Eircom League and the Irish Lanaguage

**dcfcsteve** · 23/10/2007, 11:55 PM

Originally Posted by Bucky-O'Hare

Comparing Welsh with Irish is comparing chalk and cheese! Welsh is the first language for a very large chunk of that country where people only speak English when they have to! and away from those areas many people can speak it fluently. Of course many managers are going to be able to speak it!

It hasn't always been that way though Bucky.

Welsh is going through a renaissance at the moment - but you only need to go back to 10 or more years ago to find the language was in a continual decline, rather than the growth it is in now.

Geographically large chunks of the country may speak Welsh - but the vast majority of the population live in solidly English-speaking areas, not the Bro Cymraeg (Welsh version of 'Gaeltacht'). The largest population centre of Wales is in the industrial towns and valleys of south Wales, where the language is actually very weak. Add to that the fact that the main sport in Welsh-speaking areas tends to be rugby, rather than soccer, and it is impressive that so many soccer players and managers - brought up in the era of the language's long-term decline - can speak it.

**dcfcsteve** · 24/10/2007, 12:08 AM

Originally Posted by Sam_Heggy

The systems in place in Wales is far superior to that in our schools.

What systems are you referring to here Sam ?

The 3 reasons I believe why Welsh is currently much stronger than Irish are :

1) It suffered a long-term decline until recently, but that decline never plumbed the depths that Irish's decline did.
2) The Welsh have a positive attitude towards their language. The Irish are largely stuck in a negative mind-set about their native tongue, that stretches all the way back to the Statutes of Kilkenny.
3) A key part of the resurgence in Welsh is the fact that, for the first time in decades, it is now economically advantageous to actually speak the Welsh language. Any limited benefits that currently exist in speaking Irish are continually being eroded (e.g. teacher's requirements, Gardai recruitment).

The single most important thing the Welsh did to reverse their language's decline was arguably to have a half-decent Language Act that compels public bodies to be effectively bi-lingual. Thereby allowing people to genuinely conduct their state busines through the language, whilst also creating a whole industry for the tongue as well.

**dcfcsteve** · 24/10/2007, 12:21 AM

Originally Posted by S�C

Wouldnt say that TBH...but thats a whole other issue.

The LOW teams come mainly from Welsh speaking areas anyway (mainly North and West Wales) with many of the anglophone area teams playing in the English leagues

The Welsh League is indeed too heavily represented outside of the main population centre of south Wales, but I'd put the split of teams in Welsh-speaking areas to those in non Welsh speaking areas at no more than about 50-50.

The better teams in the league do tend to be from outside the Bro Gymraeg (Welsh Gaeltacht) - Llanelli, New Saints, Rhyl - though a few decent teams are also from staunchly Welsh speaking areas (e.g. Carmarthen, Aberystwyth)

As an aside, the main sport in Welsh-speaking areas tends to be rugby rather than football.

Regardless - as my initial post stated, it appears to be almost irrelevant which team S4C are showing, as they always seem to be able to find Welsh-speaking managers and players at the majority of them. It would be very rare to find any in our league, as this thread appears to support, and we seem to never get an Irish interview on TG4.

**BohDiddley** · 24/10/2007, 10:17 AM

Time to air my pet theory...

The Welsh express their nationality primarily through, well, Welsh. Fair dues to them. (Perhaps also a bit of singin' -- apologies for the stereotype!)
We express our nationality primarily through... yes, that's right, the abomination that is Gaelic football. (Secondarily with a bit of literature, music and, lately, Riverdance, and generally considering ourselves geniuses)
Gaelic football killed the Irish language. Nach bhfuil s� sin f�or?

**CollegeTillIDie** · 24/10/2007, 10:45 AM

Originally Posted by BohDiddley

Time to air my pet theory..........[*]We express our nationality primarily through... yes, that's right, the abomination that is Gaelic football. (Secondarily with a bit of literature, music and, lately, Riverdance, and generally considering ourselves geniuses)[*]Gaelic football killed the Irish language. Nach bhfuil s� sin f�or?[/LIST]

Well hurling is the real Irish game, and it's not that bad, but I like your last bit!

**BohDiddley** · 24/10/2007, 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

hurling is the real Irish game, and it's not that bad

Hurling is not 'not bad'. It's superb! But it doesn't really figure in this...

**superfrank** · 24/10/2007, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by el punter

I sent an email to TG4 when they announced they were covering a heap of games live. I asked them to give us a translation of several common football expressions which we could put on the walkthechalk site to help those of us who's Gaelige is modest at best. It would have been a bit tongue in cheek with a few funny ones thrown in, but they never replied for whatever reason.

I'd still like to do it so if anyone (ahem, Kildare Lad) cares to volunteer their lingual expertise and help us out 'twould be appreciated.

I would gladly help you there el punter.

I know one of the local journalists writes his name in Irish (M�cheal � hUanach�in)and he reports on the Bray games. It could be he has Irish too.

**CollegeTillIDie** · 24/10/2007, 3:35 PM

M�cheal � hUanach�in used to present TV programmes on RTE in Irish I think it's safe enough to say he's fluent

**CollegeTillIDie** · 24/10/2007, 3:36 PM

Originally Posted by BohDiddley

Hurling is not 'not bad'. It's superb! But it doesn't really figure in this...

I was trying to agree with you and point out the diff at the same time. But I didn't know your views on hurling so didn't want to raise any hackles

**Cymro** · 24/10/2007, 5:13 PM

Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

I watch quite a bit of the Welsh Premier League on S4C, and am constantly impressed by how many people involved in Welsh football speak Cymraeg.

I know the country has a 20% Welsh-speaking population (weighted more towards younger age groups though), but it seems that about half the Managers in the league, and quite a few players, can speak the language fluently.

It's not just that S4C only favour teams with Welsh speaking management - they interview across a lot of teams, and mostly based upon who's doing well in the league, yet they seem to have little problem finding Welsh speakers. When you take out the fact that there are quite a few English Managers and players in their league, it really is impressive.

Then contrast that to the EL coverage on our own native-language channel. Unless I'm wrong, I don't think I've seen a single manager or player interviewed as Gaeilge by TG4 whilst screening games. In terms of commentators it looks like Charlie McKeever is the only soccer man in the country with more than a cupla focal. The contrast is immense, and shows how far behind Welsh the Irish Lanaguage is in terms of ensuring its survival/progression.

Does anyone know of any Irish speaking managers or teams in the league..?

Interesting post Steve, I watch CPD as often as I can too (most weekends) and I have a few observations to make.

-Firstly, I agree about the level of Welsh speakers. It is impressive. However, a lot of WPL teams are based to the west of the country where the language is stronger due to less English influence over the centuries. Clubs like Carmarthen, Llanelli, Haverfordwest, in the south as well as Caernarfon, Porthmadog, Bangor and Llangefni in the north and Aberystwyth in Mid-Wales, are all towns where Welsh is spoken by a majority of the population, or at least a very significant minority (I don't know the actual statistics).
-Secondly, these clubs rely quite a lot on locally based players (Bangor maybe being an exception). These two factors combined mean that around half the league's teams will be almost guaranteed to have Welsh speaking players, year in, year out.
-Thirdly, players move between clubs a lot, as most clubs are part time and players will follow the money. So it's not unusual for a Welsh-speaking native of Bangor, for example, to end up in Connah's Quay or Cefn Druids in the north east if a decent contract offer materialises.
-Therefore, nearly each club will have some Welsh speakers that S4C can interview.
-Also, not much real relevance to the debate here, but while the main commentator who does the featured matches and the games live on S4C is not too bad, the other one on CPD is absolutely dire. We may have better coverage in our native tongue but I'm sure you have the better commentators.

**Cymro** · 24/10/2007, 5:18 PM

Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

As an aside, the main sport in Welsh-speaking areas tends to be rugby rather than football.

Are you quite mad? Rugby is predominantly played/supported in the south-east. All our regional teams are based in the south, and only the Ospreys and the Scarlets have any real Welsh-speaking following. Even still, Welsh speaking rugby fans are in the minority.

The main Welsh-speaking areas, mostly in Gwynedd, play football almost exclusively.

**Bucky-O'Hare** · 24/10/2007, 6:49 PM

Originally Posted by Cymro

The main Welsh-speaking areas, mostly in Gwynedd, play football almost exclusively.

I went to uni up in Bangor. I would have been on the doorstep of the biggest Welsh speaking area in Wales, and it's a very large area we're talking about here in comparison with our own. Bangor itself also has a large Welsh speaking population. When I say Welsh speaker, Im not talking about someone who is fluent, I mean someone who actually speaks and thinks with the language. I made a lot of good welsh speaking friends while I was there.

DCFCsteve
Your right that it was in continual decline up until the last cencus which was the first rise in the language in a long time. This was due to families in the valleys of south Wales making sure that their children was learning the language.

**dcfcsteve** · 25/10/2007, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by Cymro

The main Welsh-speaking areas, mostly in Gwynedd, play football almost exclusively.

As you doubtless know, the north is predominantly football - regardles of language spoken - and the South is predominantly rugby - again, regardless of language.

Again, as I'm sure you know Gwynedd in the north is only the main Welsh speaking area by proportion of population. The South has the largest outright number of Welsh speakers - Carmarthenshire in particular having more speakers of the language than any other single county (incl Gwynedd and Ynys Mon combined, for example). Carmarthenshire includes big rugby towns like Llanelli (by far the biggest town in the county), Llandeilo (one of the founding clubs of the Welsh RFU) and Llandovery. You will also find just as strong, if not a stronger, presence for rugby than soccer in many of the even more Welsh-speaking towns throughout Carmarthenshire (e.g. Newcastle Emlyn, Ammanford, Kidwelly). Likewise, in large parts of Welsh-speaking Ceredigion rugby is at least, if not more, popular than football.

So the north-south split in terms of football-rugby and langauge penetration can sometimes mask the fact that the rugby-loving south has more populous Welsh-speaking areas than the soccer loving north. Though you're right to correct me on the fact that the largely northern Bro Gymraeg is firmly in football territory.

**Cymro** · 25/10/2007, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

As you doubtless know, the north is predominantly football - regardles of language spoken - and the South is predominantly rugby - again, regardless of language.

Again, as I'm sure you know Gwynedd in the north is only the main Welsh speaking area by proportion of population. The South has the largest outright number of Welsh speakers - Carmarthenshire in particular having more speakers of the language than any other single county (incl Gwynedd and Ynys Mon combined, for example). Carmarthenshire includes big rugby towns like Llanelli (by far the biggest town in the county), Llandeilo (one of the founding clubs of the Welsh RFU) and Llandovery. You will also find just as strong, if not a stronger, presence for rugby than soccer in many of the even more Welsh-speaking towns throughout Carmarthenshire (e.g. Newcastle Emlyn, Ammanford, Kidwelly). Likewise, in large parts of Welsh-speaking Ceredigion rugby is at least, if not more, popular than football.

So the north-south split in terms of football-rugby and langauge penetration can sometimes mask the fact that the rugby-loving south has more populous Welsh-speaking areas than the soccer loving north. Though you're right to correct me on the fact that the largely northern Bro Gymraeg is firmly in football territory.

True, you'll find more numbers of Welsh speakers in towns like Carmarthen and Llanelli. The support there is without question more rugby-oriented, but I was under the impression that you were implying that the area itself was more Welsh speaking than the north where football is king.