Maybe you heard Nelson McCausland argue on air yesterday that an Irish Language Act would cost £100 million a year. Perhaps he should view this video before he exercises his hamely tongue on the topic again…
Lies,damned lies and statistics. Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is interesting but what they conceal is vital. If you hate the Irish language you can soon find a way to justify your hatred. The anti Irish brigade, both north and south, usually put great emphasis on the economic argument. Look at the hospital beds we could provide, better security, better housing etc. Let’s close all the art galleries, forest parks and anything else that doesn’t give us a return for our money. Once you start the ball rolling with “Irish is dead” ” Irish is no use in the modern world” etc it is surprising how it grows with the accumulated debris it collects.
Never really bought 100 million figure Nelson has been throwing about.
I watching a TG4 program on YouTube called No Bearla about a fluent Irish language speaker trying to travel around Ireland speaking only Irish. Apparently, according to the program the southern government spends €106 million on the Irish language. That’s around €22 person on the language for probably the most comprehensive system around.
If you apply that to NI with its smaller population it’ll probably cost around £40-£45 million per year, although that’s for a full blown act and I doubt our ILA will be as comprehensive.
That’s my back of a fag packet calculation anyway lol
Nice mathematics Scott.
I did make this point yesterday in respect of the same git, how vocal has been this ‘UK’ as he see’s it, public rep. been in questioning the Scot’s use of Galic in public places in Scotland?
I love being in Glasgow, I can, as Gailge, find my way around, both tongues being fiercely similar and, frankly, it seems more Scot’s speak, or attempt to, their national language than Irish folk here do.
I speak with my Niece who is fluent and occasionally with my brother.
To encourage our childer to seize their mother tongue and use it, even if just to thank the bus driver as they get off going to school would be an achievement, but, for Nelson, why the hypocrisy?
I think that most Irish activists would be happy with a pared down act. Personally, I would accept dual signage and all ‘official’ documents bilingually presented – not available but presented. I have no interest in its acceptance in a British court of law nor have I any desire to force it on anybody. In Switzerland,where three languages are spoken, it is normal in polite company, to revert to the language of the minority present. Most activists are not lunatics, foaming at the mouth,but determined people who will not live in a state which shows their language and culture no respect.
In 1632, Rembrandt painted on canvas a picture in oils entitled:
-The Autopsy Lesson of Doctor Nicholaes Tulp.
One was reminded of that painting on viewing the attached video by Caoimhín de Barra for a number of reasons.
First, the surname of the doctor: Tulp. Which in turn brought to mind the word in Leprechaun for something of stunted growth:
-Tolpán.
A difference in this instance is that while Tulp is the person performing the autopsy , in the video it is The Tolpán upon which the autopsy is being performed.
The setting of the second autopsy looks like the comfortable lounge of a hereditary hotel but such is Caoimhín’s cold-eyed dissection of The Tolpán and the cool-eyed delivery of his findings that one had to blink to realise the setting was not actually that of a surgical surrounds of a pathologists’s sterile laboratory.
The video is a master class in how to focus an incisive mind on the recorded palaver of a cadaver and how to communicate the results with scalpel-sharp observations.
The Tolpán’s name is Butler.
Butler? Now, there are butlers and then there are Butlers. Which branch of the name does The Tolpán identify with?
One was reminded of a passage in the recently published book by Brian Murphy (A SPAD, incidentally to not one but two Prime Ministers in Dublin) on Dughghlas de hIde who became Uachtarán na hEireann in 1938:
-By 1939, every member of staff in the Aras spoke Irish fluently, with the exception of the butler because it had proved impossible to procure and Irish-speaking butler.
Now, An Ceannfort Eamon de Buitléar (father of Eamonn Og de Buitléar who distinguished himself both as a traditional musician and a shooter of wildlife films ) was the aide-de-camp of the new President.
Which of these two: de Buitléar or the butler would The Torpán identify with?
Incidentally, the title of this two-part chapter is a delightful rendition of Pop go the Weasel Words:
Chapter 6: A Healing and A Gaelic Presidency.
(Geddit?).
Heckling Mick Wallace has a sit-in role in The Tolpán production. And showed he is as bankrupt of focals and he is of shekels.
Good old Dr. Ed Walsh, first President of Limerick University also features. The same Ed Walsh whom good old Dr. Gay Byrne never tired of throwing bouquets in his direction.
Enough to make one want to rattle off another Limerick on this Shannonside neighsayer only one is fearful it might contain a focal salach or two and even a possible reference to Mr. Ed.
Dr Ed brings his background in nuclear and electrical engineering studies to bear on the topic of Leprechaun. He is also a (gulp) registered silversmith. Which might explain why he finds himself entirely comfortable with the place of the Leprechaun in the eternal silver medal position on the political podium in the Free Southern Stateen.
Although not mentioned in the video it is of note to note that An Tolpán got the thumbscrews up from the Pierpoint-scoring fifth columnist of the best-selling noose paper , the Sindo: Declan ‘Game for a Scaff’ Lynch.
D.L., of course, one of the hissiest of Dissers of d’Leprechaun in Dublin, those who openly boast of their ignorance of the lingo franca of Darby O Gill. The corgies on the streets of Dublin and the roads of rural Ireland are already gleefully barking that these Neo-No Nothings are about to set up their own version of Mensa in Reverse:
-Densa.
Speaking of roads as is evidenced from this video it is clear that An Torpán is fixated with roads, and the signage thereof. In fact, it is probably as (gulp) roadkill that he ended up on the gurney for a post-mortem examination.
For which very reason this video will never get shown on RTE etc:
-Vivisection 31: it hasn’t gone away, you know.
Still, the dea-scéal is: Caoimhín de Barra is currently working of a book to deal with the Great Green Elephant in the self-satisfied sitting room of the Free Southern Stateen, the only ‘English-speaking country in the EU !’.
It has been brought to one’s attention that the setting of the video is, oops, not actually that of a hotel lounge but rather the Common Room of Drew University, Madison, New Jersey.
Fillum buffs (the snooty term for mere ‘cineastes)) will recognise how appropriate this setting is for a scintillating video. For it also served as one of the locations for a scintillating movie:
-Deconstructing Harry.
Here is a random diamond from this particular seam of the inexhaustible comic mine of Woody Allen:
Harry’s father: I’m a Jew. I don’t believe in heaven.
Harry: Where do you want to go?
Harry’s father: A Chinese restaurant.
The Wood, of course, is as inventive as, say, The Tolpán is a disincentive to divarsion. To pick one example from ‘Deconstructing Harry’.
Take the scene in Central Park where a movie is being shot (this is a movie you have to keep your wits about you, even if you are the only patron in an afternoon cinema when you should be wasting your life back in the office).
This is where Robin Williams appears as a (gulp) out of focus character. Out of focus, in the photographic sense. Genius, pure genius.
Curiously, when taking a gawk back at the video The Tolpán appears on second viewing as (gasp) out of focus. Very strange. Not only that but the background music (which had not been so noticeable first time round) sounded remarkably like a soundtrack from the English group:
-Blur.
One will take a third gawk at The Tolpán and with ears even more finely pricked will attempt to recognise which of the Blur numbers is actually featured:
Weirdly we never hear how much the Irish government spends on the English language. Whether that be spending 500,000 per head per annum on their top radio and TV broadcaster so they won’t run off to England at the first chance, transliterating Irish placenames, proofreading Government documents, teaching English in schools, scholarships for English-language writers and funding for English-language festivals, books, music, TV programmes.
Do you see when we talk about funding for the Irish language all those things are lumped into one and we are told that Irish costs too much. What nobody wants to talk about is the what maintaining the English language as the dominant language of this island costs.
Lets take the funding RTÉ receives compared to TG4. I would argue that TG4’s indigenous programmes are far superior in quality than those made by RTÉ. Yet and all TG4 only receive a fraction of the budget of RTÉ. Simply put RTÉ waste most of their money in paying the inflated wages of their broadcasters in an attempt to avoid the BBC from poaching their best talent. In TG4 by contrast the broadcasters are happy to earn a wage working in their native language and living within their communities.
How much does the Irish language generate in revenue for the country. This is certainly a neglected area. The Arann islands in Galway attract one million visitors per annum much more than English speaking islands. How many records have Enya, Clannad, Altan sold. An indication of the potential of the Irish language as a revenue generator can be garnered from the language learning website Duolingo. The Irish version of Duolingo was created by a group of 6 or 7 people working voluntarily and to date it has over 2.3 million learners https://www.duolingo.com/comment/19234637 This makes it the 7th most popular language on Duolingo and recently the creators were treated to a visit to Áras an Uachtaráin.
How much of our culture are unique traits, our imagination to we owe to the language. Flann O’Brien based much of his work on Old Irish. Liam O’Flaherty was a native speaker from the Árann Islands, Enya is a native speaker from Donegal.
I’ll end with a quote from Oscar Wilde ‘Is ionann soinicí agus duine a bhfuil a fhios aige an praghas atá ar gach aon rud ach nach bhfuil a fhios an luach atá le rud ar bith’
‘A cynic was ‘a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing’
Best one I found,Jessica, is Now you’re talking. It is Ulster Irish and you get book with cassettes. It may be available with CD now. Try the bookshop in An Culturlann. Book about £10 whole set about £45. Dear but may be available second hand.
Lies,damned lies and statistics. Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is interesting but what they conceal is vital. If you hate the Irish language you can soon find a way to justify your hatred. The anti Irish brigade, both north and south, usually put great emphasis on the economic argument. Look at the hospital beds we could provide, better security, better housing etc. Let’s close all the art galleries, forest parks and anything else that doesn’t give us a return for our money. Once you start the ball rolling with “Irish is dead” ” Irish is no use in the modern world” etc it is surprising how it grows with the accumulated debris it collects.
Ní, ta se an amadáun críocnaith, agus a bhaistard fauth mor.
Never really bought 100 million figure Nelson has been throwing about.
I watching a TG4 program on YouTube called No Bearla about a fluent Irish language speaker trying to travel around Ireland speaking only Irish. Apparently, according to the program the southern government spends €106 million on the Irish language. That’s around €22 person on the language for probably the most comprehensive system around.
If you apply that to NI with its smaller population it’ll probably cost around £40-£45 million per year, although that’s for a full blown act and I doubt our ILA will be as comprehensive.
That’s my back of a fag packet calculation anyway lol
Nice mathematics Scott.
I did make this point yesterday in respect of the same git, how vocal has been this ‘UK’ as he see’s it, public rep. been in questioning the Scot’s use of Galic in public places in Scotland?
I love being in Glasgow, I can, as Gailge, find my way around, both tongues being fiercely similar and, frankly, it seems more Scot’s speak, or attempt to, their national language than Irish folk here do.
I speak with my Niece who is fluent and occasionally with my brother.
To encourage our childer to seize their mother tongue and use it, even if just to thank the bus driver as they get off going to school would be an achievement, but, for Nelson, why the hypocrisy?
I think that most Irish activists would be happy with a pared down act. Personally, I would accept dual signage and all ‘official’ documents bilingually presented – not available but presented. I have no interest in its acceptance in a British court of law nor have I any desire to force it on anybody. In Switzerland,where three languages are spoken, it is normal in polite company, to revert to the language of the minority present. Most activists are not lunatics, foaming at the mouth,but determined people who will not live in a state which shows their language and culture no respect.
In 1632, Rembrandt painted on canvas a picture in oils entitled:
-The Autopsy Lesson of Doctor Nicholaes Tulp.
One was reminded of that painting on viewing the attached video by Caoimhín de Barra for a number of reasons.
First, the surname of the doctor: Tulp. Which in turn brought to mind the word in Leprechaun for something of stunted growth:
-Tolpán.
A difference in this instance is that while Tulp is the person performing the autopsy , in the video it is The Tolpán upon which the autopsy is being performed.
The setting of the second autopsy looks like the comfortable lounge of a hereditary hotel but such is Caoimhín’s cold-eyed dissection of The Tolpán and the cool-eyed delivery of his findings that one had to blink to realise the setting was not actually that of a surgical surrounds of a pathologists’s sterile laboratory.
The video is a master class in how to focus an incisive mind on the recorded palaver of a cadaver and how to communicate the results with scalpel-sharp observations.
The Tolpán’s name is Butler.
Butler? Now, there are butlers and then there are Butlers. Which branch of the name does The Tolpán identify with?
One was reminded of a passage in the recently published book by Brian Murphy (A SPAD, incidentally to not one but two Prime Ministers in Dublin) on Dughghlas de hIde who became Uachtarán na hEireann in 1938:
-By 1939, every member of staff in the Aras spoke Irish fluently, with the exception of the butler because it had proved impossible to procure and Irish-speaking butler.
Now, An Ceannfort Eamon de Buitléar (father of Eamonn Og de Buitléar who distinguished himself both as a traditional musician and a shooter of wildlife films ) was the aide-de-camp of the new President.
Which of these two: de Buitléar or the butler would The Torpán identify with?
Incidentally, the title of this two-part chapter is a delightful rendition of Pop go the Weasel Words:
Chapter 6: A Healing and A Gaelic Presidency.
(Geddit?).
Heckling Mick Wallace has a sit-in role in The Tolpán production. And showed he is as bankrupt of focals and he is of shekels.
Good old Dr. Ed Walsh, first President of Limerick University also features. The same Ed Walsh whom good old Dr. Gay Byrne never tired of throwing bouquets in his direction.
Enough to make one want to rattle off another Limerick on this Shannonside neighsayer only one is fearful it might contain a focal salach or two and even a possible reference to Mr. Ed.
Dr Ed brings his background in nuclear and electrical engineering studies to bear on the topic of Leprechaun. He is also a (gulp) registered silversmith. Which might explain why he finds himself entirely comfortable with the place of the Leprechaun in the eternal silver medal position on the political podium in the Free Southern Stateen.
Although not mentioned in the video it is of note to note that An Tolpán got the thumbscrews up from the Pierpoint-scoring fifth columnist of the best-selling noose paper , the Sindo: Declan ‘Game for a Scaff’ Lynch.
D.L., of course, one of the hissiest of Dissers of d’Leprechaun in Dublin, those who openly boast of their ignorance of the lingo franca of Darby O Gill. The corgies on the streets of Dublin and the roads of rural Ireland are already gleefully barking that these Neo-No Nothings are about to set up their own version of Mensa in Reverse:
-Densa.
Speaking of roads as is evidenced from this video it is clear that An Torpán is fixated with roads, and the signage thereof. In fact, it is probably as (gulp) roadkill that he ended up on the gurney for a post-mortem examination.
For which very reason this video will never get shown on RTE etc:
-Vivisection 31: it hasn’t gone away, you know.
Still, the dea-scéal is: Caoimhín de Barra is currently working of a book to deal with the Great Green Elephant in the self-satisfied sitting room of the Free Southern Stateen, the only ‘English-speaking country in the EU !’.
The appetite is whetted / Tá an goile géaraithe.
Point of Information Ponc Eolais:
It has been brought to one’s attention that the setting of the video is, oops, not actually that of a hotel lounge but rather the Common Room of Drew University, Madison, New Jersey.
Fillum buffs (the snooty term for mere ‘cineastes)) will recognise how appropriate this setting is for a scintillating video. For it also served as one of the locations for a scintillating movie:
-Deconstructing Harry.
Here is a random diamond from this particular seam of the inexhaustible comic mine of Woody Allen:
Harry’s father: I’m a Jew. I don’t believe in heaven.
Harry: Where do you want to go?
Harry’s father: A Chinese restaurant.
The Wood, of course, is as inventive as, say, The Tolpán is a disincentive to divarsion. To pick one example from ‘Deconstructing Harry’.
Take the scene in Central Park where a movie is being shot (this is a movie you have to keep your wits about you, even if you are the only patron in an afternoon cinema when you should be wasting your life back in the office).
This is where Robin Williams appears as a (gulp) out of focus character. Out of focus, in the photographic sense. Genius, pure genius.
Curiously, when taking a gawk back at the video The Tolpán appears on second viewing as (gasp) out of focus. Very strange. Not only that but the background music (which had not been so noticeable first time round) sounded remarkably like a soundtrack from the English group:
-Blur.
One will take a third gawk at The Tolpán and with ears even more finely pricked will attempt to recognise which of the Blur numbers is actually featured:
-Stereotype
Or
-Charmless Man.
Weirdly we never hear how much the Irish government spends on the English language. Whether that be spending 500,000 per head per annum on their top radio and TV broadcaster so they won’t run off to England at the first chance, transliterating Irish placenames, proofreading Government documents, teaching English in schools, scholarships for English-language writers and funding for English-language festivals, books, music, TV programmes.
Do you see when we talk about funding for the Irish language all those things are lumped into one and we are told that Irish costs too much. What nobody wants to talk about is the what maintaining the English language as the dominant language of this island costs.
Lets take the funding RTÉ receives compared to TG4. I would argue that TG4’s indigenous programmes are far superior in quality than those made by RTÉ. Yet and all TG4 only receive a fraction of the budget of RTÉ. Simply put RTÉ waste most of their money in paying the inflated wages of their broadcasters in an attempt to avoid the BBC from poaching their best talent. In TG4 by contrast the broadcasters are happy to earn a wage working in their native language and living within their communities.
How much does the Irish language generate in revenue for the country. This is certainly a neglected area. The Arann islands in Galway attract one million visitors per annum much more than English speaking islands. How many records have Enya, Clannad, Altan sold. An indication of the potential of the Irish language as a revenue generator can be garnered from the language learning website Duolingo. The Irish version of Duolingo was created by a group of 6 or 7 people working voluntarily and to date it has over 2.3 million learners https://www.duolingo.com/comment/19234637 This makes it the 7th most popular language on Duolingo and recently the creators were treated to a visit to Áras an Uachtaráin.
How much of our culture are unique traits, our imagination to we owe to the language. Flann O’Brien based much of his work on Old Irish. Liam O’Flaherty was a native speaker from the Árann Islands, Enya is a native speaker from Donegal.
I’ll end with a quote from Oscar Wilde ‘Is ionann soinicí agus duine a bhfuil a fhios aige an praghas atá ar gach aon rud ach nach bhfuil a fhios an luach atá le rud ar bith’
‘A cynic was ‘a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing’
*our unique traits do we owe?
If i’m not working i’m in the car, can anyone recommend a good cd I can use to learn by listening and repeating while driving?
Try Buntús Cainte – Books available online. Old fashioned but effective for learning. https://soundcloud.com/raidio-f/sets/foghlaim-learning
Best one I found,Jessica, is Now you’re talking. It is Ulster Irish and you get book with cassettes. It may be available with CD now. Try the bookshop in An Culturlann. Book about £10 whole set about £45. Dear but may be available second hand.
Try Buntús Cainte – Books available online. Old fashioned but effective for learning. https://soundcloud.com/raidio-f/sets/foghlaim-learning
http://culturlann-doire.ie/podcast-courses/
May take a while to download Jessica but these podcasts are great. AND FREE!
Thanks guys
I ordered this one.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1444102451/ref=pe_385721_37986871_TE_item
Have found it difficult to listen to the 26 county condescension on RTE1 ever since the last election there.
May as well do something useful instead. 🙂
Ádh mór,anyway.
Go ndéanaí mhaith duit (you’re welcome or may it do good to you)