Were any former Taoisigh fluent in a language other than English?

coinop

Angela Merkel is fluent in German (obviously), English and Russian. Putin can speak those languages too. He picked up German in his younger days as a KGB agent in Eastern Germany. Even Boris Johnson, who suffers from a public image of a buffoon, is said to speak Latin, French and Italian fluently.

For an officially bilingual country, a surprising number of Irish are monoglots. I wonder does this extend to our politicians too. Did any former Taoisigh (or other high ranking Irish politicians) speak a language other than English? Let's include Irish in the discussion too. Many politicians will stumble their way through a few token words of Irish, but how many of them are fluent?

Mods please don't move the thread. Not a political topic. More of a cultural one.

bassy

What's boris fluent in,apart from talking crap in english.

bassy

bassy wrote: »

What's boris fluent in,apart from talking crap in english.

coinop wrote: »

Even Boris Johnson... is said to speak Latin, French and Italian fluently.

:rolleyes:

rapul

What's a Taoisigh when it's at home

flazio

Pretty sure Eamon De Valera had a cúpla focal.

AutoTuning

rapul wrote: »

What's a Taoisigh when it's at home

The plural of Taoiseach.

jimmycrackcorm

AutoTuning wrote: »

The plural of Taoiseach.

No. it's a flock of Taoiseaches.

rapul

Nah

AutoTuning

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

No. it's a flock of Taoiseaches.

Collective noun is a fluther of taoisigh.

elefant

From what I've heard of him speaking, Boris Johnson is not fluent in French or Italian.

SafeSurfer

Charles J Haughey was a Francophile, fluent in French and Irish and arguably the most intelligent Taoiseach we have had.

Peregrinus

John A Costello has a BA (first class!) in Law and French, so presumably could speak the language. Garret Fitzgerald spoke good French, as did John Bruton.

It seems to be a Fine Gael thing.

Thelonious Monk

It's a good reflection of the general population, Irish/British people aren't really bothered with fordrin languages because we already speak the world language. Boris speaks pretty good French though.

Peregrinus

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Charles J Haughey was a Francophile, fluent in French and Irish and arguably the most intelligent Taoiseach we have had.

Haughey had passable Irish and poor French. While he presented himself as a Francophile this largely expressed itself in patronising expensive French restaurants in Dublin and buying Charvet shirts.

ancapailldorcha

Enda Kenny spoke fluent Irish as far as I know.

Fann Linn

Reminds me of Mary Bannotti giving a speech in the 80s or 90s in the EU Parliament and being constantly heckled by Ian Paisley senior.

She seamlessly carried on her speech in English, French and Italian I think, being fluent in those, and left him clutching at straws.

EmmetSpiceland

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Charles J Haughey was a Francophile, fluent in French and Irish and arguably the most intelligent Taoiseach we have had.

A criminal mastermind.

KevRossi

Fitzgerald could speak good French, as could Alan Dukes. I have that from a French woman who lived here in the 80's and 90's and often met them in the Alliance Francaise on Nassau St. Fitzgerald was a bit difficult to understand at times due to his natural tendency to mumble and stutter.

Kenny certainly has good conversational Irish.

SpacialNeeds

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Charles J Haughey was a Francophile, fluent in French and Irish and arguably the most intelligent Taoiseach we have had.

Yeah he was a cute hoor alright.

I always just assumed they could speak passable French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch and a few phrases of Flemish. Maybe very basic Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, Polish expressions. I had the courtesy to learn the basics when I travelled to those countries and it's all relatively easy to remember for the few minutes you need it and keep the notebook to re-learn again. You get better at them as you use them again and again and they become part of your vocabulary.

I (maybe wrongly) assumed our political representatives, whose job is literally diplomacy, would do so as a gesture of respect, so that they are regarded highly by foreign powers. I'm not suggesting fluency, just very rudimentary greetings, requests and recalling key verbs, nouns and adjectives so you can tell roughly what's going on if someone is talking.

If there's a foreign film on, I can tell straight away what language they're speaking and usually get the gist of the plot quickly enough, unless it's very cryptic or if it's not a language I've encountered before.

But now that I think about it, I wouldn't say any of the three dildos are even close to being intelligent enough to do any of that.

KevRossi

coinop wrote: »

Angela Merkel is fluent in German (obviously), English and Russian.

Merkel has very basic English, certainly nowhere near fluent. To be fair she only started to learn it as Chancellor and she doesn't have much time. She has very good school Russian but became reluctant to speak it as she has generally been cold towards Russia since becoming Chancellor. She also refuses to speak it in negotiations as she doesn't want to make a mistake, which is fair enough.

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Charles J Haughey was a Francophile, fluent in French and Irish and arguably the most intelligent Taoiseach we have had.

Haughey had about as much Irish as most of us after 13 years of school, i.e. none. He had the usual plamas to start off a speech and that was it. He had no French, other than, as someone else said, to order food in a restaurant. He was a fraud, a thief and a liar.

doublejobbing 2

Not related to his ability to speak foreign languages, but if you watch Reeling in the Years, the vocal transformation seen in the clips of Bertie from his early years as a TD ,from speaking like the middle class Drumcondra accountant that he was in the early 80's, to by the mid 90's sounding more like Colm Meaney's drinking buddys in the Barrystown films, is truly something.

Not a taoiseach but I did hear Alan Dukes being interviewed in French on French radio once.

biko

Varadkar has some French and German I believe. At least he did some speech in those languages.

For Forks Sake

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Charles J Haughey was a Francophile, fluent in French and Irish and arguably the most intelligent Taoiseach we have had.

Working class heroes

biko wrote: »

Varadkar has some French and German I believe. At least he did some speech in those languages.

Does he speak his father’s native Tongue?

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

It's a good reflection of the general population, Irish/British people aren't really bothered with fordrin languages because we already speak the world language. Boris speaks pretty good French though.

This is the reality. I remember marvelling that a German colleague could speak Polish and some Russian in addition to pretty good English and her native German. She shrugged and said “You don’t need to speak anything else when English is your first language”.

snowstorm445

When de Gaulle met de Valera in Ireland in 1969 at the Áras, they used English, which was very unusual for de Gaulle considering he'd spent most of time in office at odds with the "Anglo-Saxon" powers and was a proud French nationalist, so it was something of an honour. De Valera was almost certainly fluent in Irish.

Garret Fitzgerald had good French, and given his prominence as Foreign Minister in the 70s entering the EEC this would certainly have been advantageous.

I doubt if Haughey had the same ability, he was certainly a frequent visitor to France (for a variety of reasons) and had something of an obsession with Mitterrand (inviting him to Inishvickillane on occasion). He probably even fancied himself as a sort of Irish Gaullist, but I'm not sure that extended to mastery of the French language.

As far as I can tell, apart from de Valera and Kenny, I don't think anyone other Taoiseach could claim fluency in Irish. When Cosgrave and the likes of Conor Cruise O'Brien were at the height of their power in the 70s anti-republicanism was so strong that being an active Gaeilgeoir was probably grounds to consider you a sympathiser.

My favourite story about Irish polyglots is probably Gráinne Mhaol. When she met Queen Elizabeth I in London, neither of them spoke the others language, so they ended up talking in Latin.

seamus

I think you'd be surprised at the number of politicians who have fluent Irish. With the possibility that someone may speak in the Dail as Gaeilge at any time, not to mention the primacy of the language in constitutional law, I expect the kind of individual who's interested in politics would make a concerted effort to be well versed in Irish.

Bricriu

KevRossi wrote: »

Haughey had about as much Irish as most of us after 13 years of school, i.e. none. He had the usual plamas to start off a speech and that was it. He had no French, other than, as someone else said, to order food in a restaurant. He was a fraud, a thief and a liar.

Re Haughey and Irish, not true.
I heard him speaking as part of a local group in the Kerry Gaeltacht on Raidió na Gaeltachta after he retired, and he surprised me.
He had a simple fluency in Irish, and could hold a conversation in it.
Don't think he had much fluency when he was in Government.

Invidious

seamus wrote: »

I think you'd be surprised at the number of politicians who have fluent Irish. With the possibility that someone may speak in the Dail as Gaeilge at any time, not to mention the primacy of the language in constitutional law, I expect the kind of individual who's interested in politics would make a concerted effort to be well versed in Irish.

It's a dated article, but the Independent reported in 2000 that only 25 out of 166 (or 15%) of TDs spoke Irish well enough to give a media interview in the language.

A political speech often includes a ceremonial preamble in Irish, but I can't recall TDs using the language at any significant length in the Dail.

Dank Janniels

Was it a Dail Leaders Debate or a Presidential Election that TG4 had to scrap coz some of them didn't know any Irish. Then they were gona do it anyway with those who could speak it but the others complained it would be an unfair advantage!
I think afew weeks later they did do 1 with party spokespeople who were fluent

statesaver

Fann Linn wrote: »

Reminds me of Mary Bannotti giving a speech in the 80s or 90s in the EU Parliament and being constantly heckled by Ian Paisley senior.

She seamlessly carried on her speech in English, French and Italian I think, being fluent in those, and left him clutching at straws.

Any video of that ? Would love the see it.

chosen1

snowstorm445 wrote: »

As far as I can tell, apart from de Valera and Kenny, I don't think anyone other Taoiseach could claim fluency in Irish.

Think you'll find our current Taoiseach is fluent also in Irish.

DBB

elefant wrote: »

From what I've heard of him speaking, Boris Johnson is not fluent in French or Italian.

...or English

KevRossi

Bricriu wrote: »

Re Haughey and Irish, not true.
I heard him speaking as part of a local group in the Kerry Gaeltacht on Raidió na Gaeltachta after he retired, and he surprised me.
He had a simple fluency in Irish, and could hold a conversation in it.
Don't think he had much fluency when he was in Government.

Fair enough, I accept that. My memories of him was seeing him a couple of times with the 'oul fella (lifelong FFer) at a couple of 'chicken circuit' events out west in the 1980's. He'd give the 'A Chairde, ta a lan athas orm...' at the beginning and the equivalent at the end.

In one speech he rattled on about Irish culture and language. A noted Gaelgoir and upstart local teacher asked him something in Irish, he couldn't understand the question, let alone reply. So that's where my impression came from.

I also remember Prionsios De Rossa trying it on with him in Irish and he couldn't/wouldn't respond. IIRC De Rossa stuttered in English, but not in Irish. Could be wrong on that, but I have some memory of it.

Anyway, nice to hear that he learnt something of it after he left politics.

Peregrinus

snowstorm445 wrote: »

When de Gaulle met de Valera in Ireland in 1969 at the Áras, they used English, which was very unusual for de Gaulle considering he'd spent most of time in office at odds with the "Anglo-Saxon" powers and was a proud French nationalist, so it was something of an honour. De Valera was almost certainly fluent in Irish . . .

De Valera could read Irish but acknowledged himself that he wasn't entirely comfortable in the spoken language. On occasion he would open an address in Irish, apologise for his inability to deliver the entire adress through Irish, and switch to English. Or, he would listen to a speech in Irish but respond in English.

(His wife spoke Irish fluently - in fact, they met because she was his Irish teacher at the Gaelic League — and wrote several books in Irish.)

Suckit

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Charles J Haughey was a Francophile, fluent in French and Irish and arguably the most intelligent Taoiseach we have had.

So was Del Boy - Bonnet de Douche

Jim2007

coinop wrote: »

Angela Merkel is fluent in German (obviously), English and Russian. Putin can speak those languages too. He picked up German in his younger days as a KGB agent in Eastern Germany. Even Boris Johnson, who suffers from a public image of a buffoon, is said to speak Latin, French and Italian fluently.

For an officially bilingual country, a surprising number of Irish are monoglots. I wonder does this extend to our politicians too. Did any former Taoisigh (or other high ranking Irish politicians) speak a language other than English? Let's include Irish in the discussion too. Many politicians will stumble their way through a few token words of Irish, but how many of them are fluent?

Mods please don't move the thread. Not a political topic. More of a cultural one.

Do you realize the French is our diplomatic language and we’ve even signed up to Organisation internationale de la Francophonie....

Usually at least one minister/junior minister finance, foreign affairs and the office of T speak French.

Victor

I understand Kenny was quite good with French - he was Vice-President of the European People's Party.

65535

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Enda Kenny spoke fluent Irish as far as I know.

Aye, and used it against others in the chamber.


https://www.thejournal.ie/dail-headphones-live-translation-1985386-Mar2015/

twowheelsonly

Jack Lynch was fluent in Irish (and had good Latin as well..) He did attempt to teach himself some French and German later on but would openly admit that he was useless at both !!

To be fair to the 'older' Taoisigh languages in schools only really became popular in the 70s'. Even at that, for some reason, Girls schools almost exclusively concentrated on French at first whilst Boys went with German and French.

Larbre34

Varadkar was the first Taoiseach in a while actually without decent Irish. Probably since Reynolds.

Goes to show how many teachers we have in the Oireachtas.