Promoting Irish - Sadly it may be too late

Outgoing language commissioner Seán Ó Cuirreáin yesterday lamented that there are “widespread forces ... in the state sector ... that have little or no concern for the future of our national language”.

He is probably right but the fact that there is any support at all for Irish is little short of a miracle. He may also have to cede that this reflects the position of most people.

Most relationships with the language were forged early in life by forced, brain-numbing and artificial circumstances. The fact that the language has been hijacked by some of the least attractive elements of our society, some of them reactionary, blinkered and bigoted, does not help either.

Tragically the language seems doomed unless it can find an apolitical place in the modern world where the great empathy for it can be harnessed in a way that reflects life today rather than the battle lines of history. Sadly, it already seems too late.