Lack of Enthusiasm in the Irish Language Revival

samai · 16-04-2012 9:59pm #1

Up until recently I had believed the general populations apathy towards the Irish language was a recent phenomenon. I then read this http://anghaeltacht.net/ctg/altveritas.htm and is appears he state was born with apathy towards the language. Irish plays a huge role in identity, and it's eveident that in the late 1800's the recently-diposed-lingua-franca of Ireland enjoyed a surge in revivalists and learners, this enthusiasm was popular and following the creation of the state Irish was given a special place in the country. Generally people wished for Irish to be revived and the revival project was undertook. By the mid 1960's it was clear the the revival had failed and that while most people favoured the Irish language, most people weren't willing to abandon English in favour of Irish. The language freedom movement emerged and the compulsion of Irish in public jobs was dismissed in the 1970's. By the mid 1980's it was obvious Irish was never going to be revived as the main language of Ireland. But yet today the story remains the same, most people favour the Irish language while not many are willing to learn Gaeilge and change their language to Irish from English. It occurs to me, much has stayed the same and the only thing that has differed is the Irish people have become more confident in their country and now voice increasingly the lack of necessity to speak Irish to assert an Irish identity. This hasn't changed, merely the initial enthusiasm of the new state waned, and Irish has a steady decline in native speakers. Sure technology and the general new European view of conservation has led to Irish being valued in the last 20 years and and increase in the number of learners and people growing up with it as their 2nd language, but non the less the Irish state has failed to increase the Gaeltachtaí and although the reduction of Irish in the Gaeltacht has been slowed, it is has reduced.

So for a long preamble, my main question is this... Irish was the main language of Ireland up until the mid 1800's, this was not a long time ago relatively, compared to the Hebrew project in Israel, why has Irish been met with apathy and why doesn't the general population want to revive it? We have our own state, so why have the people been apathetic in implementing the ideology? While it enjoyed a resurgence it appears that post-famine the majority, while favouring Irish, have never done anything practical in revivng it.

Why?

I wish this to be an intellegent discussion on why Irish is met with apathy and why Irish has not been taken on in 90 years by general population, please avoid petty squabbles and look at it in an historical view.

For all sides I'll just say now I am not a fluent Irish speaker, I was born abroad to an Irish family but developed a grá for the language when I moved to Ireland. When i first came it shocked me at the apathy towards it and I want to study why even a free state didn't take it on, although policies were willing, generally the population wasnt. I have been learning Irish for 4 years and genuinely love it, and while I understand the recent populations hatred of Irish via school, I wish to undersand further the deeper reasons why Irish has never been accepted by the majority, since the majority lost it post famine.

Go raibh maith agaibh.

Wibbs · 16-04-2012 11:52pm

There seems to have been a drift away from the language quite a while ago. It was already waning by the opening of the 19th century. A good bit before the great famine(which is often blamed, only partially true IMHO and gioing by the decline previous to same in the rest of the country). At the opening of the 18th century it was by a long chalk the majority language. Even within the Pale it was considered a valuable asset, but in that century something shifted and that something continued.

My interest has recently been peaked by what happened to the language with the Irish diaspora. Look to the Americas. The 19th century Irish immigrants were mostly from famine and poor western areas, areas that were Irish speaking. Yet when they get to America, a goodly distance from British influence and one would think in a fervent "damn them to hell, we can be true sons or Ireland" mindset, they apparently dropped the language within a generation. Unlike other immigrants like the Italians, Chinese and European Jews for example, who either kept some fluency or continued with a pidgin version of their mother tongues. For some reason it just didn't seem to be as big a cultural need with us as with others. Strange given those same Irish emigres were very vocally "Irish" in other ways, not afraid to voice their heritage. The "wearing of the green" doesn't have that many echoes in other US immigrant cultures. That dichotomy and contradictory apathy about the language you speak of today has old and deep roots.

As for why we appear to favour it, yet don't speak it? IMHO that's a part of our national character. The "well it is and it isn't" mindset. It has made us so very adaptable as a culture when transplanted, but it has rather doomed some aspects of our culture to the realms of lip service. One quote from your link may sum it up; "A language which was nothing more than an ornament to a race never survived and never will survive." [Pádraig Ó Conaire] For some reason it became that ornament in the 18th century.

PS Hebrew(modern) is a bad comparison in many ways, though oft trotted out. The new state of Israel with it's various populations from all over the globe needed a lingua franca on practical as well as cultural/political terms. We did not. We had one already and it happened to be English.

slowburner · 17-04-2012 10:20am

Putting it bluntly, English was equated with success and Irish was equated with lack of success.
Not a view I hold myself, but I think that's just how things were.

samai · 17-04-2012 10:38am

Wibbs wrote: »

There seems to have been a drift away from the language quite a while ago. It was already waning by the opening of the 19th century. A good bit before the great famine(which is often blamed, only partially true IMHO and gioing by the decline previous to same in the rest of the country). At the opening of the 18th century it was by a long chalk the majority language. Even within the Pale it was considered a valuable asset, but in that century something shifted and that something continued.

My interest has recently been peaked by what happened to the language with the Irish diaspora. Look to the Americas. The 19th century Irish immigrants were mostly from famine and poor western areas, areas that were Irish speaking. Yet when they get to America, a goodly distance from British influence and one would think in a fervent "damn them to hell, we can be true sons or Ireland" mindset, they apparently dropped the language within a generation. Unlike other immigrants like the Italians, Chinese and European Jews for example, who either kept some fluency or continued with a pidgin version of their mother tongues. For some reason it just didn't seem to be as big a cultural need with us as with others. Strange given those same Irish emigres were very vocally "Irish" in other ways, not afraid to voice their heritage. The "wearing of the green" doesn't have that many echoes in other US immigrant cultures. That dichotomy and contradictory apathy about the language you speak of today has old and deep roots.

As for why we appear to favour it, yet don't speak it? IMHO that's a part of our national character. The "well it is and it isn't" mindset. It has made us so very adaptable as a culture when transplanted, but it has rather doomed some aspects of our culture to the realms of lip service. One quote from your link may sum it up; "A language which was nothing more than an ornament to a race never survived and never will survive." [Pádraig Ó Conaire] For some reason it became that ornament in the 18th century.

PS Hebrew(modern) is a bad comparison in many ways, though oft trotted out. The new state of Israel with it's various populations from all over the globe needed a lingua franca on practical as well as cultural/political terms. We did not. We had one already and it happened to be English.

Interesting and thought provoking reply, thank you. It is like you say contradictory given the assertion of nationality in the 1900's. Another quote in the piece, attributed to a man from from the Aran islands in 1926 pretty much sums up the Irish language revival; "It is only them with plenty English who are bothered about Irish".

It is interesting that the Irish abandoned their tounge quicker than other immigrant groups in the States. My grandmas generation were the first in my family to grow up without Irish, her father would have had good Irish while his own father would have been fluent, so in my family the change happened later than the general country, between 1900-1930. My grandma emigrated in the 50s and Irish was never spoken of, 2 generations later you have me with the keen interest. As an Irish family we would have been very proud of our roots, but my experience concurs with what you say, Irish was never apart of our pride, we were wearing the green in otherways. Thats not to say my nan didnt profess a love for Gaeilge ( in later life) but she was very much typical of Irish people in that she never did anything about it.

So we know the apathy is deed rooted, but I wonder what the cause was? Was it the administrations laws against Irish? The economy that provided more opportunities for English speakers? Was it the famines prior to to górta mór that made English a necessity for emigration (with an górta mór speeding this up)? Was English associated with power and money in the pale while Irish was for the peasants?

I would guess all of the above, Daniel O'Connell springs to mind, the great patriot, who held the view that people should drop Irish in favour of English, it is strange to me that the two can be so contrary, patriotism while rejecting something inherantly Irish. But as you say so well; "well it is and it isn't". And a prime example of this in action is the case of Michael Collins himself whose parents were native speakers but would only speak to their children in English, they saw it as the future and Irish as the past while at the same time raising a patriot.

"well it is and it isn't" - I think that sums up the situation of Irish perfectly.

(appologies for any typos now, I am writing on my phone)

Enkidu · 17-04-2012 10:55am

Just to throw it out there, as others have suggested it, we don't really know how attached to the pre-existing Gaelic culture most Irish people were. One strange thing about Irish culture is that our aristocrats vanished in the 17th century and the lower aristocracy vanished around the start of the 18th century. We have almost no writing from the average Irish person from before that, everything is written from the perspective of and occurs in the world of the ultra elite and the highly educated.

We know that the Bards and the nobles were strongly attached to Gaelic culture. However, we don't really know anything about the average Irish person. Maybe they were really pleased to see the Ua Domhnaill, for example, ripped from power. The unfortunate thing is we never really hear their opinions as Irish writing enters a dark age at that point (in English and Irish) and by the time it picks up again, these aristocrats would have been long gone. So it's possible people were easily able to move on, as they had no particular attachment to the pre-existing culture.

This probably isn't entirely true, but I do think there might be an overlooked element here.

paddyandy · 17-04-2012 11:05am

Popular Culture does'nt tolerate a coarse rustic guttural sound .I detest the way people complicate arguments . How do you popularise Gaelge ? If you can do that then you can walk on water too .

Enkidu · 17-04-2012 11:13am

paddyandy wrote: »

Popular Culture does'nt tolerate a coarse rustic guttural sound

Irish isn't a guttural language, less so than French for example.

.I detest the way people complicate arguments .

Over complicating? It's an interesting historical question.

Wibbs · 17-04-2012 11:34am

Enkidu wrote: »

This probably isn't entirely true, but I do think there might be an overlooked element here.

That's an intriguing idea. Makes some sense too and would fit the time period. Maybe as well as being distanced from it, the ordinary people even felt let down by the failure of the old high Gaelic order? I wonder if you overlaid a map of the old Gaelic order kingdoms in this period with a map of the shrinking language would there be some correlation? IE Aristos die out, bugger off and the language follows them.

samai · 17-04-2012 11:50am

Enkidu wrote: »

Just to throw it out there, as others have suggested it, we don't really know how attached to the pre-existing Gaelic culture most Irish people were. One strange thing about Irish culture is that our aristocrats vanished in the 17th century and the lower aristocracy vanished around the start of the 18th century. We have almost no writing from the average Irish person from before that, everything is written from the perspective of and occurs in the world of the ultra elite and the highly educated.

We know that the Bards and the nobles were strongly attached to Gaelic culture. However, we don't really know anything about the average Irish person. Maybe they were really pleased to see the Ua Domhnaill, for example, ripped from power. The unfortunate thing is we never really hear their opinions as Irish writing enters a dark age at that point (in English and Irish) and by the time it picks up again, these aristocrats would have been long gone. So it's possible people were easily able to move on, as they had no particular attachment to the pre-existing culture.

This probably isn't entirely true, but I do think there might be an overlooked element here.

Now thats an interesting thought, I hadn't considered the attachment to the langauge prior to its decline, I had always assumed, because it was the language of the people, that they were attached to it, in the same way the French are very attached to their language today.

I am going to have to reconsider my whole viewpoint now, as its primarily based upon the foundation that as the language of the people, Irish is part of Irish culture and should be encouraged. Of course the mass abandonment of Irish and the failed revival contradict my thoughts as it is evident the vast majority haven't reclaimed Irish.

Although as you say, we can never really know the attachment of the langauge to the common people, but with its abandoment and failed revival there may very well be some truth to that, evidenced in the deep rooted apathy.

From that, an interesting parallel could also be made between the bards and the elite of then and the politicians and powerful today who pay the Irish language lip services, perhaps this was always the mindset? The main difference being that Irish was the language of the people then and English is the language of the people now. I am am obviously speculating now, but Gaelscoileanna are often accused of being elitist in that its generally middle class parents without Irish sending their children their. I don't know if thats strictly true, but the accusation is interesting all the same and may be indicative of the general mindset of the people, along with the common accusation that gaelgeoirí are being snobs when speaking Irish. Perhaps it isn't as new a phenomenon as I had first thought and had assumed this mindset came from jealousy of not being able to speak it, perhaps it is more deeprooted in the issues you raise and having considered it i'd say much more likely that simple jealousy.

Wibbs · 17-04-2012 11:50am

paddyandy wrote: »

Popular Culture does'nt tolerate a coarse rustic guttural sound .I detest the way people complicate arguments.

Well it's a complex question. The reasons for apathy today are going to be different to reasons for apathy in the mid 1800's. Popular culture had nada to do with it. Plus it would likely be a different apathy between urban and rural folks. Growing up in the 70's and 80's in Dublin Irish for me was associated with Blasket islanders, School, TV programmes I never watched, a certain type of rural mindset, 2nd generation types of that rural mindset, more rabid nationalism and men with unruly beards sitting in darkened pubs chanting about dead fishermen washed from currachs. Oh and Fainne wearing pseuds. Given I'd only (knowingly) met and chatted with one native speaker during that time, I (and most of my peers) would have had quite the slanted take on it. It did feel very forced. That subset of apathy would not necessarily apply to the rest of the country or the past. It is a complex question.

As for your first point, Basque can sound like someone trying to cough the itch outa the back of their throat and it's bounced back from heavy duty oppression through the centuries and it's doing so through popular culture. Basque literature, TV, the odd bit of cinema and lotsa music. Basque sounds great if you're a punk or metal band.

In any case Irish is anything but guttural. Any number of languages sound harsher to our ears and that harshness if purely subjective anyway.

Wibbs · 17-04-2012 12:00pm

samai wrote: »

From that, an interesting parallel could also be made between the bards and the elite of then and the politicians and powerful today who pay the Irish language lip services, perhaps this was always the mindset? The main difference being that Irish was the language of the people then and English is the language of the people now. I am am obviously speculating now, but Gaelscoileanna are often accused of being elitist in that its generally middle class parents without Irish sending their children their. I don't know if thats strictly true, but the accusation is interesting all the same and may be indicative of the general mindset of the people, along with the common accusation that gaelgeoirí are being snobs when speaking Irish. Perhaps it isn't as new a phenomenon as I had first thought and had assumed this mindset came from jealousy of not being able to speak it, perhaps it is more deeprooted in the issues you raise and having considered it i'd say much more likely that simple jealousy.

There may be much to that alright. I'd risk adding a little angle to that from a Dublin perspective. There has been a long standing rural/urban divide/mistrust/snobbery, particularly with Dublin. Seen as the colonial town. Where "Jackeens" live. Those who follow the Union Jack, or that was the suspicion, nay open accusation. From the other side the urban Dubliners often looked down on the rural "culshies/bog men". Irish would have been very much associated with the latter.

The population of Dublin grew rapidly in the 20th century and a goodly chunk of that growth would have been rural people moving here. Of my friends only one other than myself has Dublin ancestry going back beyond great grandparents and most stop at parents. I've noted the more recent the migration the more gung ho for the language they are(even if they can't speak it) and more gung ho they are for Gaelscoileanna too. As if they're trying to bounce the past elitism back to the Jackeens in some odd way? The language has certainly the whiff of elitism both agin and for it historically.

samai · 17-04-2012 12:02pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Enkidu wrote: »

This probably isn't entirely true, but I do think there might be an overlooked element here.

That's an intriguing idea. Makes some sense too and would fit the time period. Maybe as well as being distanced from it, the ordinary people even felt let down by the failure of the old high Gaelic order? I wonder if you overlaid a map of the old Gaelic order kingdoms in this period with a map of the shrinking language would there be some correlation? IE Aristos die out, bugger off and the language follows them.

Fascinating thought, its a real shame there are no (to my knowledge) accounts of the people of the period, directly from the people of the period.

So it could be argued the collapse in the way of life, coupled with the fact a foreign power already had made in roads into the country and were increasing their power, in another language, led to English being easily adopted. Of course laws against Irish didnt help it, but if the people really wanted to hold onto Irish they would have done.

samai · 17-04-2012 12:11pm

Wibbs wrote: »

samai wrote: »

From that, an interesting parallel could also be made between the bards and the elite of then and the politicians and powerful today who pay the Irish language lip services, perhaps this was always the mindset? The main difference being that Irish was the language of the people then and English is the language of the people now. I am am obviously speculating now, but Gaelscoileanna are often accused of being elitist in that its generally middle class parents without Irish sending their children their. I don't know if thats strictly true, but the accusation is interesting all the same and may be indicative of the general mindset of the people, along with the common accusation that gaelgeoirí are being snobs when speaking Irish. Perhaps it isn't as new a phenomenon as I had first thought and had assumed this mindset came from jealousy of not being able to speak it, perhaps it is more deeprooted in the issues you raise and having considered it i'd say much more likely that simple jealousy.

There may be much to that alright. I'd risk adding a little angle to that from a Dublin perspective. There has been a long standing rural/urban divide/mistrust/snobbery, particularly with Dublin. Seen as the colonial town. Where "Jackeens" live. Those who follow the Union Jack, or that was the suspicion, nay open accusation. From the other side the urban Dubliners often looked down on the rural "culshies/bog men". Irish would have been very much associated with the latter.

The population of Dublin grew rapidly in the 20th century and a goodly chunk of that growth would have been rural people moving here. Of my friends only one other than myself has Dublin ancestry going back beyond great grandparents and most stop at parents. I've noted the more recent the migration the more gung ho for the language they are(even if they can't speak it) and more gung ho they are for Gaelscoileanna too. As if they're trying to bounce the past elitism back to the Jackeens in some odd way? The language has certainly the whiff of elitism both agin and for it historically.

I live in Dublin and my fiancé is from the country, i haven't really noticed that to be honest, it wouldn't suprise me if that was going on though!

Enkidu · 17-04-2012 12:20pm

samai wrote: »

Now thats an interesting thought....

I should be a little more specific.

Irish would have retreated under the increase of British power, especially when English became the economically more viable language. That is the "cause" so to speak, more so than the famine.

However this has happened in many countries and they didn't lose their language. Which means some additional social factors were at play here that made Irish weak against English. I would say they are:

1. English became the global lingua franca, not just the language of the conquering nation. For example if Britain had conquered Ireland, but America and Australia ended up being Spanish or German speaking, I doubt the language would have declined a third as much.

2. What prevents you from abandoning a language? Mainly the sense of culture attached to it. Being aware of the poems and literature expressed in the language. Seeing that literature as your heritage. The point I'm making is that the average Irish person had no access to that literature and were pretty unfamiliar with it. So possibly to them, although they would have been fond of their childhood language with its sayings and slang, without that additional "weight" of literary heritage and education in that heritage the language would have been easier to abandon.

samai · 17-04-2012 1:46pm

Thanks for elaborating.

So that leads onto the question, are the people right? is this deep rooted lack of cultural attachment to the language correct? Should the modern Irish people attachment themselves to the language in the knowledge that in the modern world they do have access to literature, television and radio?

http://www.peoplesrepublicofcork.com/articles/the-irish-language-whats-the-point

Wibbs · 17-04-2012 5:52pm

Enkidu wrote: »

2. What prevents you from abandoning a language? Mainly the sense of culture attached to it. Being aware of the poems and literature expressed in the language. Seeing that literature as your heritage. The point I'm making is that the average Irish person had no access to that literature and were pretty unfamiliar with it. So possibly to them, although they would have been fond of their childhood language with its sayings and slang, without that additional "weight" of literary heritage and education in that heritage the language would have been easier to abandon.

Just a thought, likely a mad one E... Is there any evidence that the Aristocratic language was different to the common/"peasant" language? Beyond possible vocab deficiencies arising from a lack of schooling in the language. A two tier language as it were. Are the earliest examples of the common tongue very similar to modern Irish and different to late bardic Irish?

Interesting thing re the global rise of English. Even then the Irish diaspora that went to non English speaking countries, the Southern Americas spring to mind, didn't keep the language either. Which is even odder. You can understand phasing out one of your two languages if the other one is the same as the destination country's, but when it wasn't?

samai · 17-04-2012 6:45pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Enkidu wrote: »

2. What prevents you from abandoning a language? Mainly the sense of culture attached to it. Being aware of the poems and literature expressed in the language. Seeing that literature as your heritage. The point I'm making is that the average Irish person had no access to that literature and were pretty unfamiliar with it. So possibly to them, although they would have been fond of their childhood language with its sayings and slang, without that additional "weight" of literary heritage and education in that heritage the language would have been easier to abandon.

Just a thought, likely a mad one E... Is there any evidence that the Aristocratic language was different to the common/"peasant" language? Beyond possible vocab deficiencies arising from a lack of schooling in the language. A two tier language as it were. Are the earliest examples of the common tongue very similar to modern Irish and different to late bardic Irish?

Interesting thing re the global rise of English. Even then the Irish diaspora that went to non English speaking countries, the Southern Americas spring to mind, didn't keep the language either. Which is even odder. You can understand phasing out one of your two languages if the other one is the same as the destination country's, but when it wasn't?

I read that normal people would have viewed the aristocratic language as posh much in the way normal english people ciew politicians and the monarchy as posh.

I was talking to someone today and he said it went further than apathy, shame played a big part too he gave the example of two gaeltacht people meeting in Galway city would talk in english out of embaressment, he said this happened up until recently. I wonder was there mass shame on the people from an Anglo Dublin centric country.

Wibbs · 17-04-2012 7:12pm

samai wrote: »

I wonder was there mass shame on the people from an Anglo Dublin centric country.

Maybe, but that shame, if that's what it was happened there too and seems to have spread (generally)westward. Plus why did it travel so well overseas when people would have been more among "their own" in a new land? On top of that why did we as a culture fall more for such shame? Others didn't. Were we culturally "weak" in the national character especially with regard to the language? Maybe. We do seem to veer between beating ourselves up and vainglorious displays of fervour. Maybe a side effect of Catholicism? More to the point our particular kind of it. Not trying to aim at an easy target here, but we do seem to have one of the more dour, vale of tears versions of it in Europe.

slowburner · 17-04-2012 7:33pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Well it's a complex question. The reasons for apathy today are going to be different to reasons for apathy in the mid 1800's. Popular culture had nada to do with it. Plus it would likely be a different apathy between urban and rural folks. Growing up in the 70's and 80's in Dublin Irish for me was associated with Blasket islanders, School, TV programmes I never watched, a certain type of rural mindset, 2nd generation types of that rural mindset, more rabid nationalism and men with unruly beards sitting in darkened pubs chanting about dead fishermen washed from currachs. Oh and Fainne wearing pseuds. Given I'd only (knowingly) met and chatted with one native speaker during that time, I (and most of my peers) would have had quite the slanted take on it. It did feel very forced. That subset of apathy would not necessarily apply to the rest of the country or the past. It is a complex question.

As for your first point, Basque can sound like someone trying to cough the itch outa the back of their throat and it's bounced back from heavy duty oppression through the centuries and it's doing so through popular culture. Basque literature, TV, the odd bit of cinema and lotsa music. Basque sounds great if you're a punk or metal band. In any case Irish is anything but guttural. Any number of languages sound harsher to our ears and that harshness if purely subjective anyway.

:eek: Flashback! 'An Fáinne Nua - bosca trí cuig cuig.'

I grew up in Dublin around the 70s and 80s too, born of parents who were part of the rural influx.
My folks had fluent, comfortable Irish - if you know what I mean. I never saw anything in their use of the language which was elitist or snobbish. They would only use Irish with those who were just as comfortable with the language. There was no snobbery about it - it was just that their ease with the language made it sound natural and pleasant.
By contrast, those of us who were taught Irish by having it rammed down our throats, spoke an unpleasant sounding version of the language.
If you watch rugby on TG4 you'll hear what I mean. There are two male commentators and a female presenter. The (very attractive and vivacious) presenter speaks Irish 'comfortably', as does one of the presenters, there is no self consciousness about it - the other presenter's Irish almost certainly comes out of the Irish taught in schools. I find it unpleasant to listen to.

So anyway, my folks thought it would be a good idea to dispatch yours truly off to a Gaeltacht for a year. I suppose the intention was to avoid that staccato Dublin school Irish.
I was very young at the time, and I can remember that I used to think in Irish, possibly even dream in it.
But here's the thing. The regime in that boarding school was seriously Dickensian.
I vividly remember being beaten for speaking English. The beating was almost a ceremony. First the headmaster (fear an tí) brought you into his office without saying a word. Then he revealed the weapon - probably to heighten the fear. The weapon was a piece of beautifully seasoned blackthorn, shiny from years of (ab)use. It had been stripped of its thorns and most of the bark, except for a section to give grip at the handle. The beating itself consisted of blows across the soft pads at the base of the fingers.
Try to imagine the sort of mind which would think up where precisely on the hand would give the most excruciating pain. I can clearly remember the pain and how long it lasted - I thought it would never ease.
I remember seeing a rat at the foot of the bed of the person in the bed next to mine.
I remember the Bean an Tí standing over me and forcing me to eat every scrap of lettuce on the plate, even though it was riddled with slugs.

When my year there was over, I swore that I would never speak Irish again, and I didn't.
So these were the people charged with keeping the language alive: and we wonder why it didn't work?

Later in the 80s I was working in Connemara. Part of this work involved an elderly couple who used to mind keys which I would need from time to time. These folks I suspect, were probably some of the last people alive in Ireland who were just barely able to speak English. English to them, was a difficult, foreign language. When they did speak it, they had to think carefully and their accent was completely unlike any other I have heard before or since. I only wish I could have recorded the way they put sentences together.
Sitting by the fire with them filled me with sadness. It filled me with sadness, because I realised that my inability to converse with them in Irish meant that I was not a part of this culture.
I have no doubt that I was privileged to meet these people and to get a glimpse of a time when being Irish was worth anthropological study.
It was a glimpse of an Ireland where Irish was the only spoken language. That kind of Irishness is gone, not long gone, but it's gone.

Looking back on these two contrasting experiences, I feel that I have lost some my cultural roots.
The reality is that they have been stolen.
They have been stolen by misguided, bitter and small minded people who in a Kafkaesque twist, ended up in positions of power and who managed to utterly alienate the vast majority of Irish people from their native language.

slowburner · 17-04-2012 7:34pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Maybe, but that shame, if that's what it was happened there too and seems to have spread (generally)westward. Plus why did it travel so well overseas when people would have been more among "their own" in a new land? On top of that why did we as a culture fall more for such shame? Others didn't. Were we culturally "weak" in the national character especially with regard to the language? Maybe. We do seem to veer between beating ourselves up and vainglorious displays of fervour. Maybe a side effect of Catholicism? More to the point our particular kind of it. Not trying to aim at an easy target here, but we do seem to have one of the more dour, vale of tears versions of it in Europe.

It ain't an easy target - it's reality.

Interest in History · 17-04-2012 7:51pm

The first thing to to be completely clear about is this: the function of a vernacular language is social and communal communication. Its utility as a tool of human commmunication is what people are focused on when they decide on whether or not to use it. Words like "identity" used as a generalisation are not of great value in the matter of a people's choice of language because a people can preserve their identity through using different languages. The Irish people embraced English as an ambitious act of self-preservation, in order to function and to advance themselves in the wide world in which they wanted and needed to make their way.

In 1922 the new state leaders of independent Ireland adopted Irish as the main symbol of the state and the Revival as their iconic project. This creates a problem for us as we try to discuss the situation of Irish to-day because the public vocabulary for the discussion has been heavily politicised not to say distorted. The employment of Irish as a political tool was an action of the political elite and it never indicated a willingnes of the population to change their language from English.

But there seems to be a new mood in Ireland to talk about the Revival more quietly and analytically. Contributors might like to look at sites.google.com/site/failedrevival for a selection of texts.

Interest in History · 17-04-2012 8:12pm

samai wrote: »

.....why has Irish been met with apathy and why doesn't the general population want to revive it?....

I don't think that 'apathy' is the right word. The majority who have chosen, as you say over the course of 90 years, not to use Irish have not displayed apathy to the question of language choice. On the contrary, they were offered a choice and made a definite decision in favour of English.

Of course they had to cope with a state programme aimed at inducing them to adopt Irish but they dealt with this by way of what Reg Hindley called "structured evasion". In other words, since the political programme was too strong to reject openly they pretended to go along with it while actually having no intention of abandoning English.

We're in a strange situation to-day with everything that the government does being riddled with contradictions. We have been much better off from the start if the language had been treated as one strand of our cultural inheritence and if the it had been advanced as a subject of study rather than as a political ideology.

Interest in History · 17-04-2012 8:19pm

samai wrote: »

...I was talking to someone today and he said it went further than apathy, shame played a big part too he gave the example of two gaeltacht people meeting in Galway city would talk in english out of embaressment, he said this happened up until recently. I wonder was there mass shame on the people from an Anglo Dublin centric country.

I'd be slow to attribute shame (or any other particular emotion) to people on foot of their choice of language. Maybe it was just a functional choice - the two friends finding themselves in English-speaking society, spoke English.

samai · 17-04-2012 9:22pm

Your right about apathy, the people have overwhelmingly chosen English, but there is a strange parallel where most peoplle would say 'Irish, yeah great, up the Irish' but asked if they every spoke it wanted to you'd get 'yeah but its to hard' or 'it was taught badly'. While the later is a valid excuse, if the people really wanted to speak Irish we'd be an Irish speaking country today. As you say its become politicised and perhaps if people admitted they didnt want to speak Irish that would be seen as un-Irish.

I don't agree with you on shame, I think there has been, and this continues to some extent (although Irish is now seen as cooler), shame felt by Irish speakers who felt somehow it was backwards, or like people would associate them with the arse end of nowhere rather than modern cosmopolitan people.

I dont get looks in Dublin when I am out and about speaking Irish, But when I first made the conscious effort too speak Irish, I felt really self conscious and embaressed, I assume many people without and with fluent Irish feel this. But I got over it, and I think the reason nobody cares is in part thanks to immigration where many different languages can be heard. So i cant say I felt any shame, but perhaps the fact that I came from abroad and didnt have the baggage associated with the language on me had something to do with it. I certainly felt self conscious though, and that was all me, not society!

samai · 17-04-2012 9:32pm

And to slowburner, no wonder your vowed to never speak Irish! I assume that doesnt go on anymore, but I personally think the language should be taken out the class room, in my ideals id like it to be nurtured by the community but like we have all discussed, the people have made their choice! So my personal opinion is the state stop doing the language damage, make it optional in school and make the course focused on speaking. It is great that virtually every has the cúpla focal because they learnt Irish in school, but practically most wont use it, id prefer if the people who wanted to speak it spoke it and while it would be a shame that everyone lost their cúpla focal I think that is a price to pay for open hatred of the language.

If you look at the North, most people cant rub two words together, which I think is a shame, but the language movement is much more vibrant and it has a much more positive image (minus bigotted people). The government there supports Irish for people who want to speak Irish, and thats how it should be here in my opinion. The only downside to that is people later in life who decide they want to speak Irish would have a lot harder time than someone who did in school.

Agus re: the couple who didn't speak great English, there are a few of those left (not many), I hear about the odd man n Carraroe or on the Aran Islands with weird English, and that facinates me!

Here is probably the last monoglot Irish speaker who didnt understand Irish a all... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP4nXlKJx_4

garbanzo · 17-04-2012 10:10pm

Enjoying the discussion folks and would love to have the time to write a longer post. This is something I have a real interest in and have thought about often. I do my bit to keep the language going, speak a bit of it at home with the kids and Mrs G.

What boils my p1ss is the way the language was taught and the holy jayzusin' embarassment of people going through 14 odd years of daily classes at school and coming out the other end at 18 not being able to speak a word of Irish. One of my many theories is the wholly narrow and backward nature of the curriculum at school. Growing up in south dublin in the 70's and 80's there was nothing modern about the language. Sorry but I didn't really give a ****e about Peig Sayers in Dún Chaoin back in the day. French, Spanish etc. were always much more modern and to my eternal shame I probably speak better French than I do Irish. I know you can say well... what about Shakespeare, Keats, Yeats etc. in the English curriculum, and you'd be right, but they should have tried harder and been more creative.

Both my folks were from the country and came to Dublin in the '50's but there was very little Irish spoken at home, for some reason. Likewise when we went to visit relations down the country there was little if any spoken.

I'm on a roll here. Another cnámh spáirne (bone of contention). I focking hated the Dia Dhuit, Dia is Mhuire Dhuit, ...is Phádraig religious bollocks when it came to greetings. Yet, yet......what does Adieu mean in French, what does Adios mean in Spanish...the same thing (to God) yet none of the teachers ever explained that this was the common way of greeting/saying goodbye back in the middle ages and is common to many languages.

Wales is an interesting and local-ish comparison. I was over there a few years ago and spoke with my cousins' kids who are all late teens early twentys and it was all welsh, welsh, welsh. It has been majorly revived there in the last 30 odd years. Fair play to them. When I was asked about the strength of the irish language it was just sooo embarassing.

I say fair play to Hector and what he has done over the years. Seeing a guy speaking Irish, Spanish and a little Portugeuse on TG4 was amazing and showed how modern an Irish speaker could be. As a Dublin football fan it pains me to compliment him but he bucked the stereotype...and he from Meath !! By the way I love the Savage Eye skit on him Rahooo Rahoooo Rahooo but I fear it is a label that will stick on him and it doesn't help the cause; but that's the nature of satire.

Anyway it's late...as my Russian plasterer said to me last year after I helped him unload his van ..."sin a bhfuil, go raibh maith agat".

deise go deo · 18-04-2012 12:43am

Evening all.

OP, have you watched the recent mini-series about the history of the Language on TG4, 'Scéal na Gaeilge'

When looking at language decline, one of the most important factors is the relevative status of the compeeting languages, the decline of the Irish Language started when the Gaelic ruleing class was destroyed in the 16th centuary, from that point on English and not Irish was the dominant language in all areas that influence the status of a language, it was the language of Government and the language of learning.

After this point too, there was a constant stream of non Irish speaking settelers starting with soldiers from the English armies disbanded after the battle of Kinsale and continuing with the establishment of Garrisions throught the country, populated by English speakers and later the forced population shifts during the plantations when Irish speakers were pushed off the best land onto poor land in their own area, removed to other parts of the Country(To hell or to Connacht) or sold into slavery most often in barbados(WHere the language did survive for quite some time) and replaced with English speakers.
All of this acted to change the community language to English in many areas, especially in Lenister and further reinforced the dispairity in the relative status between Irish and English. English was the Language of Learning, Government administration and to an ever increasing extent business, while Irish was constantly being more and more marginalised by the state(If your told often enough that Irish is an Uncivilised, barbarian language, eventually you will start to believe it)
English being made the official language of the Irish Catholic Church did'nt help.

By the 17 centuary the Ascendancy was very much, well in the Ascendancy to the extent that even homegrown patroitic movements like the United Irelanders and later O'Connell's Emancipation and Repeal movements were lead through English.
A series of Famines, Culminating in the Great Fammine really put the nail in the coffin chainging what had been a slow decline into a dam burst, Many Irish speaking communities were wiped out by starvation and emigration, the Famine was an extreamily traumatic event that left a scar on the Irish psyche, especially in rural areas that suffered its worst effects. From then on, English was not just nice to have, it was vital to survival 'Irish won't put bread on the table' was a common attitude.

By the time the National school system was established, Irish was already a minority language, and one still in serious decline, Irish being banned in these new schools did'nt help, but by then Irish was held in such low esteem by the people that in many cases it was the parents that forced the teachers to beat the language out of their kids.

This is where the story takes a bit of a twist, the ordinary people who for so long had kept Irish alive were abandoning it while the Elite who for so long had tried to destroy the language were begining to rediscover it. It was around this time that Irish as one of the oldest Written languages in Europe began to attract some serious international acedemic attention from those studying the origins of language, The educated elites would have come in contact with this new interest acedemic interest but the poor would not, they also had no hangups with the status of the language because they had been unaffected by the Famine(Which at that time was still in living memory)
The language revival movement was not started by the ordinary people of Ireland, they still had a long way to go before they could get over the baggage of the Famine and the perception of economic and social backwardness that had been created around the language, the revival movement was founded by members of the Anglo Irish elite of Irish society and when it spread beyond them it was not the poor but the middle class who engaged with it, as was the case with most movements of the Gaelic Revival (Most people dont realise this but the IRA in the 20's was a middle class movement)

When the state was founded it took on the revival project, but unfortunatly laboured under the misaprehension that the language could be revived through the education system alone, while the state compelled kids to learn Irish, it forced the Irish speaking community to deal with the state through English.
When it became clear that reviving the language through schools alone was not working the state essentially became paralysed, it could not abandon the language, that would have been political suicide, but neither were they willing to tackel the issue and find a new way to promote the language, all the while the language suffered from official lipservice.
Every new development in efforts to revive the language since the Gaeltacht boundary was finally set in the 50's has come from outside the government, and in many cases has been resisted by the government.

Radio in Irish was established by the gaeltacht communities, RnaG started life as a pirate radio station. TG4 only came about after a campaign of protest at the lack of Irish on RTÉ (0.07% of yearly brodcast time) which saw people sent to Jail for refusing to pay their TV Licence fee and protesters climbing the mast outside RTÉ's HQ.

The Gaelscoil movement was started by parents, not the state and continues to be driven from the ground up to this day, one of the earliest Gaelscoils, established in Ballymun faced fericely entrenched oppisition from both the Church and State.

As I said earlier, It was the elite, not the poor that started the revival movement, and it was the new elite of 'Official Ireland' that carried on the revival after the foundation of the state, the wider poorer population was not all that engadged with it at the start, that has begun to change, people have started taking the revival into their own hands, and in more recent decades it has not just been the elite or well off that has engadged with it, the poor has also been taking it on, which can be seen in the strenght of the Gaelscoil movement in working class poorer areas of Dublin.

Today I think it is appropriate to talk of a second revival, one not lead by the state or the elite but by a new generation of Gaeilgoirs who have come through the Gaelscoils, a revival that is urban in charachter and driven by young well educated people with a love for the language. This second revival is only in its infancy and is still very small, but it is dynamic and fluid, it is groing every year and is not going to wait for the government to do something.
Examples of this can be seen in Universities across the country only 10-15 years ago there were only 3 or 4 Irish societies with maybe one or two hundred members each, today there is an Irish society in nearly every third level instution some of which have memberships in the thousands.
Another example is the Irish Language GAA club started in Dublin two years ago, they started with one football team, now they have two mens and one ladies football team and they will be putting together a new Hurling team over the summer.
There is also the new phenomenon of Irish societies being set up in Secondary schools around the country.
Who knows how this second revival will fare, it may well be too late already, but at least it is being done the right way at last.

Interest in History · 18-04-2012 8:00am

samai wrote: »

.........I don't agree with you on shame, I think there has been, and this continues to some extent (although Irish is now seen as cooler), shame felt by Irish speakers who felt somehow it was backwards, or like people would associate them with the arse end of nowhere rather than modern cosmopolitan people.......

Alright: I guess I should not quibble over the meaning that either of us might give to the word shame in the different contexts.

But imagine the position of Ukrainian immigrants to New York in 1910. They would want to speak English in order to join the mainstream of society for purely functional reasons, not because they felt shame at speaking Ukrainian. Is the Irish speaker not in a similar situation? With the peculiarity of course that all Irish speakers to-day are native-born English speakers and are part of the mainstream already.

Interest in History · 18-04-2012 8:18am

deise go deo wrote: »

........ Today I think it is appropriate to talk of a second revival, one not lead by the state or the elite but by a new generation of Gaeilgoirs who have come through the Gaelscoils, a revival that is urban in charachter and driven by young well educated people with a love for the language. This second revival is only in its infancy and is still very small, but it is dynamic and fluid, it is groing every year and is not going to wait for the government to do something......

It is really really difficult to assess the progress being made.

On the one hand there is the crucial role of the state in sustaining the language by employing people specifically to use Irish and by providing services such as TG4 which would not survive on their own. On the other hand, we know that state action does not translate into general communal usage of the language.

We know that Irish cannot be revived through the school system but also the officials are afraid that if they make it a subject of choice in the Leaving Certificate that they will be admitting that they are retreating from the Revival itself. And the politicians are afraid to abandon the political symbolism of it. (Understandable! they need all the symbolism they can get given the general botch that they have made of our independence.)

Wibbs · 18-04-2012 9:40am

deise go deo wrote: »

or sold into slavery most often in barbados(WHere the language did survive for quite some time) and replaced with English speakers.

Interesting it survived there for longer, but is there any evidence of that or is it supposition? Links maybe? From what I've read on it, the few letters* that remain from Irish people of that period are in English and records are pretty sparse full stop, so how can such a claim be made for the languages survival?

Many Irish speaking communities were wiped out by starvation and emigration, the Famine was an extreamily traumatic event that left a scar on the Irish psyche, especially in rural areas that suffered its worst effects. From then on, English was not just nice to have, it was vital to survival 'Irish won't put bread on the table' was a common attitude.

OK but that doesn't quite explain why the Irish diaspora from those very areas abandoned the language in not much more than a generation, in lands that didn't have issues or the baggage with the native language. Certainly other diasporas, equally poor and often oppressed or looked down upon within their countries of origin held onto their languages for far longer. One example would be Sicilian, an Italian dialect, mostly of dirt poor emigres and one looked down upon by "official" Italian jurisdictions over the years. To this day the Sicilian diaspora in the US and elsewhere speaks the language way more than the Irish diaspora. Other examples would be various Chinese and Jewish dialects. Maybe we just fitted in more? So the language wasn't required among ourselves as we were less socially isolated than other groups and cultures? We do seem to stand out in this regard though(along with the Polish immigrants).

*Now one could argue that letter writers were the more educated, so would have written in the "educated" language and that would explain that, so not really indicative.

Enkidu · 18-04-2012 10:16am

Interest in History wrote: »

But imagine the position of Ukrainian immigrants to New York in 1910. They would want to speak English in order to join the mainstream of society for purely functional reasons, not because they felt shame at speaking Ukrainian. Is the Irish speaker not in a similar situation? With the peculiarity of course that all Irish speakers to-day are native-born English speakers and are part of the mainstream already.

You can't really conclude anything by analogy in this case. If Ukranian speakers didn't feel shame, but just felt like they were fitting in, in 1920s New York, that doesn't really tell you anything about what Irish speakers around Connemara felt in Galway city. The fact is they did feel ashamed and embarrassed, the word being used to describe it in most texts is "náire", meaning a shame. I recommend reading some of the English writings of Mairtín Ó Cadhain or any interview with Irish speakers who would have lived in the 150s/1960s in Connemara. They consistently say the felt ashamed and embarrassed to speak Irish.

Lack of Enthusiasm in the Irish Language Revival

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