the IRA), the Gaelic League, and the GAA (Gaelic Atheltic Association).

Irish is resented by young people very much in the same way as Latin would be resented by young Italians, to a certain extent anyway, who are pretty much asked to learn a language that they'll never really use.

I'm a fleunt Irish speaker and i'm very much in the minority in this country which is a shame.

Kernel

DaveMcG wrote:

Don't confuse the chap with your gibberish!

Oh and Jorge, for feck sake - stay away from Tallaght.

Dave!

Funny you should mention that! I was walking my dog earlier and passed by the football pitch near me, and there were no less than 30 Spanish students kickin a ball around, and playing frisbee and stuff!

If you're a Spanish student, Tallaght's the place to be!

Mr.Nice Guy

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

The reason why irish isn't spoken as much is because up to less than a 100 years ago it was illeagal to speak the language. The British would execute those speaking Irish.

Yeah we all remember the countless people from the Gaelic League executed for speaking the language.

Kernel

Kernel wrote:

.

In the end we had the last laugh, when in 1916 brave Dubs rose up in glorious revolution, and defeated the British Empire.QUOTE]

Holy god!We defeated the british in 1916!well feck me,Every history book has been telling lies!!!!!!!!!!!1111!!!!!!!11!

Lets see
Sean mac diarmada:leitrim
Eamonn DeValera:New York
thomas mac donagh:Cloughjordan
Tom Clarke:Isle of Wight

It was not all dubs.

DublinWriter

Kernel wrote:

In the end we had the last laugh, when in 1916 brave Dubs rose up in glorious revolution, and defeated the British Empire. Ah, lovely. Now, there will be much debate and criticism from culchies and west-Brits (a new phenomenon of people who think the English are great and want to be like them).

Laughed my balls off at the above!

'Defeated' the British Empire? The 1916 Rising was a military disaster.

Secondly, the leaders of the 1916 were spat at by Dubliners as they were being led from the GPO to Kilmainham.

Thirdly, go read/watch Strumpet City. Many Dublin homes, both working and middle class, hung out Union Jacks when King Edward came to visit.

Black Swan

One book you may want to read is How the Irish Saved Civilization. This is but one of many fine books that address Irish culture and its origins.

ullu

Kernel wrote:

In the end we had the last laugh, when in 1916 brave Dubs rose up in glorious revolution, and defeated the British Empire. Ah, lovely. Now, there will be much debate and criticism from culchies and west-Brits (a new phenomenon of people who think the English are great and want to be like them).

West-Brits are a new phenomenon? They must be have only recently emerged from the shadow of the Vikings who preceded them...

DublinWriter

ullu wrote:

West-Brits are a new phenomenon? They must be have only recently emerged from the shadow of the Vikings who preceded them...

Ack-chew-ley, the term 'West Brit' comes from the 1801 Act of Union which renamed Ireland 'West Briton'.

It didn't catch on, strangely.

ullu

DublinWriter wrote:

Ack-chew-ley, the term 'West Brit' comes from the 1801 Act of Union which renamed Ireland 'West Briton'.

It didn't catch on, strangely.

In fairness, I was only pointing out in a facetious way that the poster of that comment seemed to imply being a West Brit was a recent fashion trend.

Day-wanna-wonga

Kernel wrote:

In the end we had the last laugh

Didn't realise the last laugh had happened yet. And when you say "we", you of course mean other people surely? Unless you were alive in 1916...

Hagar

Here we go again...

Beruthiel

Jorge wrote:

My question for you is I cannot understan the history of Ireland, please help me. I ask my Irish friends but sometimes a never understand what they tell me.

Hi Jorge,
Irish history goes back a long, long way.
How far back do you want to go?
For a little tiny taste of my favourites:

The myths and legends of the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha de Dannan
Queen Maeve and Cu Chulain
Neolithic Ireland
The first High King Brian Boru
Gráinne Ní Mháille

I like to know why many your people do not like Irish language and music of Ireland ?

That's a hard one to answer.
Perhaps we have had our independence in the south for a while now and the need to keep the culture is not as strong in the population as it once was, though you will still find sections who do feel it's still important.

Last month I spent my holidays in the Basque Country, Bilbao, San Sebastian and 5 days in Hondarribia.
It was in Hondarribia that I was really struck with something I did not realise before. That the Basque people feel very, very strongly that they are not Spanish but a people apart and to their own.
Before I took my holidays there, I thought that it was just some of your people who felt this way, now I know that it's everyone.
You still speak Basque, your music is played on the streets and every where you go, you just know you are in the Basque country and not Spain. Perhaps if the Spanish give you your independence, eventually you will not need to strongly hang onto your culture anymore...
I loved the holiday by the way, Hondarribia is a wonderful town, the people are fantastic there.


Lads
Why not take the political discussion to another thread and just give Jorge what he asked for, a taste of irish history.
Though, considering that we have never done anything but fight amongst ourselves, nothing much has changed there...

Day-wanna-wonga

Here is one definitive link: http://www.answers.com/topic/history-of-ireland

Beruthiel

Day-wanna-wonga wrote:

Here is one definitive link: http://www.answers.com/topic/history-of-ireland

that should keep him going for a couple of weeks

Wibbs

Jorge wrote:

Hello everybody. I am Jorge from Araba in the Basque Country in north of Spain.

Hola Jorge(or is that Epa Jorge )Funny thing is that we as a people may be more related to you lot in northern Spain than any others in europe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland#Demographics (third paragraph)
In fairness the genes are more on the Gallaecian side but close enough.

Kernel wrote:

British government buildings were situated here, and much trade and employment was carried out. It was not possible to succeed without speaking English - which is why Gaeilge died out. The influence wasn't felt as strongly outside of the Pale because the British weren't all that interested in the boglands - apart from for plantation purposes - because there wasn't a lot to do out there (that is why so many from the country clog up the fine city of Dublin).

I would agree with that about the Irish language. My family have lived inside "the Pale" for 100's of years and haven't spoken Irish in living memory. One uncle of mine learned the language in adulthood but that's it. The fact is that if I learned the language now, no matter how well I spoke it I would sound to a true Irish speaker(very few of those) like a foreigner in my own country. Thanks but no thanks. It would be the same if I tried to learn Basque or Spanish. No matter how long I did it for it's pretty likely you would see I was not a native(though obviously both those languages would be needed if I lived there).

Irish is resented by young people very much in the same way as Latin would be resented by young Italians, to a certain extent anyway, who are pretty much asked to learn a language that they'll never really use.

True though I would contend Latin is actually more useful in a purely practical way if not a cultural one.

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

I'm a fleunt Irish speaker and i'm very much in the minority in this country which is a shame.

Shame is debatable, but I do get your point. Then again, we don't speak pict,latin,french or norse either. All of which would have been in use here in the past. If it's meant to survive it will. Look at minority languages in other parts of Europe. The ex eastern bloc countries are a good example. Russian was the official language for a long time. Now the USSR is gone those languages have come back by themselves without the need for huge intervention from government. Same with Basque. Welsh even closer to home. Simply put, the people wanted it to survive. If Irish survives then I'll be happy as it was down to the Irish who wanted to speak it. If not, I won't cry too much.

Hagar wrote:

Here we go again...

Oooooh yea.

In my opinion it's not the English influence anymore. It's more the American.

chamlis

Wibbs wrote:

In my opinion it's not the English influence anymore. It's more the American.

*sigh* So true....

Jorge welcome to Ireland!
I've always had a love for your people and have visited the Basque country many times in the past. Our peoples are very alike. I hope you are having a great time in Galway if you're still there.

Beruthiel

Wibbs wrote:

My family have lived inside "the Pale" for 100's of years and haven't spoken Irish in living memory

Where as my family have always come from the West of Ireland, everyone of them (except for my generation) can speak Irish.
Our family comes from the Joyces, one of the Connaught Tribes from back in the day.

Wibbs

Beruthiel wrote:

It was in Hondarribia that I was really struck with something I did not realise before. That the Basque people feel very, very strongly that they are not Spanish but a people apart and to their own.
Before I took my holidays there, I thought that it was just some of your people who felt this way, now I know that it's everyone.
You still speak Basque, your music is played on the streets and every where you go, you just know you are in the Basque country and not Spain. Perhaps if the Spanish give you your independence, eventually you will not need to strongly hang onto your culture anymore...

I agree with you there. Spain is like that everywhere and not just with the Basques. If you go to Madrid where there would be a larger influx of people from all over Spain you find they identify themselves with their place of origin and the culture of that place much more than here. Also the cultures are much more distinctive than the more homogenised Ireland. The food, traditional dress, the architecture, festivals, the dialect can vary within a two hours drive of Madrid. They have way more language diversity too. Catalan, Galician, Basque, castilian(spanish) andalusian Spanish, asturian. After trying to think of more I found this Doh! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Spain
Their culture is as varied as their climate and is by far one of the most diverse I've experienced in Europe. We have a much much blander palate by comparison. Here a bloke or blokess from leitrim eats the same, dresses the same and lives in the same kind of house as a bloke or blokess from any other county you care to mention. Different ball game entirely.

Funsterdelux

You probably like Galway coz there is a bit of the old español in the people of the west, Armada crashes along West Coast, survivors and locals get together, one thing leads to another.
But thats beside the point

Simpson Quote: "Go back to Russia"

Beruthiel

Funsterdelux wrote:

You probably like Galway coz there is a bit of the old español in the people of the west, Armada crashes along West Coast, survivors and locals get together, one thing leads to another.

You're not wrong there, I come from a very large family, nearly every last one of us has brown eyes and black hair.

LikeOhMyGawd!

Jorge,

you will find that in Northern Ireland there is a close affinity between the Irish republicans and the Basques.

http://www.eitb24.com/portal/eitb24/noticia/es/politica/alto-el-fuego-gerry-adams-visitara-este-martes-euskadi?itemId=CD35309&cl=%2Feitb24%2Fpolitica&idioma=es

Beruthiel

LikeOhMyGawd! wrote:

you will find that in Northern Ireland there is a close affinity between the Irish republicans and the Basques.

Gerry Adams flew out to Bilbao on the same plane as myself when I was taking my holidays, I half wondered if I was going to arrive in one piece

loz

Kernel wrote:

In the end we had the last laugh, when in 1916 brave Dubs rose up in glorious revolution, and defeated the British Empire. Ah, lovely. Now, there will be much debate and criticism from culchies and west-Brits (a new phenomenon of people who think the English are great and want to be like them).

you mean we got bored and left you to split the country yourselves etc...

plus we had a real war to go and fight ....

Beruthiel

loz wrote:

you mean we got bored and left you to split the country yourselves etc...

plus we had a real war to go and fight ....

quit trolling :rolleyes:

Dyr

Beruthiel wrote:

You're not wrong there, I come from a very large family, nearly every last one of us has brown eyes and black hair.

Aye, ive known a few people on the west coast who'd still nearly pass as spaniards

Gone West

I gotta say. This guy is *the* sort of spanish tourist we want here.
He has a very good handle on the country.

Slutmonkey57b

Hmm.. why doesn't Irish culture have more of an influence?

To me, the primary reason why Irish culture fell off in the mid-20th century is that it was always part of a hypocritical backwards cultural fascism centred around obedience to the three ultimate deities of the Catholic Church, bloodthirsty republicanism, and bogmunching GAA games. Anybody with any sense has been trying to extricate the notion of "Irishness" away from these repulsive institutions for years, and as a result the traditional Irish culture has become more isolated.

The Irish language hasn't died off, it died off and was falsely resurrected, then post independance was forced down our throats in school to no good purpose. Personally, I make a point of never speaking or listening to someone speak Irish, purely because I object so strongly to the way 16 years of my school life were wasted teaching it to me. We could have learned two continental languages in that time, but no, the fascists decided you're not Irish unless you're speaking the language...

FillSpectre

Very simple. Human nature means the young embrace change but as they get older they go to more traditional views and actions. AS Ireland has a predominately young population it appears we have changed culturally. As the generation ages the culture will return somew what but it will be altered.

Blaming the influence of the British is a little pointless, what we have is Irish culture and all the influences you can't say it is not Irish celtic as it is what it is. The Celts were not a very defined group to start with and cultures with massive differences were all called Celts. Rural Ireland is still not particularly celtic due to the famine and traditional trades disappearing then and further with the introduction of cheap imports.

vred

I'm half breton, half irish but live in brittany and I come quite often to Ireland. I feel a bit the same as Jorge. In the east and in dublin you do see quite a bit of gaeilge probably 'cause of the government I suppose but oderwise you really have to be looking for it. All my cousins (living here) don't like trad music at all and I heared the same from other people, I do because my parents were quite involved when there was the music's "revival" and passed it on to me.
Brittany is quite different, the language is in a bad state (because of the french government and a generation that stoped talking it to the children) but things are starting to get better in the opinion that people have of the language, the music is really doing good. On the oder hand people that don't feel french but breton are a minority, maybe 10%, most people feel breton and french. People are not aware at all of brittany's history, it's not mentioned in school, so you end up studying france with maps where brittany is not on it for some periods and you're not told anything about it.
So it's a bit the opposite to ireland (not for the language). The east part of brittany is more influenced by france and it's there that people are more "patriotic" so that's a bit like in ireland.

Wibbs

Beruthiel wrote:

You're not wrong there, I come from a very large family, nearly every last one of us has brown eyes and black hair.

That's far more likely to be because of the ancestral roots of the Irish/picts, especially in the west which had far less colonisation than the east. The Spanish link is way way before the armada. The armada influence on the local genes would have been very slight. As I said in my first post genetically it seems we are most related to the population in northern Spain, not the celts of central europe. So it looks like we may have not gotten here by the obvious(and previously thought) route through central Europe - Britain - Ireland, but instead came by the seaward route. Basically we came as Spics, who turned into Micks due to the cold.:D

blorg

With regard to language I would think it's mainly two things: (1) English has been spoken for long enough that Irish died out, (actually comparitively recently, but it only takes a few generations) and (2) Irish is a different language group to English and thus relatively difficult to learn. It's also seen as somewhat impractical by many - hence difficult to revive.

I would have thought that it's pretty much the same in Spain; Catalan is spoken extremely widely in Catalunya (Romance language, not too dissimilar from Castillian, easy to learn) but I never got the impression that Basque was terribly widely spoken in the Basque Country (beyond "Agur!" and then continuing in Castillian.) In fact I thought it very like the position of Irish here; on the signs, etc. but not really widely spoken. Of course Basque is a completely different language with no commonality with Castillian, even more so than Irish/English, and would be substantially more difficult to learn for a Castillian speaker compared to Catalan.

Kernel

DaveMcG wrote:

Funny you should mention that! I was walking my dog earlier and passed by the football pitch near me, and there were no less than 30 Spanish students kickin a ball around, and playing frisbee and stuff!

If you're a Spanish student, Tallaght's the place to be!

They weren't Spanish, they were Romanians.

On topic, I think one of the saddest things about the decline in Irish culture is the slow death of our traditional music. You don't get many young people wanting to learn traditional instruments or form traditional bands anymore. Instead kids want to form rock bands and sing like Americans. Shame.

Would be nice to hear a few more new trad bands coming out with new trad stuff, as I think music has a big effect on culture, and a more unique form of music should be cherished.

Rollo Tamasi

Mr.Nice Guy wrote:

Yeah we all remember the countless people from the Gaelic League executed for speaking the language.

the gaelic league didn't specifically speak irish, they promoted gaelic culture. Irish was illeagal prior to 1922.

Slutmonkey57b

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

the gaelic league didn't specifically speak irish, they promoted gaelic culture. Irish was illeagal prior to 1922.

Bull****.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language#Irish_Language_Movement

Irish was never illegal, and people were never shot for speaking it. It was illegal to teach Irish in the newly-created national schools in the 19th century, because the british government was funding the free education of the nation (another "what have the romans ever done for us" moment people like to forget), and funnily enough they probably thought:
a) Teaching a dying language was a waste of time (sounds familiar today)
b) Teaching British subjects (like it or not we were at the time) skills that would be useful to them growing up (like the English language that was already the most widespread in the world) in a british society was a good idea.

InFront

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Bull****.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language#Irish_Language_Movement

Irish was never illegal, and people were never shot for speaking it. It was illegal to teach Irish in the newly-created national schools in the 19th century, because the british government was funding the free education of the nation (another "what have the romans ever done for us" moment people like to forget), and funnily enough they probably thought:
a) Teaching a dying language was a waste of time (sounds familiar today)
b) Teaching British subjects (like it or not we were at the time) skills that would be useful to them growing up (like the English language that was already the most widespread in the world) in a british society was a good idea.

Why did they make the teaching of irish illegal anyways? i mean what was their motive? I know that in India, and the as yet uncreated Pakistan, Bangladesh, teaching of the regional languages was maintained and the languages all survived the British presence. Why not here? Maybe because it is a smaller country?

Slutmonkey57b

Ehhh... Didn't I already cover the potential motives in the last post? I think I did. Here's another:
Expanding the influence of British culture into Ireland was a good way of offsetting the power of the Catholic church and the likelihood of Ireland being used as a staging post for the invasion of Britain by either Spain or France would hopefully diminish.
The British had less direct control over the empire further abroad, where it was more necessary to use the partnership of the locals to administrate the empire.

InFront

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

Ehhh... Didn't I already cover the potential motives in the last post? I think I did.

i dont think that explains it convincingly though, ie why they didnt try more actively to permeate their language into southern asia. they had the same political motives there as in ireland. and in ireland they depended very heavily on locals in partnership. I think some of this has to be put down to Irish people themselves trying to further their economic and social progress. This is how 'Indian English' has come about - not British pressure but from with the India, Pakistan etc, people trying to make themselves more employable/ socially advanced. I think that even if the British had not tried to exterminate Irish here, it would probably have been inevitable.

Slutmonkey57b

The British Empire was simply too large for them to do that. They had nowhere near enough troops to control the subcontinent or asia, the area and population simply dwarfed the resources that the british had available to them. In contrast, Ireland was their much smaller and closer neighbour - they had the same advantage in population, troop levels etc over us that the Catholic world held over them.

InFront

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

The British Empire was simply too large for them to do that. They had nowhere near enough troops to control the subcontinent or asia, the area and population simply dwarfed the resources that the british had available to them. In contrast, Ireland was their much smaller and closer neighbour - they had the same advantage in population, troop levels etc over us that the Catholic world held over them.

But how does the English language oppose Catholic religion, and I remember my old religion teacher telling us that the first Christian bible in Irish was in fact published by Queen Elizabeth I. Apologies if that is not correct, she was a looper.

Wibbs

InFront wrote:

i dont think that explains it convincingly though, ie why they didnt try more actively to permeate their language into southern asia. they had the same political motives there as in ireland. and in ireland they depended very heavily on locals in partnership. I think some of this has to be put down to Irish people themselves trying to further their economic and social progress. This is how 'Indian English' has come about - not British pressure but from with the India, Pakistan etc, people trying to make themselves more employable/ socially advanced. I think that even if the British had not tried to exterminate Irish here, it would probably have been inevitable.

Very good point and I would suspect on the money especially in the "pale" areas.

But how does the English language oppose Catholic religion, and I remember my old religion teacher telling us that the first Christian bible in Irish was in fact published by Queen Elizabeth I. Apologies if that is not correct, she was a looper.

The problem that the catholic church would have had with the translation of the bible into the vernacular is a big one. It was against their principle of keeping it in latin, therefore reducing the difficult questions from the general population(very few of which could read latin) over doctrinal inconsistancies.

As Slutmonkey57b pointed out Irish was not outlawed, nor were people shot for speaking it. That's just the usual revisionist republican bull. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language#Irish_Language_Movement

Intersting bit in his link "Queen Elizabeth I encouraged the use of Irish even in the Pale with a view to promoting the reformed religon. She is reported to have expressed a desire to understand Irish and a primer was prepared on her behalf by Sir Christopher Nugent, ninth baron of Delvin. The first book in Irish was printed in 1564 in Edinburgh a translation of John Knox's 'Liturgy' by John Carswell, Bishop of the Hebridies."

byrnep

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

brave dubs like Michael Collins and De Valera yeah?
The British would execute those speaking Irish. QUOTE]

Don't exagerate, persecute maybe, execute, hardly.

ScottishDanny

I've seen two references to Picts here - the Picts were indigenous to Scotland and were absorbed by the Scota tribe who came over from Ireland.

If the Irish language was not banned it was certainly repressed as it was banned from the classroom and anyone speaking Irish in school was punished for it.

Here are some of the Penal Laws
Exclusion of Catholics from public office (since 1607), Presbyterians were also barred from public office from 1707.
Ban on intermarriage with Protestants
Presbyterian marriages were not legally recognised by the state
Catholics barred from holding firearms or serving in the armed forces (rescinded by Militia Act of 1793)
Exclusion from membership in either the Parliament of Ireland or the Parliament of Great Britain from 1652, rescinded 1688, reinstated 1691;
Disenfranchising Act 1728, exclusion from voting;
Exclusion from legal professions;
Education Act 1695 - ban on foreign education;
In families, property rights could be gained by conversion to the Church of Ireland;
Popery Act- Catholic inheritances forced to be equally subdivided between all an owner's sons
Ban on converting from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism
Ban on Catholics buying their own land
Ban on custody of orphans being granted to Catholics
Ban on Catholics inheriting Protestant land
Prohibition on Catholics owning a horse valued at over £5 (in order to keep horses suitable for military activity out of the majority's hands)
Roman Catholic lay priests were tolerated under Registration Act 1704, but seminary priests and Bishops were not.
When allowed, Catholic churches only allowed be built from wood, not stone.

Similar Laws were introduced to Scotland which banned Wearing tartan, The Clan system, speaking Gaelic in school. The reason was the same as why Franco banned the Basque language - to erode national identity in favour of an imperial one.

Ironically I reckon Irish language is an unpopular subject for kids at school because of the way it is taught. My Dad hated Irish lessons at school but came back to it as an adult and enjoyed it.

Slutmonkey57b

All of these laws were brought in more as a reaction to the Civil War in England than the need to keep the locals down. And all the laws you've just cited have nothing to do with the Irish language, they are all to do with restricting the influence of Catholics within the British state (given the history of the Civil War and the religious wars of the time this is hardly suprising).

ScottishDanny

If you are prohibited from speaking your native language or learning your native history etc in school isn't that a means to erode national identity?

New_Departure06

Jorge this should help. Explains our history in Spanish. http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historia_de_Irlanda