tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12894384.post111913568984741667..comments2024-01-07T05:38:18.423+00:00Comments on Wednesday's Irish politics blog: Wednesdayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09799255977193959208noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12894384.post-1121716683212553382005-07-18T20:58:00.000+01:002005-07-18T20:58:00.000+01:00Thanks for the compliment. And don't get me wrong ...Thanks for the compliment. And don't get me wrong either: I'm personally more inclined toward your own view, and not just WRT to Irish. I read a lot of sort of academic stuff about sociolinguistics and nationality and I'm extremely conscious of the strong link between language and identity in cultures around the world.<BR/><BR/>It's just that I don't accept that everyone with a different view is, necessarily, deliberately rejecting their Irishness. Some of them are of course, but I think for a large number of them that link just isn't so clear.<BR/><BR/>And I'm no fan of Irish pubs on the Continent but if you put most of these people in one of them and stick the Wolfe Tones on the jukebox you'll see how quickly they rediscover their Irish identity ;)Wednesdayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09799255977193959208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12894384.post-1121715511784390162005-07-18T20:38:00.000+01:002005-07-18T20:38:00.000+01:00Wednesday: then we'll have to agree to differ. To...Wednesday: then we'll have to agree to differ. <BR/><BR/>To me, the language is an ESSENTIAL part of what it means to be Irish; without it, we are merely a queer sort of second-rate Englishman. I think the course of Irish history has proved this right.<BR/><BR/>Desmond Fennell said it best:<BR/><BR/>"After a thirty-year blossoming of thought and philosophy, with a meagre after-bloom of ten or fifteen years, the Irish relapsed into the role of `imaginative, thoughtless Celts' that their Anglo-Saxon masters had assigned to them. They became, again, parrots of the thought of other nations and despisers or avoiders of their own."<BR/><BR/>I think you'll find that that "thirty-year blossoming" closely connected with nationalist politics and the language movement.<BR/><BR/>What does "Irish" mean today? Fuck-all. What's an Irish Pub (TM) on "the Continent", for example? A place where you can speak ENGLISH.<BR/><BR/>Don't take any of that personally, by the way; your blog is one of the very few around that doesn't make me postively ashamed to be "Oirish". Long may yourself and John Horan continue! ;-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12894384.post-1121712066126250642005-07-18T19:41:00.000+01:002005-07-18T19:41:00.000+01:00Is the truth not that the present population of th...<I>Is the truth not that the present population of the island don't speak the Irish language because they don't want to be Irish?</I><BR/><BR/>No, I certainly don't believe the majority "don't want to be Irish". They may not see speaking the native language as an essential component of their Irishness but I don't think it's fair or accurate to make their cultural identity dependent on it.Wednesdayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09799255977193959208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12894384.post-1121710199883584082005-07-18T19:09:00.000+01:002005-07-18T19:09:00.000+01:00Is the truth not that the present population of th...Is the truth not that the present population of the island don't speak the Irish language because they don't want to be Irish? They are culturally and economically part of the Anglo-Saxon world, and the great majority of them (even those who are actually "Irish" in some sense, not settlers) have no problem with this at all. The death of the language is merely a symptom.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12894384.post-1119364031646550242005-06-21T15:27:00.000+01:002005-06-21T15:27:00.000+01:00Forgive me for not adhering to strict grammatical ...Forgive me for not adhering to strict grammatical standards. I will rephrase that sentence as "their opposition was based on their personal desire to not have <I>had</I> to learn Irish". Or "to not have had to have learned Irish", if you want to be really pedantic about it.<BR/><BR/>Whether the issues raised were legitimate or not isn't the point here. The point is the motivations of the people raising them.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12894384.post-1119353339195590232005-06-21T12:28:00.000+01:002005-06-21T12:28:00.000+01:00He says that their opposition was based on their p...He says that their opposition was based on their personal desire to not have to learn Irish. It's not that they were afraid that the policy of "compulsory Irish" (and why doesn't anyone ever complain about "compulsory maths"? I've certainly made more use of Irish in my adult life!) would kill the language - they just didn't want to be bothered with it. That was precisely my point.Wednesdayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09799255977193959208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12894384.post-1119332702853437162005-06-21T06:45:00.000+01:002005-06-21T06:45:00.000+01:00Thank you for the Ferriter quote, at last. Now as...Thank you for the Ferriter quote, at last. Now as a contrast, here is what Donncha Ó hÉallaithe has to say in his essay "From Language Revival to Survival" (from <I>Who needs Irish?</I>, edited by Ciarán MacMurchadh):<BR/><BR/>"It succeeded in attracting to its ranks [Mac Grianna and Keane] but the bulk of the membership consisted of people who resented having to learn Irish"<BR/><BR/>This is echoed by one of my colleagues, a native Irish speaker whose father had extensive dealings with the LFM. In his words : "they didn't want to have to learn Irish or for their kids to have to learn Irish". <BR/><BR/>It seems to me that there is no conclusive evidence available on this issue. There is only testimony presenting different sides of the argument. You and I are both accepting the testimony we find more convincing, yet for some reason I'm "parroting a line" while you're "thinking for yourself".Wednesdayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09799255977193959208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12894384.post-1119272114613452572005-06-20T13:55:00.000+01:002005-06-20T13:55:00.000+01:00I'd like you to show me one example of this totali...I'd like you to show me one example of this totalitarian mindset in anything I've said. My view of LFM as anti-Irish is based upon my understanding of them as - once again - not wanting anything to do with the Irish language. I'm open to being shown that this understanding is incorrect, but you haven't done so. You seem to think I should simply take your word for it, over everything else I've ever heard, and over everything that I can find on the web or in the Dáil debates (at least everything that isn't neutral on the issue, as the items you've posted are).Wednesdayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09799255977193959208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12894384.post-1119266931902857472005-06-20T12:28:00.000+01:002005-06-20T12:28:00.000+01:00Absolutely nothing that you have posted backs up y...Absolutely nothing that you have posted backs up your contention that they weren't anti-Irish, far less that they were pro-Irish! <BR/><BR/>It seems to me that you're trying to pull an Argument-by-Google here, but without linking to the pages that don't support your case (which exceed the ones that do - in fact my Googling doesn't seem to have turned up <I>any</I> that support your case). The contemporary references I've found in the Dáil Debates also indicate that they were considered anti-Irish at the time they were active.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12894384.post-1119245024523710212005-06-20T06:23:00.000+01:002005-06-20T06:23:00.000+01:00I don't know where you read that. What I've read ...I don't know where you read that. What I've read is that the people behind the movement wanted nothing to do with the language.Wednesdayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09799255977193959208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12894384.post-1119213407721263422005-06-19T21:36:00.000+01:002005-06-19T21:36:00.000+01:00Well, I don't think it's fair to pick out two prom...Well, I don't think it's fair to pick out two prominent supporters of a movement and portray them as representative of everyone else in the movement.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12894384.post-1119168537629708062005-06-19T09:08:00.000+01:002005-06-19T09:08:00.000+01:00No, the Language Freedom Movement were anti-Irish....No, the Language Freedom Movement were anti-Irish.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com