Conference tallis::celt

939.0. "Teilifi/s na Gaeilge? na Gaeltachta?" by TALLIS::DARCY () Fri Aug 09 1991 15:55

From:	DECPA::"GAELIC-L%[email protected]" "GAELIC Language Bulletin Board" 19-JUL-1991 22:44:33.01
To:	George Darcy <TALLIS::darcy> 
CC:	
Subj:	A Gaeilgoir solution to a Gaeltacht problem 

Aengus Lawlor ([email protected]) posted the following article
to the Usenet newsgroup soc.culture.celtic.
 
  We just got a new scanner, and some OCR software, and I decided
  to test it on a newspaper article that some people here might
  find interesting.
 
  Irish Times Weekend section, Saturday. July 6 1991
  Reproduced with permission
 
                    SECOND OPINION
                       Bob Quinn
 
      A Gaeilgeoir solution to a Gaeltacht problem
 
  My four-year-old attends an Irish-speaking kindergarten in
  Conamara. I speak to him in Irish. He answers me in
  Ninjaturtlespeak.
 
  This is the main reason that the Taoiseach's well-intentioned
  announcement of a television service "as Gaeilge" but not
  specifically located in the Gaeltacht saddened me. When it
  emerged that, on the advice of the president of the Gaelic
  League and the chairman of the ESB, the new service would be
  located on the east coast within an hour's drive of the Dublin
  suburbs, my heart sank.
 
  A #70,000 report commissioned by the Taoiseach from Udara/s na
  Gaeltachta which took six months to prepare and constituted a
  thorough blueprint for the necessary TV service was ignored. A
  two-page opinion prepared apparently overnight by two intimates
  of the Taoiseach was adopted.
 
  The Dublin Language Revivalists known as Gaeilgeoiri appear to
  have won again.
 
  Gaeilgeoiri may be defined as sincere, urban (mainly by
  adoption) middle-class people whose lives, if not livelihoods,
  are directly or indirectly linked with the Irish language and
  who believe, like my old colleague Liam O Murchu, that "it is
  the only thing we've got."
 
  They are decent people who 20 years ago declined Deasu/n
  Fennell's challenge to them to come with their skills and live in
  thc Gaeltacht if they were serious about maintaining Irish as a
  living language. I personally know of only three who answered
  the challenge. The rest were like the rich young man in the
  parable who sadly declined the invitation to adopt a lifestyle
  more relevant to his pious aspirations.
 
  What Fennell possibly underestimated was the essential class
  difference between Irish speakers in the city and those in the
  Gaeltacht. Sane, urban, middle-class language enthusiasts do
  not exchange their jobs and lifestyles for what they tend to
  regard as rural idiocy, even for their cherished language.
 
  That was 1970. In 1987 the Dublin-based Irish language revival
  movement suddenly came alive again. There was clear evidence
  that it had up to then become increasingly moribund.
 
  Bord na Gaeilge, by formally promulgating its bilingual
  intentions, had officially conceded that total resuscitation of
  the language was impossible. The Irish Press had dropped its
  leading article in the language. Irish-speaking TV producers ran
  a mile from programmes in Irish which had not the high profile
  necessary to advance their careers. (None of the then directors
  of "Cursai" had more than a smattering of the language). Even
  poets as courageous as Michael Hartnett had realised that a
  farewell to English was no longer practicable. He has since been
  joined de facto by Micheal O Siadhail, Nuala Ni/ Dhomhnaill,
  Pa/draic Standu/in and others who need and deserve a wider
  readership - in English. You can't blame them. Writers must read
  or die.
 
  Indiscriminately, this vulgar, hype-ridden. Anglo-American,
  half-peasant, half-yuppy consumer society ate them up, skins and
  all, didn't spit them out, but absorbed them Marcuse-fashion
  into its great homogenous blob.
 
  Meanwhile the government still drip-fed the language
  enthusiasts, like small farmers on the dole in the west, keeping
  them at subsistence level, providing the occasional one with a
  position as stiurthoir of one of the multifarious language
  organisations to put a good face on things.
 
  People with an antipathy towards the language could finally vent
  their fears openly.
 
  In 1987 the counter-reformation of Irish society was at its
  height. The Provos were used as an excuse to lambast everything
  that had held this frail little construction - the Irish
  Republic - together, however precariously, for 60 years.
  Anything that remotely evoked an Irish/Gaelic identity was fair
  game. Even an apolitical slob like myself who happened to make
  films in Irish had his house raided by gardai, mar dhea looking
  for arms but clearly for the purpose of intimidation.
 
  The Irish language was considered an obvious badge of subversion
  and open season had been declared on it.
 
  The only group blissfully unbothered by these tensions was the
  peopIe of the Gaeltacht. Irish was no badge of nationhood or
  anything else to them. They simply spoke the language, as
  naturally as everybody else spoke English. They spoke it in
  decreasing numbers of course. Not only were their children
  adopting the language of their television peers; since 1983 they
  had seen practically everybody between the ages of 18 and 25
  leave their small communities for London and Boston. But the
  people of the Gaeltacht were sensible enough not to waste energy
  complaining. "B'shin i/ an saol, B'shin e/ an chaoi" they would say,
  with experience of 100 years of decimation (not to mention their
  own personal experience of the 1950s) behind them.
 
  In 1987, to repeat, the urban revivalists suddenly came alive
  again. They were given a cause by a few activists in the
  Conamara Gaeltacht who put a pirate television service on the
  air for 18 hours. Suddenly the air was filled with demands for
  an Irish language television service, a third channel. Bealach a
  tri/. The fact that the latter had nothing to do with the
  intentions of the Conamara people who camped on a cold mountain
  for two nights in succession guarding thelr transmitter, was
  overlooked then and has been successfully glossed over since.
 
  This requires repeating: the people who put Teilifi/s na
  Gaeltachta on the air in 1987 had no desire to repeat the mistake
  of urban revivalists in the past who tried to impose a minority
  language on the monoglot English-speaking population of this
  island. In 20 years of living in Conamara I have never heard
  such aspirations expressed locally. In fact, I have witnessed a
  great apathy towards the said Gaeilgeoir aspirations towards a
  Gaelic-speaking Ireland. What has been evident in Conamara,
  however, has been an awareness of and affection for their own
  linguistic identity and a desire to maintain that identity, even
  when forced to emigrate.
 
  Thus, the signal that was sent out in 1987 from Rosmuc was no
  jaded invocation of national aspirations. It was a cry for help
  similar to the one that went out from a pirate radio in Rosmuc
  in 1970/71. The latter resulted in Raidio na Gaeltachta.
 
  Why was the later appeal for a Gaeltacht community TV service
  ignored ?
 
  The cry contained the simple message Gaeltacht children, like
  all other children are being conditioned by the most powerful
  social medium ever invented. Could they at
 
  least have a local version of this medium so that they might be
  reassured that the language they and their parents spoke
  everyday was sufficiently acceptable to be on an equivalent
  platform to the bland patois of Gay, Gerry, Mike, Pat and the
  rest of the old, safe, and politically reliable monopolisers of
  the airwaves?
 
  Yes, they had Raidio na Gaeltachta, thank you very much. But
  Gaeltacht children are normal. They prefer television.
 
  It was useless to say to the people of the Gaeltacht that their
  children were catered for by Irish language programmes on RTE.
  In 1987 a local teacher recorded all of the signature tunes of
  programmes on RTE. The children in her class recognised all but
  those in the Irish language. The message was obvious: simply
  being in Irish did not make the programme attractive to
  Gaeltacht children. The programme must be relevant to their own
  personal, local lives, must be in _their_ language.
 
  What can be so subversive about the idea of a local community
  television service that it should take a badly-advised Taoiseach
  three years to intimate finally that (a) such a modest community
  service is not on, (b) that the urban revivalists are still
  worth mollifying (c) that another linguistic white elephant is
  to be perpetrated in the form of a TV service from Rathcairn, Co
  Meath, where at the last count, about 15 teenagers could speak
  Irish?
 
  Bord na Gaeilge's offer of f #150,000 to entice more children
  to the place may perhaps be seen as a transparent attempt to
  create an audience for the service. A Gaeilgeoir solution to a
  Gaeltacht problem?
 
  The local Raidio na Gaeltachta hroadcasters, being employees of
  RTE, could not come out publicly in favour of a local service
  because of its association with the pirate concept. Thus an
  articulate body of professionals who might argue for the concept
  of a local TV service on the lines of their own radio service
  -- which is accessible nationally -- was silenced.
 
  Therefore the most articulate and powerful group in the debate
  was people who have a vested interest in the Irish language
  staying alive--in the urban areas. But the only place that the
  Irish language is in any real sense alive, is in the Gaeltacht.
  A professional Gaeilgeoir can never admit this; the very idea
  undermines his or her _raison d'etre_.
 
  The reasons for the delay in setting up a Teilifi/s na Gaeltachta
  became clear. The people whom one would imagine would benefit at
  least peripherally wanted it all, on the east coast, run and
  controlled by themselves, not by the wild men of the Gaeltacht.
  In other words they did not want Teilifi/s na Gaeltachta. They
  wanted Teilifi/s na Gaeilge, a horse with a completely different
  accent.
 
  The political cleverness of the proposed solution to the
  impasse, a television service with its headquarters in Dev's
  invented Gaeltacht in Athboy, Co Meath, can be admired for its
  cleverness. But it must be condemned for its utter cynicism.
 
  If carried out, the result will be a service that will be
  resented by the majority English speakers and ignored by the
  people of the Gaeltacht. But the urban Gaeilgeoiri will be
  corralled and quietened. And that is politically more important
  than the death of the linguistic communities which constitute
  the Gaeltacht.
 
  * Bob Quinn is an independent film-maker based in Carraroe, Co
  Galway.
  --
  [email protected]                    Aengus Lawlor
  [email protected]                   (who used to be [email protected])
  "How about some of that famous Dublin wit, Barman?"
  "Certainly, sir. Would that be Dry or Sparkling?"
________________
George V. Reilly   `Prolog/Antilog'	[email protected]   +1 (401) 863-7684
uunet!brunix!gvr   [email protected]	Box 1910, Brown U, Prov, RI 02912
 
 
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Date:         Fri, 19 Jul 91 22:38:53 -0400
Reply-To: GAELIC Language Bulletin Board <GAELIC-L%[email protected]>
Sender: GAELIC Language Bulletin Board <GAELIC-L%[email protected]>
From: "George V. Reilly" <GVR%[email protected]>
Subject:      A Gaeilgoir solution to a Gaeltacht problem
To: George Darcy <TALLIS::darcy>

    Bob Quinn is noted for his films thru' Irish such as Poitin and also
    his TV series on possible Irish-Arab links..called "Atlanteans".
    He is a thought-provoking if unconventional broadcaster.
    This is the first I've heard of a proposed TV service in Irish.
    A commercial,nation-wide service is in the planning stages and is
    intended to be broadcast first in Dublin (where else???) by Christmas.
    It would of course be typical of the Taoiseach to keep as much of 
    Government services on the East Coast as possible.
    Having travelled thru' Conamara occasionally I am struck by the neglect
    of public roads that is apparent every time I go there.
    The root cause is that they do not have a separate member of the Dail
    out there ,most people being content to vote along party lines for the
    party member that the entire county selects.
    Until such time that they unite I cannot see things changing.
    I can relate wholeheartedly with his opinion on "professional
    Gaelgoiri".
    My opinion of such Gaelgoiri,having gone thru' the ferocious mincer
    that passed for Irish language education here in Ireland is
    unprintable,Suffice it is to say that they have left me with an abiding
    hatred of the langauge and with absolutely no desire to improve my
    scanty knowledge of it.The abolition of corporal punishment and the 
    improvement in teacher training has improved the situation somewhat.
    However todays Irish teenager,faced with an increasingly difficult 
    jobs market does not spend too much time at Irish unless it is directly
    relevant to his career choice.
    	As for the future the level of language practice is improving but
    it is not used as much as it could.The Irish have other things,such as 
    unemployment  and high taxes to worry about.
    				John Dooley.
    
    

    I hadn't read Bob Quinn's article when it was published in the Times,
    though I had read about the decision to make Telef�s na Gaeilge a
    national rather than a local station. I'm not so sure about locating in
    the Rath Cairn, but were it to be located in Corca Dhuibne, I'm sure
    the folks in Conamara would complain and vice versa.
    
    I can see Bob Quinn's point, but I feel that were he to get his way,
    TnG would be a highly localised station that would appeal only to those
    who are very fluent in the language. Those who would watch TnG in the
    hope of improving their Irish would be lost. The "Gaeilgeoir�" that he
    dismisses do have a genuine interest in the language and are entitled
    to speak it if they so wish. Sometimes, listening to some of the
    activists going on about this, it seems to me that they feel that the
    language is theirs alone. It's a pity that the Gaeilgeoir� and Bob
    Quinn don't see eye to eye on this, because both have the interest of
    the language at heart.
    
    Underlying this whole debate are two important cultural issues:
    
     i) the survival of the Irish Language (and I fully agree with John
    Dooley on the reasons Irish is the way it is),
    
    ii) the survival of a native culture in a world where modern
    communications are causing a trend towards mono-culturalism i.e. how
    can a TV channel dealing in local & `high-minded' issues compete with
    satellite TV broadcasting 24 hour news or sport or movies etc?
    
    I hope Telef�s na Gaeilge comes on air and I hope it's a success.
    Unfortunately, I can't say that I'm optimistic about its chances.
    
    Jimmy