Breaking through the language barrier

AN undue emphasis on mono-lingual practices and the administration of the grant system in Gaeltacht areas underlie the failure to revive our native tongue, according to Dr Tadhg Ó hIfearnáin.

By John Rainsford

The University of Limerick senior lecturer of Irish knows all about the realities of the language debate. His mother hails from Irish-speaking North Mayo/Donegal and his father from West Limerick, which was a native language area in the early years of this century.
That was a time when Irish-speaking areas were divided between Fíor-Gaeltacht (True Irish) and Breac Gaeltacht (Lesser Irish). Such designations were largely abyproduct of the Irish revivalist ideology of the early state, Dr Ó hIfearnáin argues.
Indeed, the romantic revivalism of the 1920s and 1930s, which gave rise to the Gaeltacht Commission of 1925-26, created three types of Gaeltacht, strong, weak and the rest of the country. Ireland was seen, in effect, as a revivalist work in progress.
Although he disapproves of the ideology of the time, Dr Ó hIfearnáin does admit that it was successful in creating an environment where by the 1950s, approximately 50% of the population had completed, at least some, of their schooling through Irish.
He explains, “State policy acted as a springboard to get native speakers to work for the State and to create a new Gaelic-speaking middle class, which would be more representative of our national identity. In 1922 around 18% of the country were classed as native speakers, many being small farmers and fishermen, who were also anxious to learn English in order to improve their lot in life.
“The State is now the largest employer in the country and all primary and secondary schools teach the Irish language to their students. Ireland has shared historically in a process of native language standardisation similar to other countries in Europe.”
In 1934, attempts at saving the national language included giving a grant of £2 for each school-going child in Irish speaking regions, who spoke Irish at home. An inspector visited the schools regularly and with many people under-educated, the new process promised Gaeltacht-based students direct entry to secondary schools and to careers as teachers.
Despite these efforts, the number of fluent Irish speakers has continued to decline in the Gaeltacht with each new census. The 2006 census reported that 1,656,790 people spoke Irish (1.9% of the population) but only 72,148 spoke it on a daily basis. Dr Ó hIfearnáin believes the reason for this decline lies in the psycho-cultural dynamics of these early policies.
“The Gaeltacht may have been loyal to the Irish language but it was also very much subject to the economic realities of the time,” he says. “Native speakers wanted to improve their lot in life and the English language was of greater benefit to the national economy and to emigrant populations than was Irish. Up until the mid-20th century a ‘micro-economy’ sustained the Irish language in Gaeltacht areas. It could not, however, survive the new climate pertaining in a post-industrial economy.
“English was the language of advancement and when that failed, it became the language of emigration. When the Gaeltacht economy was small, local and self-contained and where its inhabitants had little ambition, the language could survive. However, Ireland’s economy was and is heavily dependent on global events.”
The failed policies of mono-lingualism led to a new policy of bilingualism in the 1950s. Today, only 22,000 people out of 90,000 in the Gaeltacht speak Irish every day. One quarter of its total population (a minority within a minority) speak no Irish at all. This is a group that requires study, he feels.
Indeed, far more Irish speakers (50,000) exist outside Gaeltacht areas today. Most of these have connections or relatives living in the Gaeltacht itself.
“Around 42% nationally claim to speak Irish today and so claim to be bilingual. We must, therefore, increasingly manage Irish within the context of this bilingualism. Monolingualism in Ireland was never a realistic ambition,” states Dr Ó hIfearnáin.
In the 1960s attempts at romantic revivalism were abandoned in favour of two subtle reforms. The first gave Irish-speaking areas the status of minority language enclaves. The second made Irish an ‘add-on’ to English language instruction in secondary schools. These changes have been matched by a movement away from Irish language programme-making on mainstream TV and radio networks.
Today, service providers merely have to have a facility for making such programmes. Prior to this, Irish language programmes had huge viewerships (400,000 at times) as people watched them, often with subtitles, in a process he calls ‘piggy-backing’.
TG4’s soap-opera Ros na Rún attracts approximately 30,000 viewers per episode. The Irish language station has a tiny budget of only €14m per year, with an extra €6m coming directly from RTÉ, the main national carrier.
Dr Ó hIfearnáin says, “There is a need for the development of high-level language skills and for further opportunities in language development. I like to distinguish active from passive speakers of the language. Irish language knowledge exists passively in literature and folk memory today rather than being actively spoken.
“I refuse to believe that it is in its death throes, however, and prefer instead to believe that it will find its place in the bilingual world. The idea of a mono-lingual culture has failed though.
“To be a fluent Irish speaker requires considerable work in the development of the language. Iceland has a small open economy, like Ireland’s, with a population of only 300,000 but they speak Icelandic- a language derived from early Norse, the language of the Vikings, which no one else speaks.
“They also have language awareness committees to deal with signage and new vocabulary development. A Nobel Prize winner even writes solely in Icelandic, despite Iceland having the same population as Cork,” he said.
The key to the language’s survival, he says, is to empower people at local level. Irish institutions are invariably top down in nature and encourage a dependency culture. Native speakers themselves wish to learn more about the language and want to see a vibrant Irish-speaking culture on TV and radio.
“The Welsh have won the psychological battle to retain their language, with Welsh being used at board room, civil service and assembly level and in the private sector. Government statements are always issued in Welsh and English. Despite this, the numbers of speakers in the language’s heartland is decreasing year by year.”
Ethnography (cultural case studies) may provide some clues as to the causes of this decline but does not predict its total destruction, Dr Ó hIfearnáin believes. “People say Latin is no longer spoken but that is not true. It is spoken where people speak French, Spanish and Italian and in our lexicon of scientific and medical words.
“There is, likewise, a kind of richness to Irish with its different dialects. It would be a pity if we all spoke in the same way. There are variable patterns. Most people can still speak across different criteria and understand each other. Norway and Sweden have their own dialects also. There is no word for Scottish Gaelic; for example, it is regarded as being ‘the Irish of Scotland’.”
The current state of the Irish language is the direct result of over 90 years of Irish language policies. The post-industrial society of the 1960s gave way to the current period of late modernity marked by multimedia, global telecommunications and the growth of English worldwide.
“Irish language policy in the Gaeltacht has been driven by the State for the purposes of revival but what Gaeltacht living peoples wanted was very different in the 1920s and 1930s.There was a mismatch created between the population, ideology and the State.
“Counterproductive language policies were employed, creating the concept of a ‘monolingual reservation’ for native speakers. A dichotomy also existed in overt and covert State policies between what the natives and State actually wanted,” Dr Ó hIfearnáin said.
The Gaeltacht is now very different to that which existed 50 years ago. It is no longer isolated geographically as a result of the growth in use of the internet and mobile phones. ESB bills come to the doors in English, unless specifically requested otherwise.
For the majority of the country’s population, Irish is now seen as a heritage issue with compulsory teaching still being supported in schools. The Irish speaker today enjoys minority status with certain rights attendant upon it. There is, however, less mainstream exposure of the general population to Irish speaking than ever before.
“The globalised nature of modern society presents new challenges to the survival of Irish as a community language for which the ideologically driven policies of the past are ill-equipped. The Government will announce a new strategy for Irish in the coming weeks – the result of a lengthy consultation process.
“It will be interesting to see if they are able to look beyond dogma so as to successfully develop the language and its role for the benefit of speakers and a wider Irish society,” Dr Ó hIfearnáin concluded.
The fourth International Language in the Media Conference called Language(?) in the Media(?): Rethinking the Field will take place from Monday, June 6 to Wednesday, June 8 at the University of Limerick.
Contact: helen.kelly.holmes@ul.ie for further details. Dr Tadhg Ó hIfearnáin’s book, Irish Language Policy In Late Modernity is forthcoming.