‘F**k the Irish Language’
So says this blog post by Bob Byrne. I will be the first to recognize that Irish really is in dire straits. But I couldn’t contain my anger at the sheer hypocrisy of this post.
It would have been a perfectly reasonable argument, were it not for two sentences:
I would love to be able to speak my native language.
I wish everyone spoke it. But nobody speaks it.
Byrne then goes on and on about how much the language costs the taxpayer, and how ineffective school classes are. This is the typical weapon in the armoury of the anti-Irish punter, nattering on about póg mo thóin and ár nAthair atá ar neamh down in the pub over his Guinness, and it just doesn’t make sense. My question is, if you really would love to speak your native language, and if you really do wish everyone spoke it, then why are you advocating its obliteration from the face of the earth?
It is disgraceful that some couldn’t ask for directions in the street after 15 years of study. It is disgraceful that the education system is under-funded and fails those in disadvantaged areas. But it simply doesn’t follow that we should cut Irish out of our lives altogether.
Bryne makes the point that it’s pointless to translate road-signs, public documents and announcements into Irish. How can we even hope to learn a language for 15 years without being exposed to it? If we’re surrounded by a language, learning it ceases to be a hobby; It becomes a necessity. It is only by taking pains to surround the public in Irish that we can ever hope for its revival.
I do agree however that our Irish courses are pathetic. Irish literature could be some of the most fascinating and enthralling material in existence, but we somehow manage to suck all the fun out of it.
Despite this, according to Byrne:
[He has] friends who pursued learning Irish after leaving school, really embraced it and they will pay the cash to send their kid’s [sic] to an Irish school. Fair play to them. They’re footing the bill. So let’s remove Irish from normal national schools. If you want to learn it you can choose to.
What a sweeping statement. Why should we remove Irish from national schools? We haven’t a hope of saving it if we remove it all together. But we do need to crawl before we walk. Stop attempting to force-feed hundred-year-old poetry and complicated prose to uninterested students, and get busy on communication. Look at the contrast: In other language classes (French, German, Spanish, Italian) you learn about grammatical gender right from the off. You learn and get tested on every-day vocabulary. I never knew that Irish had masculine and feminine nouns until 4th year in secondary school. And how is it that everybody fears an modh coinníollach and an tuiseal ginideach, yet they master le conditionnel in French and Deklination in German? Let’s start with the basics, and work up, just like we all did when we learned English.
He is apparently capable of language-learning (‘I have taught myself two languages since 2003′), so why not learn it? If he truly wishes he could speak it, and learned, at the time of writing, two languages in six years, he shouldn’t have much trouble. Regardless of the stories about it being hard, Irish grammar is quite unremarkable for that of a European language. If you shut out the literature, the history and the Catholic rituals, and take a step back, you’re left with a perfectly normal modern language.
And there are so many resources out there for you to learn it. Go to Club Chonradh na Gaeilge on Harcourt Street and a room of Irish-speakers will help you out. Buy an Irish book. Read Foinse (Sorry, Fianna Fáil can’t afford to bail Foinse out anymore). search ‘Gaeilge’ on YouTube. Watch TG4 and work out the subtitles. Do something. That’s the only way we can ever hope to save it.
