Gaelic is the first official language of Ireland, with 25% of the
population claiming to speak it. But can that true? To put it to the
test, Manchn Magan set off round the country with one self-imposed
handicap - to never utter a word of English
(*English translation: Where are all the Gaelic speakers?)
Friday January 5, 2007
The Guardian
There is something absurd and rather tragic about setting out on a
journey around a country, knowing that if you speak the language of
that country you will not be understood. It is even more absurd when
the country is your native one and you are speaking its native
language.
Irish (Gaelic) is the first official language of Ireland. We have
been speaking it for 2,500 years, right up until the British decided
it would be easier to govern us if we spoke their language (and then
outlawed the use of Gaelic in schools) in the 19th century. We, in
turn, soon realised that our only hope of advancement was through
English, and we - or at least the half of the population that
survived the Famine - jettisoned Irish in a matter of decades. Had it
not been for the Celtic Revival that accompanied Ireland’s fight for
independence in the early 20th century, the language would have
probably died out by now. Today, a quarter of the population claim
they speak it regularly. I have always suspected this figure and to
test its accuracy I decided to travel around the country speaking
only Irish to see how I would get on.
I chose Dublin as a starting point, confident in the knowledge that
in a city of 1.2 million people I was bound to find at least a few
Irish speakers. I went first to the Ordnance Survey Office to get a
map of the country. (As a semi-state organisation it has a duty to
provide certain services in Irish.) “Would you speak English maybe?”
the sales assistant said to me. I replied in Irish. “Would you speak
English?!” he repeated impatiently. I tried explaining once again
what I was looking for. “Do you speak English?” he asked in a cold,
threatening tone. “Sea,” I said, nodding meekly. “Well, can you speak
English to me now?” I told him as simply as I could that I was trying
to get by with Irish.
“I’m not talking to you any more,” he said. “Go away.”
I really needed a map for the journey ahead; it would be hard enough
to get by without having to ask for directions constantly. I tried
addressing the man one last time, using the simplest schoolroom Irish
that he must have learned during the 10 years of compulsory Irish
that every schoolchild undergoes, but he covered his ears, and I was
left with no choice but to leave.
It was not a good start. Although it was still early I decided I
needed a drink and headed to an elegant Victorian bar off Grafton
Street. “I don’t speak Irish mate, sorry,” replied the barman when I
ordered a pint. I tried simplifying the order - although how much
simpler can you make, “I’d like a drink, please”? “I don’t speak
Irish mate,” he said again. I have managed to get drinks in bars from
Cameroon to Kazakhstan without any problem; if I had been speaking
any other language I doubt it would have been an issue. I tried
pointing at what I wanted - the taps were lined up along the bar -
but I made the mistake of talking as I pointed.
“Did you not hear me, no?” the barman said menacingly.
I thought it safer to get one of the customers to translate for me,
but they stared resolutely into their pints when I turned to them.
Eventually, one young lad, taking pity on me, advised me to go to a
cafe on Kildare Street.
“A cafe?” I said. “I’m looking for a drink.” “Just go there,” he
said, and so, following his directions I found myself in a murky
cellar beneath the offices of the Irish language development agency.
They had no beer licence, but I got a cup of coffee and the owner
told me in rich, mellifluous Irish how the place was normally teeming
with Gaeilgeoir (Irish speakers) but because it was a sunny day no
one wanted to be skulking underground and so I was the only customer.
The city’s Victorian plumbing was struggling to cope with the July
heat and the place stank of sewage. I could not help thinking it was
a sort of ghetto, a sanctuary for a beleaguered minority.
I knew the journey was going to prove difficult, just not this
difficult. Language experts claim that the figure of fluent Irish
speakers is closer to 3% than the aspirational 25% who tick the
language box on the census, and most of these are concentrated on the
western seaboard, in remote, inaccessible areas where one would not
naturally find oneself. What I had not factored for was the
animosity. Part of it, I felt, stemmed from guilt - we feel
inadequate that we cannot speak our own language.
I decided to contact a talk radio show in Dublin to ask the listeners
what they thought. A few phoned to say that they had no idea what I
was talking about. "Is the language dead? I asked in Irish, over and
over again. “Sorry?” most of them replied, or: “You what? Are you
speaking the Irish?” Some of the callers wanted me and my bog
language pulled off the airwaves, others talked of their shame at not
being able to understand me and of how much they admired me for
speaking out. This in turn made me feel guilty: the only reason I
speak Irish is because my grandmother went to the trouble of learning
it 90 years ago as a weapon in the struggle for an Irish republic.
She then bribed me as a child with sweets and treats to go on
speaking it when I realised that none of my friends did. In fact, I
had almost discarded it, regarding it as a dead weight around my
neck, until TG4, the Irish-language television station, was set up in
1996 and I started making travel documentaries for it.
After the radio show, I decided to visit the tourist office which,
presumably, was used to dealing with different languages. The man at
the counter looked at me quizzically when I inquired about a city
tour. “Huh?” he said, his eyes widening. I repeated myself. “You
don’t speak English, do you?” he asked coldly. I was beginning to
hate this moment - the point at which the fear and frustration spread
across their faces. They were just trying to get through the day,
after all. They did not need to be confronted by an unbending foot
soldier of the Irish Taliban.
I explained what I was trying to do. "Well, mate, I don’t actually
speak Irish, so … " he paused menacingly and I tried to smile
encouragingly, “so, If you speak English, I’ll be able to understand
what you’re saying.”
“Barla only - English only,” said his supervisor, standing sternly
behind him, repeating it a second time in case I was slow. I asked if
there was any other language I could use and they pointed to a list
of seven flags on the wall. To be honest, I could speak five of them
but I had promised myself not to, not unless it was absolutely
necessary. Eventually they located a charming young woman who spoke
perfect Irish and was able to tell me everything I needed to know,
but she was terribly nervous, believing her vocabulary to be
inadequate. It was not; it was wonderful. It is an odd tendency that
people often have an erroneous view of their ability to speak Irish,
either over- or underestimating their ability - possibly a convoluted
psychological legacy of the stigma attached from days when it was a
sign of poverty and backwardness.
I might have been tempted to give up the journey entirely had it not
been for something that happened during the radio phone-in. I was
rapidly approaching a point of despair when some children came on the
line. I found they spoke clear and fluent Irish in a new and modern
urban dialect. They told me how they spoke the language all the time,
as did all their friends. They loved it, and they were outraged that
I could suggest it was dead. These were the children of the new
Gaelscoileanna - the all-Irish schools that are springing up
throughout the country in increasing numbers every year. While old
schools are being closed down or struggling to find pupils, the
Gaelscoileanna are having to turn people away. The phenomenon is as
popular among the affluent middle classes as it is in working-class
estates, largely due to the excellence of the education: Irish-
speaking secondary schools often score higher in state exams than the
most elite fee-paying schools. The students come away unburdened with
the sense of inferiority that every previous generation had been
instilled with since the days in which the British first labelled
Irish as backward.
These children were reared on Irish versions of SpongeBob SquarePants
and Scooby-Doo on TG4 . They had invented Irish words for X-Box and
hip-hop, for Jackass and blog. They were fluent in Irish text-speak
and had moulded the ancient pronunciations and syntax in accordance
with the latest styles of Buffy-speak and Londonstani slang. I
realised it was they I should have turned to for help on the streets.
The children filled me with renewed confidence as I left Dublin and
took to the road, boosted further by my first experience in a petrol
station where a Polish attendant had no problem deciphering the
complicated mechanical query I had about my borrowed vintage Jaguar.
For him, every day involved a struggle to understand a foreign
language, and whether I was speaking Irish or English made little
difference. In fact, everyone I met over the course of the next 1,000
miles driving around the country were more approachable and
considerate than those first few Dubliners. Not that I am claiming
they all had fluent Irish - far from it - but they were willing to
engage with me, to string together the few stray words of school
Irish that arose from the darkest recesses of their minds, or else to
try to decipher my miming and mad gesticulation.
None the less, the journey was still a strain for most of the time. I
got given the wrong directions, and served the wrong food, and given
the wrong haircut, but I was rarely threatened or made to feel
foolish again. Even on the staunchly loyalist Shankill Road in
Belfast I was treated with civility, though warned that if I
persisted in speaking the language I was liable to end up in
hospital. In Galway, I went out busking on the streets, singing the
filthiest, most debauched lyrics I could think of to see if anyone
would understand. No one did - old women smiled, tapping their feet
merrily, as I serenaded them with filth. In Killarney, I stood
outside a bank promising passers-by huge sums of money if they helped
me rob it, but again no one understood.
I know that by the end of the trip I should have reached some
conclusion, but in fact I was more confused than ever. In parts of
Northern Ireland, where Irish was effectively banned until the early
1990s, I found a tremendous resurgence taking place. The Good Friday
agreement recognised its status and now the North has its own daily
Irish-language newspaper, a daily BBC Radio programme and a brand new
local radio station. In Galway, I met Irishspeaking immigrants who
have formed a lobby group to promote the language. I met publishers
who are churning out ever more Irish novels, biographies and poetry
each year.
From a purely regulatory perspective, the language has recently won
some important (though possibly Pyrrhic) victories - the Official
Languages Act guarantees the right to communicate in Irish with all
state and semi-state organisations (although whenever I tried sending
Irish emails to government bodies during the journey they were
ignored).
Possibly the language’s most significant moment of the past few
centuries occurred on Monday this week when Irish became an official
working language of the EU. It is a huge vote of confidence by our
European neighbours, and it seems appropriate that Irish people
should decide at this time once and for all what we want to do with
our mother tongue. Should we stick a do-not-resuscitate sign around
its neck and unplug the machine, or else get over our silly
inferiority complex and start using the bloody thing?
As the Gaelscoileanna children might say: “Athbhreith agus cuir diot
!” (Just rebirth and get over it!).
The TV series based on Manchn’s journey, No Barla, begins on
Sunday at 9.30pm on TG4.
Know your Gaelic: A brief guide
Yes Sea
No Ni hea
Hello Dia Duit
Goodbye Sln
English Barla
Irish Gaeilge
He’s a total schmuck Is gamal ceart !
What an old rust bucket! A leithid do gliogramin meirgeach!
Incense Bata tise
Lipstick Baldath
Shut your mouth! Dn do chlab!
Crazed Guardian readers Lucht baoth lite an Ghuardian
Night of boozing Oche digaireachta Drunk Ar meisce Moronic Uascnta
Can you recommend a hotel, darling? An fidir stn a mholadh dom, a
thaisce?
Can you direct me to a sympathetic priest? An fidir leat m a dhri
i dtreo sagart tuiscineach?