Irish Language Act-One Opinion

[mactalla]

Exclusion close to end for Irish language speakers

www.nuzhound.com/articles/irish_news/arts2007/apr12_exclusion_close_to_end_Irish-speakers__JGibney.php

(Jim Gibney, Irish News)

The Irish language has been spoken by the people of this island for almost two thousand years. It is rooted deep in our history and our psyche. It defines us as a people.

It is a unique feature of our identity. In these times of globalisation the language gives us our place in the here and now and provides us with an important link to the past.

We feel connected in a world where people increasingly feel disconnected, isolated.

The language is also an important repository of literature, poetry, folklore, culture and tradition.

Until the middle of the nineteenth century it was the first language of the vast majority of the Irish people.

Then the British government through their national schools system introduced primary school education.

Their first act was to ban Irish from the class room.

Irish-speaking parents seeking a basic education for their children were forced to speak English as were their children.

But it was the devastating impact of the famine – an Gorta Mor – as Gaeilge, which almost wiped out the Irish language because it almost wiped out the people who spoke it.

Between 1845 and 1850 nearly one million people died because of the famine.

In the same period over one million people emigrated to escape the poverty.

The famine hit a disproportionately high number of Irish language speakers because they lived in the poorer areas of the country where the famine was worse.

From this period successive generations of Irish people have been trying not only to preserve the Irish language but to revive it and see it prosper.

It is therefore very understandable why nationalists and particularly Irish speakers are angry at the British government's decision a few weeks ago to renege on the commitments they made at St Andrews with respect to Irish.

During negotiations with Sinn Féin last October the British government promised and published in the St Andrews Agreement its intention to pass through Westminster parliament an Irish Language Act.

Three weeks ago the minister responsible for implementing this commitment, Maria Eagle, announced a delay to allow a further period of consultation – twelve weeks. She also said the British government preferred a scheme-based, rather than a rights-based act and any commissioner for the language may have limited powers.

She claimed the public consultation around the planned act had produced a 'divergence of views' and that the assembly not Westminster would be responsible for enacting the legislation.

The 'divergence of views' remark is grossly insulting to the Irish-speaking community. The result of the first round of public consultation initiated by the Department of Culture Arts and Learning, (DCAL), was 625 submissions for the Act with 53 against. DCAL described the response as the biggest to date on any issue. By any measure this is overwhelming support for the act. To interpret it in any other way is an affront. Taken with the emphasis on a scheme-based rather than rights-based act and the assembly not Westminster as the legislature the signs are not good for what is needed at this point in the development of the Irish language – a strong and effective Act.

There is a widespread belief across nationalist Ireland that the British government caved into pressure from those in the unionist community campaigning against the Irish language.

This lobby is small but it is vocal. Their campaign is based on fear. They are telling the unionist people the Irish language will be imposed on them. That their children will be forced to speak Irish.

In fact an Irish language act will protect those speaking Irish and English. It will provide a legal framework, a set of guidelines, where the Irish speaking citizen and the institutions of the state engage with one another.

Pobal, the umbrella Irish language organisation, provided the British government with an excellent submission outlining in detail the merits of a language Act.

They should read it and respond to it in the same positive spirit in which it was written.

They should also honour their commitment made at St Andrews and immediately pass the Act through Westminster.

These are days of great hope and opportunity for everyone including the Irish language community.

The days of exclusion are over.

April 13, 2007

[Jim]

It annoys me too, but I guess they have a point that it should be enacted by the assembly, not westminster.

[Jim]

Theres more chance of them marching through hell.

[Republic]

Nothing wrong with saving the language, but the importance attached to it down here is nothing but bullshit.
Particularly for primary school teaching. But im going off topic so i'll shut up now ;D

[Jim]

Well, every language on this earth that still survives has nationalist importance to it, especially languages that where beaten out with a stick like the Irish language was. I'm not suprised it has that type of importance attatched to it.

Its what you do with the language that counts, and how the government uses it.

[Republic]

Well Irish govt policy will kill off the irish language. maybe you havent experience of how its taught down here. We are approaching it from different perspectives.
Down here it has been rammed down our throats and many people are resentful towards it.

Btw the Irish people are more responsible than the british govt for the dying out of the language. Its a simple fact that many parents in the 19th century stopped teaching their kids Irish as english would have been more useful. Other nations which have been far more oppressed than Ireland have managed to hang onto their native tongues.

We are basically just lazy when it comes to languages. as a nation, not you individually.

[An Fear Dubh]

I have to agree with assessment by 'republic'. People who have gone through the southern education system epecially in Dublin are resentful of the langauge.

While I agree that parents did stop teaching it to their kids, I think the reasons are more complex than just being more useful, and that assessment is being disingenuious.

Again I would agree that as a nation we are lazy when it comes to the language.

The problem has been that parties like Fianna Fáil pay lip-service to republicanism and culture simply as a vote catching tactic. So when in power rather than create a long term national incentive towards the langauge we have the short term policies that build up resentment and do not really achieve anything.

[Republic]

setanta

Like who?
In the 19th centuary Irish speaker died or emigrated and after that people had to speak English to survive!

I remember reading an article about scandinavian countries who retained their native languages despite colonialism. Im very hazy on it, but ill try find that article anyway.

Just after thinking of the Jewish revival of Hebrew, a far more successful project than the revival of Gaeilge.

Not so. My Cumann puts on free Irish Language Classes and we're always full to capacity.
There the government needs to listen to the Irish Language groups and learn from the gaelscoil experience to ensure people keep the grá for the language and so that it's presented to people properly.

Fair play to ye, but there is no way you will convince anyone that the Irish aren't lazy about their language. If the majoriy were truly ineterested in it, we would be bilingual.
Unfortunately groups like yours are in the minority.

AFD

While I agree that parents did stop teaching it to their kids, I think the reasons are more complex than just being more useful, and that assessment is being disingenuious

I wasn't passing off my post as being a definitive explanation!!!! i'll try to find that article about the decline of Irish, it goes into it in great detail.


Just to add, I think its a shame that we are not bilingual but there is no way I would ever criticise the arrival of the English language.
If the ''brits'' ever did one good thing for us, it was the English language, which provides us with tremendous economic and cultural advantages. An english speaking labour force was key to the celtic tiger. not the only one, and not the most important one, but a key factor nonetheless.

[Jim]

Btw the Irish people are more responsible than the british govt for the dying out of the language. Its a simple fact that many parents in the 19th century stopped teaching their kids Irish as english would have been more useful.

Some did, and its part of the reason but its not the only reason. There was heavy repression of the language which is also a simpe fact. Other nations have kept their language because of the sheer amount of people, like india for example, where English is the second language to almost everyone anyway (and the first language of many). Ireland had a huge population drop of about 2-3 million in a very short period of time.

I dont know how the language is taught down south but I was resentful of the language back when I was in school aswell because of the way it was taught yet 4 or 5 years later after leaving school I'm very proud of the fact I can speak my native language. I dont criticise the arrive of the English language, its probably the biggest factor Ireland is doing so well these days (by being able to trade first hand with English speaking nations which happen to be some of the richest), but I don't welcome the repression of the Irish language by the British either and their reculctance in modern times to recognise it on the same level they recognise scottish gaidhlig and welsh, yet, want us to stay part of that union.

[mactalla]

Thomas Davis on the Irish language. No one ever said it better. Take the time to read this.

www.from-ireland.net/history/nationallanguage.htm

The last paragraph reads:

The Irish-speaking man would find, in his native tongue, the political news and general information he has now to seek in English; and the English-speaking man, having Irish frequently before him in so attractive a form, would be tempted to learn its characters, and, by-and-by, its meaning. These newspapers in many languages are now to be found everywhere but here. In South America many of these papers are Spanish and English, or French; in North America, French and English; in Northern Italy; German and Italian; in Denmark and Holland, German is used in addition to the native tongue; in Alsace and Switzerland, French and German; in Poland, German, French, and Sclavonic; in Turkey, French and Turkish ; in Hungary, Magyar, Sclavonic, and German; and the little Canton of Grison uses three languages in its press. With the exception of Hungary, the secondary language is, in all cases, spoken by fewer persons than the Irish-speaking people of Ireland, and while they everywhere tolerate and use one language as a medium of commerce, they cherish the other as the vehicle of history, the wings of song, the soil of their genius, and a mark and guard of nationality.

[Blue Angel]

we need i think to look towards the welsh who have made a far better fist of revitalising their langauge than we have overall. I regret badly knowing no more than simple phrases and the odd word or line of poetry thati have largely taught myself over the years. I do regret that the language has become overly politicised though and I think it is a shame both unionist and nationalist alike cannot see the richness of it, especially as much of the work in preserving what traditions were left was ironically started to some extent by unionists.

[An Fear Dubh]

Now that the Irish langauge has become politicised how can it be unpoliticalised?

[An Fear Dubh]

That is from a nationalist perpective, Setanta. From a Unionist perspective, they want a culture that expresses a seperate identity not a united identity.

The problem for the Stormont Assembly budget is exactly that - the budget is fixed and choices and cuts need to be made. So the language is in the queue along with everything to get its alotment. How can we justify cuts in Health over language?

We can point out that money spent in Wales and Scotland is greater than here, but that still does not change the reality, language is in the queue.

So while that rhetoric is nice, we must deal with the reality that is. The language is politicised, the language is in the finacial budget, and cost is now a factor.

But we do have other routes available, the BBC NI is a funded body, with a charter, Let us make them adhere to the charter.

[An Fear Dubh]

You might not want the language used a bargining chip, but it is now a chip. How do you propose to change this fact?

Sinn Féin is and has been advocating a campaign directed at the BBC. Evidence of this is found by the number of Sinn Féin pickets outside BBC NI Ormeau Road HQ. As a public funded body I think they should spend my tv licence fee the way I want. Not according to any political agenda decided by the BBC NI govorners, and I want that to be equal and to reflect equally both cultures and traditions. I want the same percentage of money used towards Irish programmes as is used in BBC Wales. Who have the same charter. If the BBC NI governors have ill feeling over being asked to behave in a equal and fair way then I do not care.

[Jim]

blueangel said:

we need i think to look towards the welsh who have made a far better fist of revitalising their langauge than we have overall. I regret badly knowing no more than simple phrases and the odd word or line of poetry thati have largely taught myself over the years. I do regret that the language has become overly politicised though and I think it is a shame both unionist and nationalist alike cannot see the richness of it, especially as much of the work in preserving what traditions were left was ironically started to some extent by unionists.

I dont know any Welsh but I know a few people who do, who are in Mancheser at the minute. After I did a bit of reading about it there has always been a national identidy in Wales that kept them Non-English, yet it wasnt as strong as the national identidy as Scotland had. I cant include Ireland in that because Ireland was a seperate Island but as we know there isnt a WHOLE lot of difference between England and Wales. Their language has got high government support and full backing from westminster and the irish language doesnt and probably never will because personally, the reality is westminster doesnt care, its a paddy language.

I dont think the irish language can ever be unpoliticised (spelling?!), I wont blame the IRA on it because it was always seen as a nationalist thing, and unionists (read: not protestants by any sense of the world, but those that want a british union) have always saw it with disgust or ignorance as a backward language with no place in modern times. It was largely thanks to protestants the language made the initial comeback but its still seen as a nationalist thing in the end and it always will be to be honest.

Personally its up to unionists and loyalists to get involved in its revival because its their language too and loyalists have used it when they wanted (the language is also on a few loyalist murals im told). We nationalists have done our bit and are still doing our bit for the language and its not just our language, it exists as part of this island and the identidy of this island as a whole.