As a matter of interest, the last GROUP that had to learn Gaeilge to live here was
the Cromwellians over 300 years ago.
We never had compulsory Irish, and Irish was never force-fed to anybody. That is why children emerge from school with A plus in Honours Irish sometimes, after twelve years of ‘learning Irish’, unable to speak Irish passably. The question ‘What good is Irish?’ was never answered even since 1922. There is a story told of a chap from Dublin, called Pádraig Mac Piarais, who was learning Irish in Connemara about a hundred years ago. One evening, he gathered the local people into the local school and gave them a pep-talk on Irish, that we would call ‘an teanga náisiúnta’ in modern parlance. When he was finished a young lad snapped ‘Is caint bhreá í sin, ach cé mhéid is fiú an Ghaeilge soir ó Ghaillimh?’ the Gaeltacht, at that time extending east of Galway City. There is a story told, along the same lines, of three politicians discussing Irish. ‘Our Party will do A, B, & C for Irish’ says the first guy. ‘Our Party will do twice as much’, says the second guy. ‘Does that mean that I have to learn to speak Irish?’ says the third guy with a look of horror starting to cover his face.
If we had compulsory lrish we would have all our radio and TV stations, books, brochures, Education, magazines, newspapers, advertising, menus, receipts, plus anything else you care to mention, both public and private, totally and only in lrish. There is a law in France that 40% of playtime on pop stations must be in French. Since 1998, 50% is the figure in Israel, regarding songs in Hebrew. We would have a similar law regarding Irish, with 100% of interviews in Irish. A non-Irish pop star/politician etc. being interviewed would have a voice-over, as would the Euro News, the CNN, the National Geographic, and the Sky Sports etc. So the fashionista would think that the latest US$100 million super-model speaks Irish with a posh RTÉ accent. The sports lad here would THINK that the latest US$100 million 20 year old playing for Man U. also speaks Irish with a posh RTÉ accent.
This would also apply background music in offices, phones etc. This would mean that the child starting school at five years of age would speak Irish fluently, as the child would have heard nothing but Irish on the cartoons/TV/ comics etc. Additionally the words ”Gaeilge’ ‘cartoons’ & ‘fun’ would be interchangeable in the child’s mind. To be practical this would NOT mean that parents would be heard saying “Good lad Máire/Seán you watch the TG4 cartoons and you will know RAKES & RAKES of Irish”, as ALL the cartoons would be in Irish. (When I write this Jude, I am NOT for a millisecond running down your parents). The child would then progress to school, be it a Catholic/Protestant/ Jewish/ Muslim/
Sikh school ALL of which would be Gaelscoileanna.
We would not teach English in school until children are in First Year in Secondary School, at which stage children would be taught to speak English properly with an Oxbridge accent, the finest English in the world, a bit like the Scandinavians. Indeed, around 1925, a group of Professors told Liam Cosgrave Senior, that the State would have to stop teaching English in school, if the State was serious about the revival of Irish. Always remember that the child watching Gaeilge cartoons at two is the child at five who plays Gaeilge games on the street. That child sends his buddies Gaeilge texts at ten and at 25 becomes the parent who speaks Irish to his children. In 1930 the 174, 606 Jews in Palestine spoke sixty ‘home’ languages. Indeed by 1917 40% of the 60,000 Jews in Palestine could speak Hebrew fluently. In the same year, 1917, 75% of Jewish teenagers were native Hebrew speakers. In 1913 when the HEBREW University of Tel Aviv was set up some of the original Professors reckoned that Hebrew as a University language was absolute lunacy and would collapse within a decade. While discussing the Gaeilge & Hebrew Revival contrast with an Israeli, he said ‘But you Irish did not go for language replacement’ which is quite true. Indeed by 1930 primary schoolteachers were asking school inspectors what the object of the exercise was: Was it Cúpla Focal or language replacement?
Your implicit point about a new approach to Gaeilge is most valid. The simple unPC fact of the matter is, and I know this from personal experience, that 80% at least of those paid to teach Irish, do not teach, but translate, in the full knowledge, in most cases, that ‘teach’ and ‘translate’ mean different things. Indeed, I have personally met quite a few permanent and pensionable ‘múinteoirí Gaeilge’ who cannot understand the News in Irish.
A research project that was done among schoolchildren in tree-lined suburbia in South Dublin between Group A that went to Gaelscoileanna and Group B that went to “normal” schools some years ago now. When the children went to Secondary school Group A had less problems learning French, German etc languages that I imagine are most useful for exports. Group A was also less likely to be unemployed, to emigrate and more likely to be self-employed. There are 11 YES ELEVEN irregular verbs in Irish & some 200 irregular verbs in English. Good LUCK trying and pronounce ‘ough’ at the end of a word in English. Similarly, those who do not want their children to speak Irish, a group numbering, in my view, 250,000 – 400,000 people, would simply leave the country. Is minic searbh í an fhírinne. I remember an incident from the Galway property market some years ago now. A couple walked into an Estate Agent’s office.
EA; Yes how can I help you?
C; We want to buy a new house.
EA; All of our new houses are in the display.
C; (after a few moments hesitation) We do not want a house with those stupid Irish names.
EA; Well they are the only new houses we have.
C; We are not buying a new house in Galway.
Let us here, Jude, address this ‘But English is the World’s International language, so we are most lucky that we are English-speaking’ argument that some people advance. This argument when taken to its ultimate logical conclusion means that our people should have, in the 19th Century, when the decline of Irish started, abandoned Irish for French, the then international language, not English. Somehow, I do not think that our people did. It also means that if in twenty or thirty years time, Arabic, Chinese or Spanish is the World’s language, we should adopt one of them. Let us here, Jude, enter a hypothetical situation (at present) where SPANISH is the international language. According to the UN 4.84% of the World’s population is NATIVE English speakers with 5.05% being the Spanish figure. You are walking along O Connell Street and you see two Germans examining a map of Ireland. You tap one of the Germans on the shoulder and ask (in SPANISH) where they are going. So when they say that they are going to Cork, you put them on the LUAS for Heuston. You will explain to them, as you are a nice chap, in the greatest detail (all in SPANISH, Jude) that when the LUAS crosses the river they will see Heuston to the right and they hop off. That incident is, Jude, an argument for an international language. It is NOT an argument to speak Spanish at home. I have NO DOUBT but you heard of Martin Luther, a man who used LATIN the INTERNATIONAL language of his day for a European audience. When the UN was set up just after WW2 FRENCH was the international language and French remained the international language for some 30 years more. When the Americans took over Japan after WW2, FRENCH yes FRENCH was the link language. Now we know why children learn French in school.
In a general way our national Gaeilge efforts are like somebody who phones Joe complaining that there is no LUAS in his area. It then emerges that the caller votes religiously for Politician X who opposes any public transport of any type. On a more international note, we are like Louis XVI of France, 1754 – 1793, King of France 1774 – 1792 a nice decent man. He knew and knew very well what was wrong with France. He genuinely and sincerely wanted to solve the great problems that France had. However he did not want to upset the people who benefited from the unjust system of France at that time. He did not have the FXXX YOU!! BASTARD & BOLLOCKS streak to face down the opponents of Reform and Fairness. In short he wanted somebody ELSE to arrive and wave a magic wand with the magic words “ShimbooROO & ShimbooREE” and all the problem are miraculously solved to absolutely everybody’s satisfaction. I assume it sounds familiar, Jude.
The only long-term solution is to get down to serious cases on the revival of Irish, as the de facto spoken language of Ireland, by imitating the Israelis, the only nation, in recent history, to engage in language revival, very simple, but very harsh and most extremely tough. The Israelis did it in two generations, 1880 – 1930, and in view of the fact that they did not have, then, words for ‘doll/ handkerchief/ice cream’, and we do, we could in one generation become the second nation over recent history to engage in language revival. We, on the other hand have one absolutely, unimaginably enormously huge advantage over the Israelis. That advantage is that 25% – 30% of our people speak Irish competently if not fluently, in addition to the fact that 90% of our people understand Irish. I am quite sure that you yourself personally have heard people say, ‘I know what the guy said, even though I didn’t understand it fully’, immediately after people have listened to the News in Irish. In some ways we have NO NEED to imitate the Israelis. We do this EVERY pre-COVID year in the “extremist & unreasonable” Gaeltacht Summer Colleges, those that operate on the basis of ‘Abairt go léir i mBéarla agus rachaidh tú abhaile’ as these college accept Sheela Sullivan & produce Síle Ní Shúileabháin. The MORE overwhelmingly that the question “What practical good is Irish?” is answered, the FASTER and the MORE dramatic the Gaeilge progress will be. I remember once when I worked in an OPEC country, that I heard a couple speak GAEILGE to three children as I walked through the market. So quite naturally we got chatting. The couple told me that neither coming from any type of strong pro-Gaeilge background. They said that she is from South Leinster and he is from North Munster. They said that they would NEVER have DREAMT of speaking Gaelge to the children in Ireland but here in the OPEC country the question “What practical good is Irish?” is at least for this couple, was answered. Here it is called Stráitéis Tamhlachta na Gaeilge, a bit like the economy, both in 1987 & 2008 and like COVID really. In short we would have an APARTHEID system, NOT based on skin colour, NOT based on Leaving Cert results or NOT based on your family’s part in 1916, but based on GAEILGE ability with Gaeilgeoirí being the Whites. It is, in an increasingly multi-ethnic & multi-racial Ireland, generally speaking a most welcome and positive development, that we need our own language, as a ‘glue’ to bind us all together, so that the words ‘Éireannach’ and ‘Gaeilgeoir’ become interchangeable, regardless of one’s cultural, ethnic, national, racial or religious background.
Yours sincerely,
Lambert Simnel
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