Fr. Colman Ó Huallachain O.F.M.
(Irish Franciscan Provincial Office, 1994, £10)
Fr. Colman Ó Huallachain died in 1979, and the work of editing some of his best work on the Irish language fell firstly to his brother, the late Fr. Ronan Ó Huallachain O.F.M., and later to Fr. Patrick Conlan O.F.M. The resulting volume traces the history of the language from earliest times to the late nineteen seventies, and devotes considerable attention to the movement to restore Irish and efforts made by successive native Irish governments to deal with the language question. The various political, religious, social, economic, psychological and cultural pressures which resulted in a decline in the use of Irish are carefully examined, with an assessment of the impact those pressures had on the Irish speaking community. The reaction of some members of the non-Irish speaking community is also discussed, for even as Irish was slipping out of use a minority of people were endeavouring to ensure that all trace of it would not be lost. The efforts of linguistic ‘outsiders’, some of whom had no Irish at all or for whom it was their second language, were significant in that their arguments in favour of preserving the language came at a time of psychological collapse amongst native speakers, the majority having come to accept emigration as a permanent feature of society and the acquisition of English as a necessary preparation for their children’s’ lives in the English-speaking world.
Ó Huallachain covers the activities of antiquarians, preservationists, and revivalists alike, and assesses the extent to which their efforts succeeded in arresting decline or promoting increased use of the language. The gradual re-politicisation of the language question which came about in the late nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth is subjected to a careful analysis which places iIl perspective the subsequent language policies pursued by various native governments. Although the political agitation surrounding the language may have been such as to suggest that the future of Irish would be assured under an Irish government, Ó Huallachain demonstrates that there were scant grounds for such optimism. Despite Irish increasingly featuring in political manoeuvring he argues that while a degree of success was achieved for the language as an ethnic symbol its status as a medium of communication in society hardly changed at all.
By distinguishing between measures which actually enable people to gain ability in communicating through Irish, or to put such ability frequently to use in their daily lives, and those measures which he terms ’emblematic’, Ó Huallachain demonstrates that it was chiefly language as emblem which concerned the eventual inheritors of the old British administration. While the first public meeting of Dail Eireann at the Mansion House in Dublin on 21st January 1919, was mainly conducted through Irish, after that one formal occasion the language was used a great deal less in Dail business, and most correspondence, all cabinet minutes, much of the debates, even at public sessions, were in English.
Ó Huallachain concedes that there was indeed an important and influential element amongst those most active in the movement for independence who were determined to promote the actual use of Irish in the administration of the emergent state as opposed to its emblematic employment as a formality in ceremonial. However, the Sinn Féin leader he quotes who complained that few of the Party’s candidates in the local elections of 1920 understood the language cause gives a clear indication that those who were in earnest about promoting Irish were a minority.
Ó Huallachain charts the frustrated attempts to Gaelicise the administration of the new state, examines the shortcomings of Gaeltacht policies and devotes considerable attention to educational measures relating to the language under both British and Irish administrations. An eminent linguist and teacher of Irish, his careful criticisms are balanced and constructive, and the story of his own frustrated efforts to modernise the teaching of Irish is an illustration of how a really determined approach to the language failed to emerge in the Irish Republic. Greater progress was evidently possible, and although his book only covers the position up to the late nineteen seventies, Ó Huallachain’s chronicle of apathy, tokenism, obstruction and delay will strike a depressingly familiar chord with many Irish speakers today. The Republic’s refusal (along with Britain) to sign the European Charter for Lesser Used Languages may have less to do with the status of Irish as an (emblematic) first language than with the fear that signing would mean that Irish speakers would be able to demand services through the medium of Irish as of right. Similarly, the failure to press for the adoption of Irish as a working language within the European Community—on the grounds that there were insufficient numbers of trained interpreters and translators available—may be contrasted with the occasion when Greece negotiated entry into the EC and Greek politicians asked for and obtained a three year period in which to train the required personnel, thus ensuring that Greek was accepted as a working language. The inadequate state support given to newly established Gaelscoileanna in the Republic, the T.V. station promised in the days of black and white but which has yet to materialise, the policies which ensure that people leaving Gaeltacht areas in search of work have to face an English-speaking world even in Ireland—these are all symptoms of the absence of commitment towards Irish which Ó Huallachain describes and which have prompted many Irish speakers to abandon expectations of state support and to organise themselves. Faced with a growing language movement in Northern Ireland, British politicians must view the lethargic example set by Southern governments with interest.
Reg Hindley’s The Death of The Irish Language (Routledge, 1990) is a work on the language that is currently very much in vogue, and which contains many recent statistics. Eamon Ó Ciosain’s riposte to Hindley’s book, Buried Alive (Dail Ui Chadhain, 1991) ensured that the debate over the position of Irish remained alive, and this diligently researched and well referenced volume is an important addition to that debate, containing as it does many valuable insights. Ó Huallachain argues persuasively that continuing neglect rather than mortal illness is responsible for the failure to effectively promote Irish, and he questions the level of commitment among those who ought to be developing an invaluable cultural resource. Given that most Irish people want the language to survive, it is a question that deserves an answer.
Ó Murchadha tutors in Irish history at the University of Ulster