The once flourishing Irish, or Gaelic, language was thought to be dead, but there is now a movement to revive it. Although it is still Ireland’s official language, there are only about 30,000 fluent Irish speakers today, compared to 250,000 when the country was
founded in 1922. The history of the Irish language, as well as the history of how the Irish people view their own language, are extremely important to understand. The Irish media, education system and economy are influential to the revival movement and affect both native speakers and Irish speakers abroad.

 

Gaelic was the primary language spoken in Ireland until the British assumed full control over the island in the 17th century, after which English was forcibly put into place. In the 17th and 18th centuries, penal laws were implemented in Ireland in an attempt to replace old Irish customs with traditional British ones. The only way for the Irish to survive was to learn English.

 

Ireland’s history has always been a story of emigration. A devastating famine in the late 1840s was the catalyst to this trend. During the 1900s when Ireland rebelled against the British crown, many were beaten or killed for speaking in their native tongue. Because of this and the devastating famine Ireland’s history continued to be one of emigration. It seemed that the only way to survive would be to leave for Britain or the U.S., and for that they would need English.

In an attempt to restore the Irish language both in Ireland and abroad, Douglas Hyde founded Conradh na Gaeilge, or the Gaelic League, in 1893. The new Irish Republic worked with the Gaelic League to promote traditional Gaelic customs and putforth legislation to help revitalize the Irish language.

Throughout Ireland’s history, Irish has been associated with poverty and ignorance. In an interview with BBC News, Daithi O’Duffy of Gael Linn, an organization devoted to the Irish language and arts, described English as a symbol of social prestige. “The language of progress, of commerce and the future was English,” he said. “Parents wished to give their children the best chance in life, naturally, so they colluded with the system.” This image of the Irish language is the largest hurdle the revival movement must overcome to make Irish a normal form of communication. Today, the language is viewed as a cultural adornment, a part of Irish history and culture but still not important enough to make a daily habit. In this way, enthusiasm for reviving the language has been lost because Irish is not used as a form of communication but merely as a cultural trait. Pádraig Ó Conaire, an Irish writer and journalist from the early 20th century, once said, “A language which was nothing more than an ornament to a race never survived and never will survive.”

This view of the Irish language as a mere cultural adornment instead of a practical form of communication is problematic in many areas of Ireland. However, reports suggest that the language is growing the fastest among nationalist communities in Northern Ireland as people learn it to reaffirm their cultural identity. Today, the British government pays for an organization called Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta to run Irish-speaking schools in Ulster, the northern county of Ireland.

According to a BBC News interview with Mait Ó Brádaigh, the principal of an Irish language immersion school in Galway, the ratio of Irish learners to Irish speakers is greater than any other language in the world. “There’s a worldwide network of Irish speakers, but the native speaker areas are under severe distress,” he says. Gaeltacht regions, in which Irish is the primary language, are getting smaller every day. In 2007, Ó Brádaigh predicted that the Gaeltacht communities would last no more than 20 years. The revival movement has had a significant impact in gaining enthusiasm for learning Irish, but has done little to slow the disappearance of Irish in the Gaeltacht regions.

 

What seems to be the most effective approach to increasing the number of Irish people speaking Irish and changing the negative connotations of the language is the use of Irish in newspapers, radio and television. This way, people use the language as a form of daily communication as opposed to using it as a method of expressing nationalism sentiment. The Gaeltacht regions, areas where the primary language spoken is Irish, are fiercely loyal to the all-Irish radio station Radio na Gaeltachta or RTÉ, a community radio station that first aired in April 1972. In 1997, Telefis na Cathair, Ireland’s all-Irish TV station, aired its first show. This channel and its dynamic programs portray the Irish language as a young and trendy language. No more is Irish seen as the language of the poor and weak; rather, it is becoming fashionable.

 

When Ireland became an independent nation in 1923, the Irish cultural revival, including the promotion of Gaelic sport and music as well as the revival of the almost dead Irish language, was the centerpiece for the new national agenda. In an attempt to get schoolchildren to start learning the language early, the new government forced a policy of mandatory Irish lessons starting in primary school. This gave Irish children a negative view of their native tongue, as they found learning the language to be a tedious chore.

 

Over the past decade the number of schools in Dublin that teach entirely in Irish has grown from 50 to more than 200. While this is a reassuring step towards the revitalization of the language for the youngest generation, it raises more questions and problems. Many textbooks used in schools today have not been translated into Irish, so Gaelic schools are severely limited in the resources they can use for their students. In his book, Who Needs Irish?, Ciarán Mac Murchaidh points out the increased number of students diagnosed with learning disabilities in Irish-speaking schools. Children thought to have any sort of learning difficulty are sent to a psychologist where a standardized diagnostic test is given in English. The diagnostic test used has never been translated into Irish and although the children can read the English version, their comprehension of the material is severely limited. Therefore, even a child with no learning disability can score poorly on these tests, leading to a misdiagnosis.

 

One of the greatest successes in the Irish language revival, however, is the growth of Gaelscoileanna, Irish-medium schools that are Irish speaking. The growth of Gaelscoileanna was driven by parents, language activists and teachers who felt that the Irish language would best be taught and accepted by children in an environment that could work side-by-side with the English language. By the 1960s, many primary schools ceased teaching a number of subjects in Irish, as the language was hindering students’ comprehension. In the early 1970s, Dublin became the center for newly established Gaelscoileanna. Students were still learning Irish, but were doing better academically since their more difficult classes were taught in English.

 

Enthusiasm for the Irish language revival seems to ebb and flow along with Ireland’s economy. When Ireland is experiencing economic growth, there are plenty of jobs for those who need them, so people no longer associate Irish with poverty and depression. In times of economic downturn, however, the Irish people once again view their native language as one of the poor.

 

The government also tried to gaelicise the internal work of the new Irish state, making it compulsory for any candidate for a civil service job to pass an Irish examination. This law caused an uproar in society as people who did not speak Irish were automatically disqualified for positions in teaching, the Gardaí (police force) or other civil service jobs. After much debate, the Irish Republic passed the Official Languages Act of 2003. Instead of using an Irish exam as recruitment criteria, the new act stated that each civil service office must have a sufficient number of people on staff who can offer services to Irish speakers.

Currently, six percent of the Irish people are nationals of another country. With the recent increase in immigration into Ireland, many workers have come from Africa, Asia or the Middle East to find work primarily in Dublin. Many of these immigrants choose to speak Irish as a sign of solidarity with their new country or in the hopes of getting a good job. Likewise, the Irish diaspora has created a brand new generation of people excited about where their ancestors came from and increasingly enthusiastic about learning the language of their ‘homeland’.

 

The Modern Language Association found that in 2009, 409 students were enrolled in Irish language classes in the U.S., compared to 278 students in 1998, 58 in 1990 and 28 in 1980. Catholic University in Washington boasts one of the oldest Irish language programs in the nation, dating back to 1896 when the Ancient Order of Hibernians granted the school $50,000 to start the program. The Washington Post reports there are also substantial Irish language programs at New York University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Montana, whose program, now in its sixth year, serves 187 students. 

 

Brenda Ní Ghairbhí, manager of an Irish language program Seachtain na Gaeilge, notes the growth in Irish extracurricular activities. Irish clubs and societies all around the world are expressing a renewed interest in learning the language. Many in the U.S. recognize that people abroad with an “affinity for the language, coupled with their distance from Ireland, has helped create virtual Gaeltachts.”

 

The Gaelic Revival has been an important issue in Ireland’s history for decades. The once thriving Irish language has been pushed aside in favor of a more globalized language: English. The revival movement is greatly influenced by the use of Irish in the media, education and the economy and it affects Irish speakers both in Ireland and abroad. For now, the revival seems to be working to increase the number of Irish learners, but it is unclear how long this enthusiasm will last. It is uncertain if Irish will survive as a functioning medium of communication or if it will be remembered only through myth and legend.