The Irish language is failing.

recipio wrote: »

I do 'hate' the hypocrisy of pretending there is a separate Irish Nation that had to detach from the UK and perpetuate a campaign of terror and assassination that the 1916 generation gave us. Revival of Irish which started in 1922 was a central policy in that revolution and has remained a coercive policy since then. Surely it is time to re-think it ?

The Gaelic revival, which included other aspects, such as sport, actually began in the nineteenth century. When the Free State was formed, and especially when Fianna Fail got into power, Ireland sought to replace the largely British culture that was left behind with an native one, adopting and promoting the ideals of that earlier revival and making them official policy.

You'll find such nationalist social engineering was not unusual at the time; Italy and Germany were two notable proponents of the same policies. Of course, we still follow those policies is the difference.

To begin with, it was a largely sectarian and class based culture that sought to replace the middle to upper class, Protestant, Anglo-Irish, urban elite with a more 'indigenous' one. Of course, this meant the promotion of a peasant, agrarian, Roman Catholic class as the new elite, which rejected hierarchy, while ironically aping the hierarchical practices of it's neighbour.

As David Gray, US Ambassador to Ireland in the 1940's, noted:

And with it came the 'reinvention' of Ireland, with the promotion of the Irish language, dancing (which was almost completely reinvented artificially during this period), sport and so on - all aspects meant to cleanse ourselves of any residual 'Britishness' and fulfill De Valera's vision of "comely maidens dancing at the crossroads".

Thing is that it was all fur and no knickers even back then. Of the language, Gray noted:

Sound familiar? That's because nothing much has changed in this regard, except that fewer than one in six speaks Irish today. We still play this ridiculous lip service to a largely invented culture - we still see official letters starting with "A Chara" and ending with "Is mise le meas", and nothing but English in-between. And we still financially support the descendants of this peasant, agrarian, Roman Catholic elite who are suckling at the tit of endless grants, jobs, tax breaks and advantage, paid for by the rest of the nation.

And let's be clear, that's what they are and what they see themselves as; a minority who have clear advantage and support - an elite. All for an artificed national identity and which ultimately, they (as custodians of that identity, tasked and paid to promote it) oversaw only it's decline.

Whatever about the language being alive or not, these clowns need to go. The jobs for the buachaillí have to be abolished, they've failed in their sole task - the promotion of the language and culture - why are we still paying these parasites?

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

I wouldn't go as far as to call people parasites, if I could get a cushy government job translating documents that very few people read into documents no one will ever read for a decent salary with job security and a guaranteed pension, I would be all over that like a shot.
I don't blame the people who are in that job, it's not their fault. If that was me I would just noodle everything through Google translate and take the afternoon off to "collect my paycheck".

I take it that for you personal ethics is something other people do?

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

I'm just saying those jobs exist and it would seem they have to exist as far as EU law is concerned.

I thought that you were saying if you could live off the pigs back in a job that you know was scamming the tax payer, you'd have no problem doing so.

Personally I think there's a problem with people like that. In Greece those people get to retire at 45. See how well that's worked out for them.