Irish Language

Go n-eírí an bóthar leat.
May the road rise with you.


Although St. Patrick's Day has passed, the Irish language is facinating. There are so many parts of the language connecting to history that people don't even realize. There is a great, detailed overview at:
http://www.irishlanguage.net/irish/history.asp


I took Gaelic for a semester at Harvard. It was very difficult. Those in the class who had studied German had an easier time. Truly what I remember most is "God be with you". Friends of mine took Scottish Gaelic when we were studying at the University of Edinburgh but I couldn't take it because it didn't meet my graduation requirements. You can get Irish Gaelic CDs from the library. To find books, you have to use speciality bookstores or the library. There is a great one in Cambridge, Mass.


This is a blessing that I like:
May the blessing of the rain be on you—the soft sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit so that all the little flowers may spring up,
and shed their sweetness on the air.
May the blessing of the great rains be on you,
may they beat upon your spiritand wash it fair and clean,
and leave there many a shining pool
where the blue of heaven shines,and sometimes a star.



Here are some phrases. Some of these I actually remember from class and tapes.

Irish phrases: Meeting People
Dia duit: Hello. (Literally: God to you.)
Dia's Muire duit: Reply to hello.(Literally: God and Mary to you.)
*They do this with the Saints too, especially St. Patrick
Cén t-ainm atá ort?: What is your name?
Éamonn atá orm: Éamonn is my name.
Conas tá tú? How are you?
Tá mé go maith: I am good.
Go raibh maith agat: Thank you.
Tá fáilte romhat: You're welcome.
Go n'éirí an t-ádh leat: Good luck.



Here is some history from http://www.irishlanguage.net/
The Irish Language Movement
The Irish language was the most widely spoken language on the island of Ireland until the 19th century. The first Bible in Irish was translated by William Bedell, Church of Ireland Bishop of Kilmore in the 17th century.

A combination of the introduction of a primary education system (the 'National Schools'), in which Irish was prohibited and only English taught by order of the British Government in Ireland, and the Great Famine (An Drochshaol) which hit a disportionately high number of Irish language speakers (who lived in the poorer areas heavily hit by famine deaths and emigration), hastened its rapid decline. Irish political leaders, such as Daniel O'Connell (Dónall Ó Conaill), too were critical of the language, seeing it as 'backward', with English the language of the future. Contemporary reports spoke of Irish-speaking parents actively discouraging their children from speaking the language, and encouraging the use of English instead. This practice continued long after independence, as the stigma of speaking Irish remained very strong.

Some, however, thought differently. The initial moves to save the language were championed by Irish Protestants, such as the linguist and clergyman William Neilson, in the end of the eighteenth century; the major push occurred with the foundation by Douglas Hyde, the son of a Church of Ireland rector, of the Gaelic League (known in Irish as Conradh na Gaeilge) which started the Gaelic Revival. Leading supporters of Conradh included Pádraig Mac Piarais and Éamon de Valera. The revival of interest in the language coincided with other cultural revivals, such as the foundation of the Gaelic Athletic Association and the growth in the performance of plays about Ireland in English, by such luminaries as William Butler Yeats, J.M. Synge, Sean O'Casey and Lady Gregory, with their launch of the Abbey Theatre.

Even though the Abbey Theatre playwrights wrote in English (and indeed some disliked Irish) the Irish language affected them, as it did all Irish English speakers. The version of English spoken in Ireland, known as Hiberno-English bears striking similarities in some grammatical idioms with Irish. Some have speculated that even after the vast majority of Irish people stopped speaking Irish, they perhaps subconsciously used its grammatical flair in the manner in which they spoke English. This fluency is reflected in the writings of Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and more recently in the writings of Seamus Heaney, Paul Durkan, Dermot Bolger and many others. (It may also in part explain the appeal in Britain of Irish-born broadcasters like Terry Wogan, Eamonn Andrews, Graham Norton, Desmond Lynam, etc.)

Independent Ireland & the language
The independent Irish state from 1922 (The Irish Free State 1922-37; Éire from 1937, also known since 1949 as the Republic of Ireland) launched a major push to promote the Irish language, with some of its leaders hoping that the state would become predominantly Irish-speaking within a generation. In fact, many of these initiatives, notably compulsory Irish at school and the requirement that one must know Irish to be employed in the civil service, proved counter-productive with generations of school-children alienated by what was often heavily-handed attempts at indoctrination, which created a cultural backlash. Demands that children learn seventeenth century Irish poetry, or study the life of Peig Sayers (a Gaelic speaker from the Blasket Islands) whose accounts of her life, as recounted in Irish language books, though fascinating, were taught in a poor manner, left a cultural legacy of negative reactions among generations, all too many of whom deliberately refused to use the language once they left school.

In an effort to address the half-committed attitude of Irish language use by the State, the Official Languages Act was passed in 2003. This act ensures that every publication made by a governmental body must be published in both official languages, Irish and English. In addition, the office of Official Languages Commissioner has been set up to act as an ombudsman with regard to equal treatment in both languages.