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Post by kj on Jul 8, 2017 11:39:04 GMT
I know the topic of the language has been discussed before, but I'd like to say that in my opinion the only way we'll ever be truly independent is to have Gaeilge as the nation's first language. Otherwise we'll only ever be a half-nation, the bulk of whose culture will be Anglo-American in content and outlook.
Hopelessly utopian? No doubt. But what's the point otherwise. And yes, to repeat another old tune, the Israelis did it with Hebrew, so there's no reason we can't. We just lack the will.
We can moan and whine about the pernicious effects of Anglo-American capitalism and culture all we like, the only effective way to insulate ourselves, at least partially, is by building our own culture, of which language is an indispensable part.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jul 8, 2017 12:03:36 GMT
Other than a revival of the Catholic Church in Ireland, I don't think there's anything I'd like to see more (in terms of Irish society) than a revival of the Irish language. For Ireland to be Irish-speaking.
I'm not sure it could ever become the first language. That would be great, but English is just too convenient. Even for the majority of Irish people to become Irish-speaking is hard to imagine.
It's a funny thing. I don't like utopian causes generally. Advocacy of some kind of revolutionary transformation in society always seems like a waste of time to me. And yet, in the past few years, I've been making more of an effort with the Irish language-- reading rather than speaking, since I don't know many people who want to speak it.
Somehow I think that ANY victory is a big victory with the Irish language. It's that important. The fact that it could have easily gone extinct but didn't is a victory. The fact that we have broadcasting and other media in Irish is a victory. The fact that some people are Irish speakers and more people have some knowledge of it is a victory.
And yet...I still think we should push for revival, far-fetched though it seems. I think we should seek that national goal. Maybe the winds of renewed nationalism blowing around the world might help. (Sadly, identitarians and the Alt Right seem far more interested in DNA than culture.)
I actually think the lack of a broader nationalistic context might be part of the problem. We are urged to speak Irish because...it's our heritage, or something. But we're also always being told that our heritage is whatever we want it to be and that Ireland is a multicultural, pluralistic society. So why privilege Irish? There are thousands of languages in the world and languages go extinct all the time. I don't think Irish can be revived except as part of a wider cultural revival, or at least, the AIM of a wider cultural revival.
I think it's one of those thing where, if you don't shoot for the moon, you won't get anything. And a nation needs some ideal which is distinct from the bread-and-butter issues (important as they are). Aspirations are in themselves community-building, nation-building.
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Post by kj on Jul 8, 2017 12:26:02 GMT
I agree wholeheartedly. And unlike other huge ambitious causes, this is where one can make a difference simply by engaging more with the language oneself, whether it be studying it ten or fifteen minutes a day etc. My favourite means is to watch a TG4 documentary with the English subs on. I think this helps revive the memory muscle from the years of schooling, plus TG4 produce great documentaries on topics overlooked by the mainstream media.
I think it is important to hold it as an aspirational ideal. After all, what are you saying if you think Irish doesn't matter? Basically, that cultures and history mean nothing. We're all just interchangeable consumers and meat-machines.
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Post by cato on Jul 9, 2017 12:02:38 GMT
I wonder is there really something intrinsically conservative and traditional about Irish or is it wishful thinking? Often the actual language becomes a symbol or a cause which shows how patriotic you are , a totem or a banner. I am thinking of the current debate over the Irish language act. Its ridiculous to believe a law passed by Stormont will help the language just as the farcical decision to have Irish made an official European language did nothing to help people speak Irish . It did provide jobs to translate meaningless eurobabble into Irish. How cynical is that? And yet that is seen as being "pro-Irish".
Irish language writers like Myles Na GCopaleen and Mairtin O Cadhain seem to me to be modernists and part of a wider European movement and certainly not part of an inward unique culture. Granted you probably need to be Irish to fully grasp them. I visited Toraigh island at the very edge of the Donegal Gaeltacht in the 1990s and was shocked when overnight every islander bought a satellite dish to get sky TV. When I remonstrated with an islander she told me you don't have to live here especially in the winter.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jul 9, 2017 12:35:18 GMT
Well, I think you're touching on one of the paradoxes of conservatism. If you're not willing to compromise with change, you'll end up preserving nothing. I'm thinking especially of Patrick Pearse's insistence that Irish language writers should be free to use modern literary syles. Apparently, Sean Ó Riordáin faced similar criticism for writing poetry in a modern style. The arch-traditionalists in both cases thought they were selling out. (Although it really seems as though the arch-traditionalists were a small minority in both cases.)
I think it needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis. Apparently there was a controversy about whether Radio na Gaeltachta should play pop music, back in the day. Sean Bán Breathnach favoured pop music. Joe Heaney, the famous sean-nós singer, deplored this. I'm inclined to Joe Heaney's view. But I don't live in the Gaeltacht or listen to RnaG, so do I deserve an opinion?
This subject reminds me of King James Bible/Douay Rheims onlyism. Yes, those translations are much more poetic, but if you're going to read the Bible for any sustained amount of time, it becomes rather exhausting to read it in an archaic style. I admit I like the Catholic Good News translation.
As so often, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
I don't think there's anything intrinsically conservative or traditionalist about Irish. But I'm not a linguist and I can't argue these things. I'm inclined to just assume that one language is as good and bad for most purposes as another. But I do think there's something very conservative and traditionalist in the project of reviving Irish, because it's the native/ancestral language.
By the way, the paradox of change and conservation was put into the mouth of the narrator in the Burt Lancaster film The Leopard, an aristocrat facing the social changes of the Italian risorgimento. He decides that it's best to cooperate with the new order so as to preserve whatever can be preserved of the old regime, and announces that: "Everything must change so that everything can stay the same".
Chesterton expressed a similar idea: "All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white fence post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly,if you want the old white post you must have a new white post." He dramatized this in his poem The Ballad of the White Horse, where the chalk horse in the landscape at Uffington, Oxfordshire, has been preserved for three thousand years through constant renewal.
But at the same time, we have to remember that sometimes it really is best to leave well alone. I think Vatican II is proof of that. The innovations after Vatican II seem to have been brought about through the very considerations expressed in Chesterton's fence analogy; an attempt to preserve through adaptation. But they were (and I think few on this board will disagree) a disaster, and didn't preserve or renew anything.
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Post by kj on Jul 9, 2017 18:24:23 GMT
It's the language itself that matters; whether people are using it to express modern or conservative ideas is of no consequence to me personally. Someone like O Cadhain was deeply rooted in the Gaeltacht and yet was a fearless experimenter, nothing wrong with that.
If we are going to go down the toilet, let's at least do so in our own language!
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Post by kj on Jul 10, 2017 15:20:54 GMT
Just to note that in yesterday's Sunday Times Kevin Myers once again had another go at the Irish language and its enthusiasts, trying to tie it in with his favourite bugbears: Sinn Fein and Irish Republicanism. He also claimed that there are no 'masterpieces' in Irish literature. I suggest he pick up the translation of Martin o Cadhain's great work: Cre na Cille. It could be said that given Irish was the language of a repressed people for centuries it is no surprise we do not have a huge treasure of great literature in modern Irish. After all, the 19th century is generally considered the high point of the English novel and it's hardly a coincidence that that was the same era as the peak of the British Empire, British self-confidence etc etc.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jul 10, 2017 15:35:08 GMT
Who cares whether there are masterpieces in Irish or not? It's worth saving because it's ours.
Kevin Myers should be indulged as a licensed contrarian, I think.
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Post by kj on Jul 10, 2017 15:47:00 GMT
I agree. As we've discussed before, he's a paid contrarian so inevitably he will have a repetoire of Greatest Hits, the Irish language being one of them. I would love to know how much he is paid for cranking out his stuff each week. Nice work if you....
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jul 10, 2017 16:00:11 GMT
It does raise an interesting question regarding themes such as lip service, sacred cows and piety though. Myers often makes the argument that the Irish language is something to which Irish people pay lip service but which they make no real effort to revive. He has a point. But I don't think lip service is necessarily a bad thing. Yes, it would be great if we all started learning and speaking Irish tomorrow, but that's highly unlikely to happen. I see the options as follows, pretty much:
1) The Irish should be consistent by ceasing to pay lip service to the Irish language and start using it en masse. (Almost certainly not going to happen.) 2) The Irish should be consistent by ceasing to pay lip service to the Irish language and giving up the aspiration to revive it. (Could happen. I hope not.) 3) The Irish people should keep language revival as a national aspiration, without the illusion that it's going to happen any time soon, and tolerate the fact that this involves a certain element of lip service and inconsistency.
I think three is much preferable to two.
Now that we find ourselves dissidents, I think conservatives can be too inclined to suggest sacred cows and piety are always bad. I think some sacred cows and piety are good. I don't want to turn the sacred cow of the Irish language into Gaelic hamburgers.
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Post by kj on Jul 10, 2017 16:04:46 GMT
Well I agree. The simple fact is that there are Irish language revivalists, there has been an increase in the number of Gaeilscoilenna in recent years, plus "pop-up Gaeltachts" in the big cities etc etc.
I think Myers is just annoyed because such facts go against his vision of an idealised Ascendancy Ireland that he would like to be Governor-General of. (Apparently he threw an absolute wobbler when initially he was not placed on the list of Irish media people who were chosen to meet the Queen when she visited. He screamed so much they relented and put him on the list.)
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jul 10, 2017 16:18:40 GMT
I suppose we could call the Irish language our national Stairmaster!
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Post by cato on Jul 10, 2017 23:13:35 GMT
Kj your account of Kevin Myer's treatment by the state on the occasion of the visit of Queen Elizabeth is a little misleading.
He was one of a tiny group of people who managed to revive the memory of the experience of World war I in Ireland. His original research was highly significant - his figures regarding enlistment and the number of Irish war dead ( he calculated a lower figure than traditionally estimated) and his writing over many years changed attitudes and knowledge of an event largely airbrushed from our history.
Those bureaucrats organising events around the visit either knew nothing about him which is highly unlikely or they deliberately chose not to invite him which was mean, petty and spiteful. Ireland is a small place and he probably made one enemy too many.Fashion models ,various celebrities and the former head of the UDA were invited! If I was Myers I would be fuming too.
President mc Aleese, realising his long role in reviving the memory of the fallen of 1914-1918, in a generous gesture pointed to Myers who was belatedly invited to Islandbridge and made a point of introducing him to the Queen.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jul 11, 2017 8:44:26 GMT
I thought it was quite funny and refreshing that one advertising campaign for an RTE show promoting the language took this approach (ignore the Tom Dunne part). Although, since this is RTE, who knows what ulterior motives are at play....(I'm only seeing now that it was RTE. When I saw this on a bus, a few years back, I assumed it was some Irish language organisation that put it out). Attachments:
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Post by kj on Jul 11, 2017 9:26:25 GMT
Cato, I have no problem commemorating Ireland's war dead, but as for Myers, let's be honest, he has made a nice living for himself for nigh on four decades by consistently trashing nearly every element of Ireland, week in, week out, month in, month out, year in, year out. He can hardly be surprised or aggrieved if he makes enemies as a result.
I was discussing this elsewhere but one then wonders what he really believes or is he just contrarian for the sake of it.
To give an example of his hypocrisy, when the Tuam dead babies scandal broke he wrote an article for the Sunday Times damning the Irish State's consistent demonising of single mothers etc. He conveniently forgot that around ten years ago he wrote an infamous article damning them also, describing them as welfare leeches and defending the use of the word "bastard" to label illegitimate children.
Compare him to Peter Hitchens, who has fare more consistency and fair-mindedness.
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