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| Title: | Celt Notefile |
|
| Moderator: | TALLIS::DARCY |
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| Created: | Wed Feb 19 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Tue Jun 03 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 1632 |
| Total number of notes: | 20523 |
770.0. "Irish Gaelic news" by MARVIN::COCKBURN (Craig Cockburn) Mon Jun 18 1990 06:51
I thought readers here might be interested in the following article on
Irish Gaelic, which appeared in the Irish Times recently, and was
subsequently posted in the celtic newsgroup.
Craig.
Article 3479 of soc.culture.celtic:
Path: shlump.nac.dec.com!bacchus.pa.dec.com!decwrl!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!samsung!umich!yale!mintaka!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!mcsun!ukc!tcdcs!swift.cs.tcd.ie!dit.ie!alawlor
From: [email protected] (Aengus Lawlor)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.celtic
Subject: When Gaelic Ireland is Dead and Gone (repost)
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 15 Jun 90 17:15:49 GMT
Organization: Dublin Institute of Technology
Lines: 210
This is a repost. I know this article was seen in TCD and The University of
Limerick, but I have two messages indicating that it didn't cross the Atlantic.
This is from The Irish Times, 17th May, 1990.
Reproduced without permission.
WHEN GAELIC IRELAND IS DEAD AND GONE
(Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times, May 17th 1990)
There is, as every schoolgirl knows, no word for "no" in
the Irish language. This perhaps helps to explain the
manic optimism which Irish-language enthusiasts still
manage to maintain. At a time when a bilingual Ireland
looks like meaning one in which we will all speak
American as well as German, the Gaelic League is still
confident that one day we will have, not a bilingual
Ireland but a Gaelic one, with Irish as the principal
spoken language.
"Conradh na Gaeilge is not aiming for a bilingual
Ireland, no matter what people with whom we are friendly
might seek," said the Conradh President and Bord na
Gaeilge chairman, Mr. Prionsias MacAonghusa last week.
The game is in injury time. The team is five-nil down.
From the sidelines, the manager roars "Come on lads,
forget about looking for a draw, we're going to win this
one." The crowd, if they have any sense, have already
gone for their tea.
The big debate at Conradh na Gaeilge's ard-fheis was on
whether to replace a "free and Gaelic Ireland" with a
"Gaelic and free Ireland" as the central aim of the
organisation. In Pittsburgh, Denver and Chicago, the
boards of several multinational corporations suspended
deliberations pending the outcome of the debate. In
Brussels, the EC Commission went into emergency session.
On the Tokyo stock exchange, dealing was frantic as
speculators rushed to take advantage of the possibilities
opened up by a change in the nature of the universe.
But calm was soon restored. The motion was withdrawn
following opposition from those who felt it might be
"misinterpreted in the media". As if anyone in the media
or anywhere else on this blessed isle would be willing or
able to interpret, never mind misinterpret, such concerns
about how many comely maidens can dance on the head of a
fainne pin.
I was myself once a delegate at a Conradh na Gaeilge ard-
fheis. I have pidgin Irish, courtesy of the Christian
Brothers, and I have never been a member of Conradh. I
was brought along on the promise of oodles of free drink
(fulfilled) as representative of a non-existent branch to
vote for somebody or other against somebody or other
eile. I was assured that all I had to do was stay in the
bar and turn up for the crucial vote.
Unfortunately, I was to discover that there was huge
interest in my branch. It was, every one of my fellow
delegates agreed, a great achievement to have a branch
going in such a place. How had I done it? How many
members? What kind of classes did we run? In halting
Irish (made worse but excused by the drink) I invented
names, numbers, incidents, meetings. I was clapped on
the back and bought more drink. By the end of the
weekend, I was half-convinced of my own heroic efforts on
behalf of our native tongue. The only problem was that
it was all, like so much of the Irish language revival
policy of independent Ireland, a big lie.
The problem, when you come to talk about the Irish
language at all, is that it is so difficult to
disentangle the lies from the truth, the wish-fulfillment
from the serious debate. We are used to the notion that
public and private worlds are almost completely divorced
in Ireland, but when it comes to the Irish language, the
contradictions are of grotesque proportions.
The Irish language movement contains many of the few
people in the country who think seriously about Irish
identity, and many of the people who have done most to
obscure that identity. Surveys find that we identify the
Irish language with all that is best in ourselves - our
hopes and aspirations - and Irish speakers with all that
is worst. The Irish Language Attitudes Survey found that
Irish speakers, the real living people as opposed to the
abstract language, were seen as "smaller, uglier, weaker,
of poorer health, more old-fashioned, less educated,
poorer, less confident, less interesting, less likeable,
lower class, of lower leadership ability, lazier and more
submissive".
In other words, we love the language and hate the people
who speak it. And I wonder if it is not too much to
suggest that at least part of that hatred is a hatred of
ourselves as children. For the vast majority of Irish
people, the Irish language is inseparable from childhood,
and the things we associate with Irish speakers are also
the things we associate with, and hate about, our own
childhood: being small and weak, being uninteresting and
unlikeable, being lazy and submissive, lacking in
confidence, being poorer than we are now.
Irish is part of the world of chalkdust and jam
sandwiches, of blotting paper and broken shoelaces, that
we leave behind with a skip in our step and only a head
full of irregular verbs to remind us. It is not just our
national past, but our personal past, which the language
embodies. And if this is true, then the Irish language
is a crucial part of our self-contempt and until we
resolve something of our confusion about the language we
will never lose the self-contempt that makes a phrase
like "an Irish solution to an Irish problem" so
withering.
Lukily, there are people involved with the language who
understand that they have more to worry about than
whether Ireland should be free and Gaelic or Gaelic and
free. A few months ago, Bord na Gaeilge published an
incisive analysis of the problem by Hilary Tovey, Damian
Hannan and Hal Abramson, under the title "Why Irish?".
It is a heroic effort to clear a space for the language
in the jungle of phobias, fantasies and failures that
surround it. It is a very hard piece of analysis, hard
not just on the failures to revive Irish, but on the
assumptions which underlie the attempt. It challenges
the whole notion of a fixed Irish identity, handed down
to us from the past - the principle argument of most
revivalists - and argues instead that "national identity
is a cultural and political construction", something, in
other words, that we make up as we go along. It argues
for Irish as one of the tools with which we might make it
up.
The authors go out of their way to scotch the notion that
Irish might be some kind of cultural Maginot Line behind
which we can retreat: "The old assumptions and arguments
that if we spoke Irish instead of English we would be
safe from international consumerism, the debasement of
art, literature and the mass media, communism, atheism,
sexual freedom or any other 'foreign import' are clearly
unsustainable." They are not interested in "de-
Anglicising" Ireland or in suggesting that "only an
exclusively Irish speaking people could call themselves
an 'Irish nation'."
They accept all the arguments that people make about what
compulsory teaching has done to the language and about
the uses of the language as a green cloak of
respectability for bigotry: "The learning of Irish in
school became too often not a culturally developing
experience, through which new meanings could be forged,
but rather a matter of learning to recite the experience
of others, and others often very foreign to the audience
involved. It became associated with a package of
cultural and ideological elements which had to be
swallowed whole: Irish music, dance, republicanism,
particularistic versions of history, conservative
Catholicism and general anti-Britishness."
And, most shockingly for some gaelgoiri, they argue that
Irish is needed, not as an adjunct to Catholicism and
nationalism, but as a replacement for them. Since
neither Catholicism nor nationalism can now offer us a
sense of distinctive cultural identity, they argue, then
only Irish remains to do the job.
Coming from within the Irish-language movement, this
tells many people in that movement what they don't want
to hear but need to know. But for those of us who aren't
part of that movement, it is also an important argument
because it begins to focus on the whole relationship
between cultural identity and economic and social
progress.
It recognises that "the concept of 'the Irish nation' is
difficult to defend or sustain as the severe inequities
within it become more apparent". It also sees a lack of
identity as an economic problem, maintaining that if we
can't have a notion of what Ireland is, as opposed to
anywhere else, then we will find it difficult to envisage
and tackle its problems. "We do not believe that
(Ireland) is ours to take hold of, to act on and to
change." Having Irish as well as English might help us
to be able to imagine ourselves as some kind of entity
and to act accordingly.
Where all this leads is to something much more modest and
much more honest than a Gaelic Ireland. It leads to an
Ireland which is part of an EC in which every member
state except Portugal has at least one linguistic
minority (France has seven, Italy has 11), in which
Ireland is not a tragic exception, but a part of the
rule. And the rule is that you just get on with it, that
you keep a language going because it is a normal cultural
resource, neither a mock-utopian fantasy nor a cause for
self-contempt.
Unfortunately, getting to a stage where a language can be
a tool rather than a fetish of one sort or another means
driving through the revivalists. Irish will never come
into its own until Gaelic Ireland is truly dead and gone.
--
Aengus Lawlor Dept of Computer Science. Time flies like an arrow,
[email protected] Dublin Institute of Technology. Fruit-flies like a banana
Kevin Street. Dublin 8. Ireland.
| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 770.1 | | SYSTEM::COCKBURN | Airson Alba Ur | Mon May 06 1991 17:00 | 76 |
| Gaelic in Northern Ireland is providing some common ground for Protestants
and Catholics.
D� do bheachd air seo?
(what's your opinion of this?)
Craig.
------ Forwarded mail received on 5-MAY-1991 at 16:09:36 ------
From: DECWRL::"GAELIC-L%[email protected]" "GAELIC Language Bulletin Board"
To: Craig Cockburn <SYSTEM::cockburn>
Subj: Gaelic in Northern Ireland (from The Economist)
From The Economist April 27-May 3 1991
HAIL THE GAELS
Gaelic is the ancient language of Northern Ireland's
Catholics, the language the IRA likes to use to splatter its
slogans around the province. But Gaelic is also the language
of the many Northern Irish Protestants whose families came
from Scotland. A recent revival of enthusiasm for Gaelic
among both lots of people is giving them a rare common
interest.
In the 1911 census, the most recent complete record of Gaelic-
speaking, only 2% of the population said they could speak the
language. In a 1987 survey, though, 17% of those under 25
claimed some knowledge of Gaelic.
The first sign of the boom in Gaelic came when a Gaelic-
speaking school on Belfast's Falls Road --- the Bunscoil ---
saw the number of applicants soar. It now has 450 pupils.
Another three primary schools have sprung up, and there are 18
Gaelic-medium nurseries. For adults, there are now around 60
Gaelic night-classes in West Belfast. The BBC is encouraging
the fashion by offering an annual prize for the best Gaelic
radio play.
The spread of Gaelic among Protestants is slower but more
significant, given that its nationalist associations have
generally led Protestants to view the language with suspicion.
The Maze prison records several Protestants among its 122
enrolments for Gaelic classes. Ballyhackamore, a Protestant
enclave in east Belfast, has mustered enough enthusiasts for a
class. A class in County Down has a Presbyterian parson among
its pupils.
Ian Adamson, one of the keenest Protestant Gaelic speakers,
who inherited his interest from a Gaelic-speaking great-
grandmother from western Scotland, claims that in the 19th
century, when Catholics were turning from Gaelic to English,
Protestants helped to keep the language alive. The first
books to be printed in Ireland were published by the Anglican
Church of Ireland: a Catechism and a Book of Common Prayer in
Gaelic.
--
Paddy Waldron, Institute of Finance and Accounting, London Business School
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Reply-To: GAELIC Language Bulletin Board <GAELIC-L%[email protected]>
Sender: GAELIC Language Bulletin Board <GAELIC-L%[email protected]>
From: Paddy Waldron <paddyw%[email protected]>
Subject: Gaelic in Northern Ireland (from The Economist)
To: Craig Cockburn <SYSTEM::cockburn>
|
| 770.2 | Good Paddies and bad Paddies | SIOG::OSULLIVAN_D | Best Before 07/68 | Tue May 07 1991 06:59 | 7 |
| It is also worth noting, since the Economist are economical with the
truth, that the Gl�r na nGael Irish creche schools have had their
Government grant rescinded because they are not deemed "politically
correct". The grant, worth �90,000, was withdrwawn this year without
any evidence being produced against GnG.
-Dermot
|
| 770.3 | Bridges too far... | MACNAS::MHUGHES | | Wed May 08 1991 07:07 | 28 |
| Leaprechauns speak fir-bolg.
Re .1
A little understood item about Ireland is that the Irish language was never
a source of partition thinking. Likewise, the music.
Hurling was also a game that once attracted interest from the rural
protestant communities and indeed it enjoyed the widespread patronage
of the protestant ascendancy in the past before and after the formation
of the G.A.A. in 1884.
The fact that items like these are now considered the property of the
"green-wing" of Irish nationalism is a misconception harboured on both
sides of the Irish fence and a misconception that is even fostered by
know-nothing partitionists.
For myself they are tangible cross-community bridges that are never
explored to their potential by the leaders of the various mobs.
Integration and sharing are such dirty filthy words to the partitionist
minds.
Re. 2
This truth is also self-evident and a tangible example of how the
bridges are actively torn down by the British government who proclaim
their sole interest is peace and harmony between the two factions.
Snake has an agenda too.
|
| 770.4 | | DELNI::CULBERT | Free Michael Culbert | Wed May 08 1991 10:49 | 22 |
|
And now for page two.
Although Irish may be (I have doubts it is prison sponsered) taught in
LongKesh it is still against the rules to speak it. If caught speaking
Irish too many times one is placed in punishment cell to think over their
ill deeds.
Also one is not able to read any news printed in Irish. The censors
keep it out under the guise of it being a threat to National Security or
something like that.
To get the real truth one should look a bit deeper. If anyone is
interested I'll provide the full set of rules as they equate to the use
of the Irish language in LongKesh.
I would ask the moderator if this is allowed here.
If not I'll provide them via mail...
paddy
|
| 770.5 | Post them | TALLIS::DARCY | | Wed May 08 1991 11:28 | 7 |
| Paddy,
I see no objections for posting the rules of speaking Irish in prison.
I hadn't realized that in a western society like the UK that there
were rules against what language one is allowed to speak with others.
-G
|
| 770.6 | | DELNI::CULBERT | Free Michael Culbert | Wed May 08 1991 12:12 | 10 |
|
-G,
I'll get them from the horses mouth so to speak and post them. All
I do know is the speaking of Irish is forbidden because the guards are
unable to then censor the conversations of the prisoners. Irish
documents are forbidden basically for the same reason. I'm not sure if
this is LongKesh specific or it relates to all HMG's prisons.
paddy
|
| 770.7 | Moi, je parle joual...maudit tabernosh!!! | KAOM25::RUSHTON | The frumious Bandersnatch | Thu May 09 1991 15:51 | 10 |
| <<I hadn't realized that in a western society like the UK that there
<<were rules against what language one is allowed to speak with others.
...and Qu�bec where Loi 101 (Law or Act 101) makes it illegal to display
any signs on the exterior of any buildings in any language other than
French. Also, some school boards in the Montr�al area forbid the use of any
language other than French on the school grounds.
Mr. Frozen Road Apple
|
| 770.8 | Irish is good for your education! | METSYS::COCKBURN | Craig Cockburn | Tue Jun 18 1991 12:52 | 68 |
|
------ Forwarded mail received on 18-JUN-1991 at 16:45:23 ------
From: DECPA::"GAELIC-L%[email protected]"
"GAELIC Language Bulletin Board"
To: Craig Cockburn <SYSTEM::cockburn>
Subj: Gaeil �ga <Gaelic-speaking children>
>>>> BEGINNERS: skip to end for vocabulary. Article about how kids sent
to Gaelic-speaking schools in Ireland consistently do better in exams
than those sent to schools where everything is taught through English.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ANOIS 15-16 Meitheamh 1991, lch.1:
Scoileanna l�n-Ghaeilge go m�r chun tosaigh
T� faighte amach ag ANOIS go bhfuil tuarasc�il r�in ag an Roinn Oideachais
a l�ir�onn go bhfuil na tortha� a fhaigheann na scoileanna l�n-Ghaeilge
go m�r chun tosaigh ar thortha� na scoileanna a m�intear �bhair tr�
Bh�arla iontu.
Tuigtear do ANOIS go bhfuil tortha� na scoileanna l�n-Ghaeilge
chomh m�r sin chun tosaigh ar thortha� na scoileanna B�arla go bhfuil an
tuarasc�il f�in ina h�bhar consp�ide taobh istigh den Roinn Oideachais -
agus, d� dheasca sin, nach bhfuil faoin Roinn � a phoibli�.
De r�ir an tsuirbh� at� d�anta ag an Roinn ar thortha� scruduithe,
beireann na scoileanna l�n-Ghaeilge an chraobh leo i ngach �bhar. Go fi�
i gc�s an Bh�arla f�in, is fearr go m�r na tortha� a fhaigheann na
scoileanna l�n-Ghaeilge n� a macasamhail ina m�intear gach �bhar
tr� Bh�arla.
Sa mheamram, at� feicthe ag an scr�bhneoir seo, faoi r�n,
moltar d�nghaois na mac l�inn sna scoileanna l�n-Ghaeilge agus na
m�inteoir� i gcoitinne, i gcompar�id lena macasamhail sna scoileanna
B�arla.
D'fh�iltigh an Dr.D�nall P.� Baoill, Uachtar�n Ghaelscoileanna,
roimh an staid�ar seo agus na tortha� at� l�irithe ann... �bhar
insp�ise don mh�inteoir seo an sc�ala faoi thuarasc�il na Roinne
Oideachais ar thortha� na scoileanna l�n-Ghaeilge, go h�irithe i
gcomhth�acs Thuarasc�il Bhreand�in U� Eithir...
FOCL�IR VOCABULARY
comhth�acs context
i gcomhth�acs X in the context of X
Roinn Oideachais Department of Education
chun tosaigh (ar Y) ahead (of Y)
taobh istigh den R.O. inside the R.O.
�bhar consp�ide cause of controversy
rud a phoibli� to give publicity to something
d� dheasca sin because of that
tuarasc�il r�in secret, confidential report
tortha� scr�duithe results of examinations
beireann X an chraobh X wins hands down
a macasamhail their equivalent
faoi r�n confidential
meamram memo
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Date: Sun, 16 Jun 91 17:23:39 GMT
Reply-To: GAELIC Language Bulletin Board <GAELIC-L%[email protected]>
Sender: GAELIC Language Bulletin Board <GAELIC-L%[email protected]>
From: Marion GUNN <MGUNN%[email protected]>
Subject: Gaeil �ga <Gaelic-speaking children>
To: Craig Cockburn <SYSTEM::cockburn>
|
| 770.9 | Conradh na Gaeilge & Irish language information database | SYSTEM::COCKBURN | Craig Cockburn | Sun Jul 21 1991 10:36 | 97 |
| A Cairdean,
I got a bumper pack of stuff from Conradh na Gaeilge at the weekend.
Here's some information about them, and then details of a database
of Language and Cultural information they have - this seems to
be particularly interesting for readers here who and members
of Gaelic-l.
Most of the material they sent me was bilingual - I've tried to
translate the few bits which weren't. I've put a question mark
after the bits I was unsure about.
Conradh na Gaeilge (friends of Irish?) promotes:
Ranganna Gaeilge (Irish classes)
Imeachta� s�isialta (Social events)
Seachtain na Gaeilge (Gaelic week?)
L� M�r na Gaeilge (Day of Gaelic)
Na�onra� I�nGhaeilge (Irish medium pre-school playgroups)
Scoileanna I�nGhaeilge (Irish medium schools)
Imeachta� don �ige (Activities for young people)
Leabhair agus iris� (Books and magazines)
Beidh f�ilte romhatsa i gConradh na Gaeilge
(A welcome awaits you in Conradh na Gaeilge)?
Is � Conradh na Gaeilge an phr�omh-eagra�ocht at� ag saothr�
chun an Ghaeilge a chur � labhairt athuair mar ghn�th-theanga
mhuintir na h�ireann uile
( Conradh na Gaeilge is the main organisation working for the
restoration of Irish as the day-to-day language of the people
of Ireland )
An sprioc phraitici�il at� ag Craobh den Chonradh n� ceantar
na craoibhe a Ghael�.
( Branches of Conradh na Gaeilge work actively to increase the
amount of Irish spoken in their area. )
B�onn Craobh ag freastal, ach go h�irithe, ar na haicm� seo
den phobal:
- daoine le Gaeilge l�ofa n� r�as�nta l�ofa;
- daoine gur mhaith leo n�os m� Gaeilge a fhoghlaim, a labhairt
agus a �s�id;
- daoine �ga
( A Branch especially caters for:
- Fluent or reasonably fluent speakers of Irish;
- People who wish to learn more Irish, and to speak and make use
of the amount of Irish they know already
- young people )
Conradh na Gaeilge can be reached at:
Conradh na Gaeilge
6 Sr�id Fhearchair
Baile �tha Cliath 2
�ire
T� 180 craobh at� ar fud na h�ireann agus craobhacha eile thar lear -
Alba, Sasana, An Eilbh�is, An Fhrainc, Na St�it Aontaithe, Ceanada
agus An Astrail.
( Conradh na Gaeilge has 180 branches in Ireland and others abroad -
Scotland, England, Switzerland, France, the United States, Canada
and Australia) - perhaps there's a branch near you?
They also have free "(heart) na Ghaeilge" window stickers which they
will send you if you like. I asked for some and got about 40 :-)
Some important info for people on the network is that in Galway city,
Conradh na Gaeilge runs �ras na nGael, a four storey building part of
which is used as an office. One of the uses of the office is as a
National Information Centre. The centre is based on a computer based
Data Base which contains information on all Irish language groups, and
on all Irish language activities throughout the country. I thought it
might be interesting to see if there is dial up access to this
database so that those of use with modems can access it directly.
Alternatively, they might be reachable by e-mail and people on
the net could post questions to them directly. If none of those
options are feasible, how about seeing if a copy of the database can
be regularly sent to someone on Gaelic-l and they can use it as a
reference when people on Gaelic-l ask questions?
�ras na nGael can be reached at:
Peadar Mac Fhlannchadha,
45 Sr�id Doiminic,
Gaillimh. F�n (091) 67824
Craig
|