Guardian article on Irish speakers.

[lopez]

I could spend all day every day picking holes in the way people spell and use English on this forum, but somehow I manage to restrain myself!

Starting with the title of the thread.

Ok many years ago a phrase was coined " gan teanga gan tír". No language no Country. I would ask you Lim Till I Die, if we abandon our language and our culture,what is it about us that makes us Irish? Is it our appalling lack of mellanin? Is it our capacity for alcohol? No I'd say that would make us just like the Scots.

ireland now is nearly identical in every way to england..

what separates us.. irish, its the only thing

With attitudes like Lim, I don't know how Ireland ever broke from the Union. Interestingly, I've defended Ireland as being different to some foreign people with the fact that we have a living language. One French bird I was at college thought we were no different from Britain in the same way Austria was no different from Germany and Cyprus was no different from Greece.

[GavinZac]

or that well over 100,000 people use the language every day.

AAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
HHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

HHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA


AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHHAHA

*wheeze*

HHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

[Student Mullet]

well over 100,000 people use the language every day.

Only if you include all the school kids who take a daily 50min lesson.
It's definately the most misleading question on the census form.

[crc]

" gan teanga gan tír"

I think the phrase you're thinking of is: "tír gan teanga, tír gan anam" (a country without a language is a country without a soul).

I don't buy this nonsense that the language is the only thing that seperates us from the English - there are loads of things that differentiate us, just like there are loads of things that we have in common, but I don't really care about any of that. I've found that Ireland actually has alot more in common with Canada than it does with England!

[Poor Student]

I don't buy this nonsense that the language is the only thing that seperates us from the English

Nor do I. In spite of the constitional status of Gaeilge, English has been the language of the majority of the people of this country for a long time. I was educated in English, I think in English and most of the time I communicate through English. I'm confident and secure enough to not let that diminish my feeling of being Irish. Equating the one language with being Irish is a form of primordial nationalism. The Celts are only one of a number of people to occupy and live on this island. Modern Irish identity is an amalgam of many different peoples, the Anglo tradition plays a strong part in this and to ignore this is to deny a large part of ourselves.

[noby]

Only if you include all the school kids who take a daily 50min lesson.
It's definately the most misleading question on the census form.

I guess it is misleading. Does using one word qualify as using the language? But there are a lot of gael scoil pupils who use the language more than just 50 minutes a day. The rising popularity of these schools will surely help the language. I guess the next step is to try to speak it outside of school.

[Lim till i die]

Ok many years ago a phrase was coined " gan teanga gan tír". No language no Country. I would ask you Lim Till I Die, if we abandon our language and our culture,what is it about us that makes us Irish? Is it our appalling lack of mellanin? Is it our capacity for alcohol? No I'd say that would make us just like the Scots.

Who said anything about wanting to be Irish??

A nation is after all just a collection of misguided people who think they have some kind of common bond.

I've a problem with money being spent on the Irish language when it could be used for far more useful purposes, you don't agree with me fine

[osarusan]

Starting with the title of the thread.

What is wrong with it?

[Dodge]

It was a type. I changed it

[lopez]

What is wrong with it?

It was a type. I changed it

Phew! I thought I was getting dyxlexia in my old age.

[Conor H]

Who said anything about wanting to be Irish??

A nation is after all just a collection of misguided people who think they have some kind of common bond.

I've a problem with money being spent on the Irish language when it could be used for far more useful purposes, you don't agree with me fine

That's a fairly powerful statement to make.What justifies it?TYou could say that about any country in the world so?

Our language is hated in schools and ignored in everyday life.But i think it's vital that all Irish people should be able to speak it.I can speak fluent enough Irish and i'm proud of it.It was also a big help in getting my course in NUIG.To deem the language irrelevant is bizzare.It's what makes us unique to any other country in the world.I would agree that giving people in the gaeltacht grants is a bit rich(no pun intended) but in fairness there isn't that many if them either.
I technically live in a gaeltacht but we don't get a grant.

In fact i think Terryland Park is located in a gaeltacht area.

[pineapple stu]

A nation is after all just a collection of misguided people who think they have some kind of common bond.

Misguided? Studies (like this one from the EU - pdf download) have shown that having a strong sense of belonging to a community - a town, a family, a country - increases people's general happiness and sense of well-being. You can argue all you like whether or not the Irish language would add to that - personally I feel it would - but to dismiss as misguided people who feel they have a common bond or a sense of belonging is just ignorance.

It's definately the most misleading question on the census form.

I'd love to know how many people tick that box out of a sense of shame about their level of Irish, and hoping in some bizarre way that this would make it better. Seriously.

[Raheny Red]

I had the chance this month to go to Carragh Roe for 2 weeks or spend a fortnight in the National Archives reading witness statements from 1916 and 1921, I chose the latter

[kingdom hoop]

Who said anything about wanting to be Irish??


I've a problem with money being spent on the Irish language when it could be used for far more useful purposes, you don't agree with me fine

if you want to live up to your name then you must want to be irish, i dont see limerick being teleported any day soon..

i think spending money on irish is very useful. its costing the EU 600k to work in irish for the next year. personally, hearing brian crowley MEP speak irish in the european parliament filled me with enormous pride, the emotion welled up inside of me almost producing a tear. while the moment didnt quite compare with robbie's equaliser v germany, it was a similar feeling. my point would be that if one proudly follows our sporting representatives(and the millions spent) why do they argue about our culture not deserving funding and attention.

by the way i did my leaving through irish. there are no extra points directly awarded. you get a percent of your grade up to a maximum of 10%, with a sliding scale the higher your mark, so if you got 50% you would get 55%, but then if you got 73% youd get about 78%. a 5% 'bonus' applies to subjects such as maths, technical graphics. with of course no bonus for english, which as it happens was my best result, a1 the textbooks were indeed very poor, sometimes we'd read english books and then translate to irish, which would take half the class so we probably did deserve extra!!

[lopez]

Reading the article leaves me with a lot of optimism. Three things: Firslty: The young that are studying it, in particular Irish schools who seem to be (rather ironically) replacing the one thing guilty of putting the Irish on its deathbed, National schools. I'm all for foreign 'new' words being added, to the language. It helped English no ends. Secondly: Foreigners. It's as easy learning Irish as any other indo-European language. Thirdly: The middle classes. Irish is no longer a language of the peasantry, and despite what people may think, that makes a difference.

The next step is for it to become a first choice spoken language for these three mentioned groups. Because its all fine being able to claim to speak a language but the only way to be fluent in it is to live it.

Finally as someone who speaks little Irish (my father speaks even less) I do feel that you can consider yourself more Irish if you can speak it. My opinion of course, and a few people would question my Irishness for not being born there, it's my turn to have a pop.

[paul_oshea]

read what david mcwilliams said about it then lopez, the yuppies are taking to the gaelscoileanna like there is no tomorrow. They love them and cant get enough, so that is good to see, where there is power there is money, and where there is money there is power to do greater and better things.

[CollegeTillIDie]

I wouldn't go to Carraroe to study Irish either... Gaoth Dobhair is by far the best spot for that

[CollegeTillIDie]

read what david mcwilliams said about it then lopez, the yuppies are taking to the gaelscoileanna like there is no tomorrow. They love them and cant get enough, so that is good to see, where there is power there is money, and where there is money there is power to do greater and better things.

Fair point and a lot of our immigrant's children are taking to it like ducks to water into the bargain. The future,may see a majority of Irish speakers in this country, who may well look Nigerian or Chinese or Slavic, and there's nothing wrong with that.

[lopez]

read what david mcwilliams said about it then lopez, the yuppies are taking to the gaelscoileanna like there is no tomorrow. They love them and cant get enough, so that is good to see, where there is power there is money, and where there is money there is power to do greater and better things.

The same thing has happened in Spain with Galician which has the highest per capita language usage of the three minority languages (principally due to low immigration as opposed to the Basque country and Catalonia). It was always regarded as the peasants' language. Now it is something that is being embraced by the urban middle classes whom would never be heard speaking it before.

Fair point and a lot of our immigrant's children are taking to it like ducks to water into the bargain. The future,may see a majority of Irish speakers in this country, who may well look Nigerian or Chinese or Slavic, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I don't know why, but the more languages you speak, the easier it is to learn another language. This not only points to why the immigrant kids are doing well in it (it would be better if they spoke it often), but why kids who learn in Irish schools will get better results in a third or fourth modern language.

[bennocelt]

ireland now is nearly identical in every way to england..

what separates us.. irish, its the only thing

thats rubbish
i live in britain, beleive me the irish are so different to the brits, we have a personality for a start, and a sense of humour

about the irish thing, i can see the revival from where im from in ireland, a lot of my neighbours have suddenly got the urge to start learning irish, its the "in" thing
thats great
i am not good at speaking it myself, but im ashamed of that
my excuse..............the way it was taught in school was shameful, beaten into you, and taught like english in that you know how to speak it, should have been taught like a foreign language from scratch
and how come irish teachers were always the worst teachers around, the bullyboys, and the thick!