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<h1> Irish in crisis – we need a New Deal to revitalise the language </h1>
<h2> ‘We need to
address the crisis of Irish in its native-speaking community – now
marginalised to be merely court jesters to the cultural dominance of
English’ </h2>
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<img title="View of the Ros Goill Gaeltacht area, Co Donegal. Photographer: Dara Mac Dónaill " alt="View of the Ros Goill Gaeltacht area, Co Donegal. Photographer: Dara Mac Dónaill " class="" src="http://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.2264419.1435340799%21/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_620_330/image.jpg" height="330" width="620"> <p>View of the Ros Goill Gaeltacht area, Co Donegal. Photographer: Dara Mac Dónaill </p>
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<span class="">Conchúr Ó Giollagáin</span> </div>
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<p><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/irish-in-crisis-we-need-a-new-deal-to-revitalise-the-language-1.2264426#"><span content="2015-06-29T04:30">Mon, Jun 29, 2015, 04:30</span></a></p>
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<p><strong>First published:</strong> <span content="2015-06-29T04:30">Mon, Jun 29, 2015, 04:30</span></p>
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<p class="">Irish, our “first” but minority language,
is in crisis. The recently-published Update of the Comprehensive
Linguistic Study of the Use of Irish in the Gaeltacht: 2006-2011 has
concluded that Irish as a vernacular in Gaeltacht districts will not
survive under current conditions beyond the next 10 years. This cultural
and social aspect of our national project is now in tatters, and at a
time of its greatest crisis, we have lost our way. Irish needs a New
Deal as a matter of priority.</p>
<p class="">There are five main issues which must be addressed if Irish is to survive as a community language:</p>
<p class="">1. The erosion of the critical mass of Irish-speaking
communities in the Gaeltacht is accelerating into what will be, without
intervention, a terminal trajectory</p>
<div class="">
<ul class=""><li>
<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/freagracht-do-thodhcha%C3%AD-na-gaeilge-agus-gaeltachta-ag-brath-orainne-1.2251429">
<img title="Léirsiú ar son na Gaeilge. grianghraf: dara mac dónaill/the irish times" style="margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 0px;" alt="Léirsiú ar son na Gaeilge. grianghraf: dara mac dónaill/the irish times" src="http://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.2251427.1434463670%21/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_140/image.jpg" height="79" width="140">Freagracht do thodhchaí na Gaeilge agus Gaeltachta ag brath orainne
</a>
</li><li>
<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/a-call-to-action-to-save-the-irish-language-inside-and-outside-of-the-gaeltacht-1.2240639">
<img title="‘The Government must provide the resources required to implement a creative, courageous, and comprehensive policy.’ Photograph: Joe O’Shaughnessy" style="margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 0px;" alt="‘The Government must provide the resources required to implement a creative, courageous, and comprehensive policy.’ Photograph: Joe O’Shaughnessy" src="http://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.2240638.1433692187%21/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_140/image.jpg" height="79" width="140">A call to action to save the Irish language inside and outside of the Gaeltacht
</a>
</li><li>
<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/c%C3%A1s-na-gaeilge-faoi-scr%C3%BAd%C3%BA-thiar-agus-thoir-1.2234491">
<img title="‘Rustic life’ sa Ghaeltacht? grianghraf: dara mac dónaill/the irish times " style="margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 0px;" alt="‘Rustic life’ sa Ghaeltacht? grianghraf: dara mac dónaill/the irish times " src="http://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.2234490.1433249778%21/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_140/image.jpg" height="79" width="140">Cás na Gaeilge faoi scrúdú thiar agus thoir
</a>
</li><li class="">
<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/serious-challenges-facing-the-irish-language-in-the-gaeltacht-joe-mchugh-1.2231109">
<img title="Joe McHugh TD. grianghraf: dara mac dónaill/the irish times " style="margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 0px;" alt="Joe McHugh TD. grianghraf: dara mac dónaill/the irish times " src="http://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.2231108.1432916658%21/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_140/image.jpg" height="79" width="140">‘Serious challenges facing the Irish language in the Gaeltacht’ – Joe McHugh
</a>
</li></ul>
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<p class="">2. Weak, non-functional levels of Irish language
acquisition among young people living in Gaeltacht areas, including
native speakers</p>
<p class="">3. The failure of language-support agencies to
support the real needs of speakers and communities; arid institutions do
not save a language, only speakers through a process of language
acquisition backed by social support/reinforcement achieve this</p>
<p class="">4. The inability of the educational system to support
the emergence of competent and socially-rooted speakers, either as
native speakers or learners; greater emphasis on the needs of native
speakers in the educational system is clearly required, we still await a
curriculum for native speakers of Irish, for example</p>
<p class="">5. A growing alienation among the remaining speaker
community from both the political and state class in relation to
perceived insincere official reiterations of State commitments to Irish;
the State is perceived as obstructing the strategic deployment of the
mechanisms of State against the clearly documented crisis in
Irish-speaking networks.</p>
<p class="">The aims of the official 20-Year Strategy for the
Irish Language are increasingly viewed as irrelevant in that they
suggest no coherent intervention against these challenges, ie the
condition it is purporting to address.</p>
<p class="">The approach taken in the State’s strategy owes more
to wishful thinking than to science. From a language policy perspective,
its irresponsible cross-fertilisation of outmoded sermonising about the
importance of our linguistic heritage, redolent of Éamon de Valera’s
musings on Irish, coupled with a simplistic reworking of fashionable
cosmopolitan rhetoric on cultural diversity, is unlikely to result in
strengthened Gaeltacht areas. The strategy is devoid of analytical
foundation, diagnostic rigour or strategic relevance – bien-pensant but
unengaged and of limited practical use to the nature of the current
crisis. Put simply, it is a failure to face reality.</p>
<p class="">This evasiveness has engendered a form of passive
aggression in official circles towards the crisis in the Gaeltacht,
which is taking on the hallmarks of a conspiracy against the laity –
professional privilege dissociated from the problems of the collective.
Language support agencies now seem to be entrusted with managing a
distressed culture on behalf of learners, rather than on behalf of
speakers who possess the culture. The State’s focus, therefore, is on
the external requirements of promoting language as historical heritage
and pastime rather than supporting a living community. It essentially
ignores the pressures on a fragile vernacular and pins it hopes on
schools and other institutional efforts. Those working for the language
agencies operate as an intermediary class between the State’s largely
mono-lingual English-speaking power elite and the bilingualised
Gaeltacht, rather than as dynamic leaders of a distressed community.</p>
<p class="">The current contradictions of pursuing a language
policy for Irish as an optional secondary culture for individualistic
consumption has displaced focus from where it needs to be. We need to
address the crisis of Irish in its native-speaking community – now
marginalised to be merely court jesters to the cultural dominance of
English.</p>
<p class="">The irony of facilitating the need for Irish as
symbolic heritage at the expense of the disempowered Gael is not lost on
those living in the dwindling Gaelic districts of the Gaeltacht — a
case of a minoritised group being expected to defer to ineffectual
national sentiment.</p>
<p class="">In this context of crisis, the Irish State’s 20-Year
Strategy is a non-policy. It demonstrates naïve deference to inherited
language policies but suggests nothing effective to engage with current
conditions.</p>
<p class="">Instead of a New Deal for Irish speakers and
communities, policy reform efforts to date have culminated in a
reversion to the status quo but with weaker budget provision. To
re-establish Irish in the Gaeltacht as a living language it will be
necessary to focus on four basic tasks: a) re-establishing communities
with sufficient density of Irish speakers to ensure Gaeltacht
sustainability, b) establishing a form of civic trust to manage
socio-economic resources for the benefit of the minority group, c)
establishing some form of assembly to allow for the development of Irish
language civil culture and to provide group leadership, and d) making
provision for research and productive strategic back-up for the
Irish-speaking community.</p>
<p class=""> I propose that current language-support institutions
be replaced by the following agencies, possibly within the existing
budget:</p>
<p class="">1. A Gaelic Community Trust – to manage collective resources and to administer the benefits of group membership</p>
<p class="">2. Dáil na nGael — a form of assembly to develop group leadership and to empower practical strategies and actions</p>
<p class="">3. A research and information centre — to disseminate knowledge on best-practice and strategy.</p>
<p class="">Given the enormity of the complex challenges facing
Irish, the ambiguity and inadequacy of the strategy to date and the
challenges faced by minority languages globally, it is obvious that we
need new imaginative approaches to give Irish and its community a living
chance. The status quo and the survival of Irish are no longer
compatible — a New Deal is required.</p>
<p class="">Conchúr Ó Giollagáin is the <a class="" href="http://www.irishtimes.com/search/search-7.1213540?tag_company=Soillse%20Research&article=true">Soillse Research</a> Professor in the University of the Highlands and Islands, <a class="" href="http://www.irishtimes.com/search/search-7.1213540?tag_location=Scotland&article=true">Scotland</a>. He co-authored, along with <a class="" href="http://www.irishtimes.com/search/search-7.1213540?tag_person=Martin%20Charlton&article=true">Martin Charlton</a>, the <em>Update of the Comprehensive Linguistic Study of the Use of Irish in the Gaeltacht: 2006-2011</em>. This article is an abbreviated version of his address to the <a class="" href="http://www.irishtimes.com/search/search-7.1213540?tag_organisation=Celtic&article=true">Celtic</a> Sociolinguistic Symposium in UCD on June 25th</p><p class=""><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/irish-in-crisis-we-need-a-new-deal-to-revitalise-the-language-1.2264426">http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/irish-in-crisis-we-need-a-new-deal-to-revitalise-the-language-1.2264426</a><br></p><p class=""><br></p>
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