The rise of the mother tongue

Dancer and musician Darach Mac Mathuna, singer Luan Parle, lead singer with the Coronas Danny O’Reilly and TV Personalities Aoibhinn Ni Shuilleabhain and Blathnaid Ní Dhonnchadha pictured in Dublin last week as they helped launch Seachtain na Gaeilge.?


The rise of the mother tongue


While Irish may not yet be considered a living language, the change in attitude and the goodwill towards Gaelige in recent years has given it a new lease of life.

Feature
Anton McNulty

A RECENT report compiled by researchers at the University of Ulster and the University of Limerick found that Irish was the ‘language of the elite’ in this country, with speakers enjoying higher incomes than the rest of the population.
The main findings of the research included that non-Irish speakers are twice as likely to be unemployed as their Irish speaking counterparts; 42 per cent of Irish speakers worked in senior professional, managerial or technical jobs, and were also seen to enjoy the advantage of a network of social contacts and all the perks that go with such a network.
If you said 40 years ago that Irish speakers would be ‘the elite in Irish society’ you would have been laughed at. For years Irish was seen as backward and obsolete and despised by many who were forced to learn it in school. Even in the remote outlets where it was a living language, parents encouraged their children to abandon the language in favour of English.
While the language is still a long way from being spoken on every street corner, the general attitude towards Irish has changed considerably. It has now become part of mainstream popular entertainment and seen as ‘sexy and ‘cool’ and not the stale and tired language it once was.

THE CELTIC TIGER INFLUENCE
Like many things in the country, this change in attitude can be traced back to the formative years of the Celtic Tiger, when the Riverdance phenomenon epitimised the period when we as a nation became more confident of who we are and of our culture.
In 1996, TG4 or TnaG as it was then known, was launched and helped bring the Irish language into the modern era.
Personalities like the Seoige sisters, Hector Ó hEochagΡin and Daithi Ó Sé all got their break on TG4 and have helped reintroduce the Irish language in a modern and popular form. Instead of being an isolated language associated with only a small few it has become prevalent among most sectors of society. In the sporting world, hurler SeΡn Óg Ó hAlphin, rugby player, Luke Fitzgerald and athlete, David Gilick have all publicly expressed their pride to be Irish speakers while Danny O’Reilly, the frontman of leading Irish pop-rock group, ‘The Coronas’ helped launch this year’s ‘Seachtain na Gaeilge’ along with Aoibhinn Ní Shuilleabhain.
Speaking at the launch of Seachtain na Gaeilge, the Carnacon native and former Rose of Tralee said that Irish was now being brought to the masses on a national and international stage.
“It’s not just in the west and pockets in Gaeltacht areas anymore and I think that’s brilliant. My granddad would have got a belt from the teacher if he had spoken in Irish during school, so it has definitely come full circle.” 

THE TG4 EFFECT
Corporate companies have also jumped on the bandwagon with mobile phone company, Samsung, launching an Irish language mobile phone. Daithi Ó Sé, who started off on TG4 as a weatherman, explains that the rise of Irish in popular culture is due to mainly to the work of TG4 and the rise of Gaelscoileanna around the country.
“TG4 has broken down ‘the seriousness of Irish’ which was associated with the language for so long. When you watch TG4 you don’t want to hear Irish, you want to be entertained, in the same way you don’t watch Eastenders to hear an English accent. You have Spongebob Square Pants and South Park in Irish, which is cool, and there is a more laid back approach, but not in a lazy way.
“Gaelscoileanna have had a huge impact on the language and do a huge amount of work in the way they teach it and promote it. Irish was taught the wrong way for a long time in schools and still is in some cases but that is changing. All the seriousness has been taken out of it and people are enjoying it more. If you have another language you have a different outlook on life and that is for the better,” he said.
Daithi feels that the rise in the number of nationalities coming into the country who speak their own language has re-ignited a sense of pride in the language amongst people and a desire to speak it openly.
“A lot of people would speak a few words they have when they are abroad and have more Irish than they feel they have. People who speak a few words of French say they have pidgin French but they don’t say that about Irish. When you look at the (All-Ireland) Talent show, four of the ‘big hitters’, myself, Grainne Seoige, BlΡthnaid Ní Chofaigh and John Creedon all speak Irish to each other all the time and people don’t say, ‘oh they’re speaking Irish’. They take it as normal and that is the way it should be.”

SPREADING THE WORD
The number of adults learning the language for whatever reason has also increased with courses ranging from beginners to those who want to brush up on their Irish taking place all over the county. The television show, ‘In the Name of the Fada’ which showed Irish-American comedian Des Bishop attempt to master the language has been a catalyst for many to follow his lead, among them the former World Boxing champion, Bernard Dunne.
“It is our language and our culture that makes us different from all the other countries in the world. I really enjoy the process of learning and it's brilliant for my children as well,” said Dunne.
In Mayo, NUI Galway run part-time diploma courses in three centres - Achill, Belmullet and Castlebar - which run over two years. Maire Uí Ghriallais, the course co-ordinator explained that each course would have on average 20 students in each centre and this represented a rise in the level of interest in the county.
“I imagine that in the Gaeltacht areas there is an urgency to hold onto the language while in Castlebar it attracts people who have an interest in the language. Our courses are at higher and intermediate level with some people wanting to be fluent and proficient in Irish while others want a greater fluency and understanding. A huge change in attitude towards the language has taken place over the last five or six years, especially among young people. The number of students studying it full-time in university has risen and the numbers in our outreach centres have also grown. To have three centres in Mayo is a great achievement and there is a great buzz around the language and the culture in general,” she said.
The concern among many people promoting the language is that the momentum grown over the last number years may be lost because of cutbacks in the recession. Last year, summer colleges saw a significant drop-off in the number of students attending for the first time in many years, and the fear is that sending teenagers to Irish Colleges will be seen as an unnecessary cost for many households.
However, Daithi Ó Sé feels that the progress made in the last number of years will not be affected by cut-backs.
“TG4 has shown what can be done on a shoe-string budget and people will always go that extra mile for the language.”