Yan & Friends
 

webmaster@kraffe.com

THE IRISH LANGUAGE

The loss of a language signifies a slow spiritual and intellectual decay, bringing a loss of all common ideals and their attendant loyalties. What was the breaking point of national resilience and endurance in the case of the Irish? It was caused by:

• The desertion of the Catholic ruling class - they ceased to pass on their cultural heritage to their children and in fact joined the Protestant ascendancy under pressure of the Penal Laws.

• The Church - pragmatic as always - undertook, in alliance with the colonial power, to set up an education system appropriate to an English speaking community.

• The famine and the perceived failure of the land - the old Gaelic tradition was imbued with a deep spirituality in strong communion with nature and the land and the latter had let them down. All three were, of course, the direct result of British colonial rule.

All of the above engendered a sense of hopelessness and broke the heart of the people. They decided that their own culture and language no longer had any bearing on their emotional and material well being and consciously set about its violent repression. Those who bore the brunt of this were the new generation who had English beaten into them and were left so that they couldn?t communicate even with their parents. In other words, their cultural roots were docked. The result of this was:

• The loss of an enormous amount of wisdom and knowledge which should have been passed down the generations.

• Weakening of the sense of permanence and belonging to an enduring community.

• Life became narrower and more calculating.

• The Irish peasant was left defenceless in a world of crumbling customs and with limited linguistic ability in Irish or English.

• The way was cleared for an imperialistic Church to move in, in alliance with the colonial power, bringing with it a crass materialism and an alien and punitive morality.

• Peculiar marriage patterns began to emerge mostly as a result of the above.

• A motorway was opened from London via Dublin into the hearts and minds of the Irish people.

In the wake of the Great Famine, those who left Ireland were ridden with guilt about their part in the destruction of their Irish cultural integrity. This collective guilt was so enormous that that it has been transmitted subconsciously to succeeding generations in the form of a mental attitude which has inhibited assessment of the event and has led to a deep sense of inferiority and depression continuing to this day.

The influence of the language on the way we speak is strong. This often makes us the butt of English humour. English, as a language is economic with words, Irish extravagant - e.g. Sinn Fein which translates into English as "us ourselves".

Our use of idiom can?t be understood outside our own milieu and today, increasingly, Irish born persons easily move from one language to the other in the course of a short conversation. The Irish language is a welcoming and familiar sign to Irish people in Britain. At ARAS NA NGAEL, an Irish Centre in Queen?s Park, its users support its high profile name - even those who don?t speak Irish themselves. To the new immigrant to Britain the familiarity of place names like Rath and Sliabh, Dun and Lough are replaced by Elmstead Avenue, Notting Hill, Barn Hill etc. and must produce a sense of dislocation or disorientation on arrival here.