The Irish language: Revival efforts continue to fail

THIS year, as we mark the centenary of one of the foundational events of this Republic, the Irish language — regarded as something almost sacred by some of those who sacrificed so much that we might have an independent parliament — is at a pretty low ebb. Its future may not be entirely certain but its prospects are hardly enviable.

Irish is the main work or community language of less than 1% of the population and every effort to revive it as a popular means of communication has utterly failed.

One in three people on the island claim to understand Irish to some degree but that ratio is lower in the Republic. Estimates of the number of fully native speakers range from 40,000 to 80,000. The language is, or has become, somewhat like Irish Catholicism, observed more in the passing than in the heart by a great number of disaffected people. The reasons for that abandonment range from counterproductive teaching, the politicisation of the language by violent nationalism, the dominance of Anglo/American culture, and, if we are honest, a growing indifference to something seen as at best marginal and quaint but pointless in a globalised, digitised world. This rearguard reality stands despite the growth of Irish in urban areas, albeit in a Gaeilge-lite patois almost unrecognisable to native speakers of any traditional dialect.

Nevertheless, efforts to sustain the language continue and the end, next year, of the derogation given to Ireland when Irish was recognised as an official EU language in 2007 means it is necessary to train up to 700 people and eventually select an estimated 185 of those to become translators so all EU documentation, from 2022, might be available in Irish should the need arise. What defines a “need” in this instance is highly politicised and absolutely subjective.

This may seem a noble ambition but in the cold, hard world dealing with housing and refugees crisis, failing health, and education systems, this development seems hollow managerialism likely to further undermine efforts to rejuvenate the language.

More than anything else the language needs new friends with open hearts and the kind of energy needed to sweep away decades of insularity, clumsiness, and well-intentioned ineptitude. There are far better ways to use scarce resources to promote Irish than the creation of comfortable but ultimately pointless sinecures in Brussels.