Irish language was marginalised by history
The fanatics I referred to were those who were blind to the reality of the true status of Irish, not someone like Pádraig who has gone to the trouble of learning what should have been his natural inheritance if history had been kinder to Ireland.
If independence had been achieved say 100 years earlier, then the language might have stood a chance.
But history is history and can’t be changed, so, unfortunately, Irish became one of its many casualties.
For Irish to make a revival there has to be the will of the people behind it and the evidence is clear as day that the vast majority are not interested.
They don’t want to get rid of it, but they don’t want to speak it either. People like Pádraig are thin on the ground and get thinner by the year.
He’s right. I don’t object to Maltese as an EU working language because all citizens of Malta speak Maltese.
Irish, however, is not spoken by the vast majority of the Irish people, so his argument that more people speak Irish than Maltese is very weak.
Padraig, as an Irish speaker, chose to write his letter in English. Case closed.
Jim Yates
93 Cill Cais
Old Bawn
Dublin 24
