Liam Kennedy: Lumbering An Ghaeilge revival movement with political baggage could prove counterproductive

The other major languages, in addition to an Ghaeilge, are of course English, and, in its day, Latin. I would not include Ulster Scots (more a dialect of a dialect); nor such curiosities as Yola, which was spoken in Forth and Bargy in the south-east of Ireland. It is a fascinating linguistic relic of medieval English that survived into the 19th century. Like an Ghaeilge, it is currently experiencing a revival of interest.

It is good to celebrate the rich linguistic heritage of this island and its intimate relationship with the neighbouring island, and indeed elsewhere. This makes Conradh na Gaeilge’s decision this year to add Irish unity to its traditional objective of promoting An Ghaeilge (Irish Gaelic) something of a betrayal.

We have been here before of course. When originally founded in 1893 the Gaelic League or Conradh na Gaeilge was avowedly non-political and non-sectarian, and it attracted support from a broad range of people, including significant numbers from a Protestant and unionist background.

However, at its annual conference in 1915, under the influence of militant activists, the Gaelic League or Conradh na Gaeilge committed itself not only to the revival of the language but also to Irish separatism. Not surprisingly, there was an exodus of Protestants, including its founder-president, Dr Douglas Hyde himself.

The subordination of language interests to ultra-nationalist demands – most people in 1915 were not seeking an independent Gaelic-speaking Ireland –seems to have done little to arrest the decline of An Ghaeilge. There are fewer native speakers now than at the time of the formation of the new state.

Connradh’s turn or return to the political finds support in a recent publication, United Ireland: A Transformative Opportunity for the Irish Language and the Gaeltacht Community. Surprise, surprise, the funder was none other than Connradh na Gaeilge. The report is as much a profession of faith and wishful thinking as a piece of research. The language is shiny but the ideas belong to a bye-gone age.

The tenor of the report may be gauged from the absence of any reference to Northern Ireland, the political entity that dare not speak its name. There is, however, one exception where the offending words appear but, fear not, they are rendered in inverted commas. Otherwise, it is the ‘six counties’, interestingly in lower case, signalling United Ireland is yet another dreary contribution to the culture wars.

The language at the launch verged on self-parody: we have transformative opportunity, generational opportunity, historic opportunity, unprecedented opportunity, and even a ‘liberational’ opportunity. It is as if those behind the report were anxiously trying to convince themselves that politicising An Ghaeilge was an effective strategy.

The obvious concern must be that lumbering the revival movement with exclusionary political baggage will prove counterproductive. The report’s gung-ho approach, closely linked to the thinking of Sinn Féin and the wilting Ireland’s Future, is likely to alienate not only unionists but moderate nationalists, as well as the growing constituency of those who are neutral on the constitutional question.

Support for An Ghaeilge springs from a variety of motives, mostly good but not always so. Here is one of my experiences, and there are others. I was up at Stormont some years after the Good Friday Agreement, where I met two Sinn Féin members. One was a local councillor from North Antrim, and both were fluent speakers of an Ghaeilge. The councillor told me he liked to use Irish in meetings because it so annoyed the unionists present.

The other had a somewhat different take. The speakers within his Sinn Féin cumann looked down on members who could not speak as Ghaeilge. The Anglophone comrades were second-class Shinners it would seem, a category that paradoxically would include the Northern leader of Sinn Féin, Michelle O’Neill and her southern counterpart, Mary Lou McDonald. Neither has any proficiency in the language despite years of opportunity to remedy the deficiency, paying lip rather than tongue service to An Ghaeilge.

A persistent feature of the report is the assumption that there is a single unified Popal na Gaeilge and that Connradh na Gaeilge is the democratic voice of that linguistic minority. There are bigots in the revival movement, as I encountered up at Stormont, there are self-indulgent activists with a taste for coercion, there are those who murdered or ‘knee-capped’ for a ‘united’ Ireland, there are hard-working advocates and idealists, and others of other stripes. Homogenising these disparate elements is little more than wishful thinking. A basic failing in the report is the heavy reliance on assertions, not evidence, from a small but select group of fellow travellers, thereby adding to the self-delusional feel to the report.

There is an irony in all this, which pains me as someone who supports an Ghaeilge. Those unionists who shamefully resisted and delayed Acht na Gaeilge, or some variant thereof, for years and years, will on reflection be secretly pleased to see a political ball and chain attached to the work of the revival movement. Not for the first time have zealots from either side of our divided society shot themselves in the foot.

The real obstacles to the revival cause find little space in the report, a theme I would like to return to in the future. But in the meantime, let me predict there is as much chance of An Ghaeilge being commonly spoken in the 'six counties’ (choose any six counties at random) as there is of Yola making a comeback in its once-stronghold in south Leinster.

l Liam Kennedy is Emeritus professor of history, QUB