The Death of the Irish Language by Reg Hindley

Author:Reg Hindley [Hindley, Reg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781135084196
Google: 2STqnRdshg0C
Goodreads: 17509289
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1990-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

Remoteness, poverty, apathy

These undesirable attributes were major aids to Irish survival thirty years ago, when agrarian subsistence at a low level predominated, education was effectively limited to primary level in the local national school, private cars were rare, and ‘bibulous lassitude’ (to quote a Gaeltacht priest) was a major cultural characteristic. Natural selection processes removed the ambitious and discontented, and remoteness and poverty themselves repelled outsiders who might otherwise have brought in English. Marrying into the Gaeltacht was rare. See p. 73.

These negative supports still operate to some degree, for the Gaeltacht is still usually more remote and economically disadvantaged than its neighbours, and even now has fewer visitors because it is typically ‘the end of the road’. This reduces outside contacts and makes it slightly easier for Irish to survive than in the very exposed Meath colonies. The sea is a linguistically neutral neighbour for most Gaeltachtaí and so limits the contact zones. Nevertheless the hopeless apathy and indifference of grinding poverty have disappeared since 1956 and modern personal transport, radio and television, increased and diversified employment, and improved social security provision have reduced the relative remoteness and poverty in such absolute terms that apathy and indifference no longer operate against English but much more against the maintenance of Irish in the homes. The former hopelessness and squalor made it hardly worth while to learn English, which for Irish is fatally associated with hope and opportunity. It now more often demands effort to ‘keep up’ Irish (cf. pp. 209–10).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.