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COMHRÁ:
SEÁN
It's the frozen moment in the schoolroom, which is the moment of childhood,
which is the moment of potential. And I can hear the sound of the kids
outside, and I can hear the hum of the computers, and the noise of the
universe outside. We have everything from the baby to the personification
of the nation, to the war and its malign potential and to the biggest
thing that we can possibly envision which is a map of the universe.
It's an incredible feat of the human mind to make a map of the universe,
to understand to some extent the expansion of the universe. We have
all this potential which we betray all the time.
RUÁN
The more I've been thinking about it, it does seem, although it wasn't
intended as such, like the first stages of a revolution Perhaps we are
retracing ground that the early founders of the state went over. The
language is dying. The only one of Douglas Hyde's aims to have come
to fruition is the GAA. Other than that it is hard to find any discernible
Irish culture. This image is where we began. It is the idea that without
a language where is the culture? This is the place that the language
was supposed to be fostered, and it has blatantly failed.
GABRIEL
I suppose culture whatever that means, can't really exist in an ivory
tower, it must permeate all facets of life and society. The typical
attitude of a native speaker, was that Irish would not have any use
once he got to Galway or Tralee to do his business, or further a field
when he got on the boat. In fact there was a stigma attached to many
of our emigrants who went to England without even enough English to
say where they were going.
Now
that wound was never properly healed. We talk today of compensation
culture for those who were grievously harmed in their childhood, and
we look at the systems that have been set up to give assistance to these
people, though their wounds will never be healed and the monetary value
can't compensate for the damage done to their psyche, but there was
damage done to the communal psyche as well, and that has never come
to the surface properly.
It
is time that we look at the legacy of this languages loss and come to
deal with it; because with any death there are rituals and formalities,
such as funerals, Mass cards, and even a wake, to come to terms with
this type of closure. Maybe even to celebrate, as well. We haven't done
that at all for the Irish language, or for Gaelic culture at all.
SEÁN
I remember reading about an American military manual that said you shouldn't
kill more than 10% of a population, because you'll psychologically screw
up the whole lot of them and they'll be no use to you. I wonder what
happens if you take the language away from all of them. It is a loss
of soul.
RUÁN
We haven't acknowledged the current state of the language, and until
we do so, we cannot hope to engage with it properly. Being an Irish
speaker myself, I found that as a child, and even in to my twenties
people would come to me and express the feeling that they were disappointed
not to have the language. They would wish that they were like me, who
admittedly spoke rather poor Irish. They felt they had lost a part of
themselves. Some cynics make the point, how can you go to school and
learn Irish for 10 years yet not be able to speak it. You must be very
stupid, they say. But, there is perhaps something else going on. Irish
people can't learn it for some reason. It stems from what Gabriel is
talking about, that there has been a drastic demise, which no one has
accepted. Until we accept it, we can't heal it.
GABRIEL
Irish became 'uncool' at one stage, and remained so for a long, long
time. There was too much weight put on the shoulder of teachers, and
the educational system to ensure its revival, if this wasn't going to
be backed up with more dynamic, foreword-looking practice put forward
by the state.
RUÁN
The teachers have an impossible task. They are facing an audience who
don't care. They don't feel they have any ownership of the language.
Perhaps there isn't this culture which they are trying to impart to
these children.
SEÁN
I am curious as to why that is.
GABRIEL
A Number of factors need to be taken into consideration. Parts of the
popular, mass media have been inimitable to the Irish language, some
even, I would say, have an unwritten ban imposed on the Irish language,
or on covering Irish language affairs, cultural affairs, literary affairs,
and so on.
You
are also witnessing the effects of globalisation in many spheres of
life today. This globalisation has an Anglo-American face. This is not
just big corporates selling products. They are actually selling the
use of the English language. Their associations, their logos, their
products seem to belong to a world which is impoverished when it comes
to speaking on a broad ethnic basis to people and to people's past.
Personally I believe if there are going to be cultural revolutions around
the world today, wittingly, or unwittingly, the forces of globalisation
are in fact causing them.
RUÁN
I'd imagine in a few hundred years historians will refer to this process
of globalisation as a period of American imperialism. It has all the
signs of this. I am not saying Imperialism is a bad thing, but it is
having the same effect as the likes of Alexander the Great had, or any
of the great previous civilisations did. As they wander across the landmass
they annihilated, in as far as they could, every culture they came across.
That tends to be the product of the successful culture.
SEÁN
It's a huge machine, that is the embodiment of an idea, whose object
seems to be the pursuit of happiness through acquisition of wealth.
RUÁN
Is Irish irrelevant then, in that global context? If we accept that
only 5% of the people in Ireland speak it and that it has been in decline
for the past 2 and a half centuries . . .
GABRIEL
Irish is irrelevant if the only point of a language is to communicate
for our physical needs, our instincts for survival, and instincts to
improve our physical lot. But we know that language is much more far-reaching
than that. We know that language has a spiritual entity in itself, a
spiritual ethos and energy. And that it is through language we communicate
everything from our simplest thoughts to our deepest emotions.
SEÁN
Globalisation: its end game seems to be digging up the whole world,
processing it and selling it back to us. Then chucking it on a dung
heap. There's no happiness to be found in it. There are very few human
values to be found in it. It's simply unrewarding.
GABRIEL
There are scientific papers available which study the effect of wealth
on human happiness, which seemingly is minuscule. Obviously if you are
very poor and have to beg or struggle for bread you would be very miserable.
But once you have enough for basic needs, wealth or material gain does
not lead to happiness per say.
RUÁN
To go back to the picture again. To make the language relevant in that
context, which many a teacher has been trying for 70 years, I believe
that the only way to do it is to make the language relevant outside
the classroom, in society, in the landscape, as part of our daily lives.
And not necessarily that we are all forced to speak it, but that we
create opportunities, in the way that the Quebecois have. In this sort
of state sponsored way of bringing the language to the fore in as many
ways as possible. And then people will feel more comfortable with it.
Then the students won't be so anti it in the classroom.
GABRIEL
So is there a sense then that the Irish-speaking native has become of
a sub-species; somewhat like the Amer-Indians in North and South America?
Could any of us here imagine a full-blooded Navajo or Cherokee becoming
president of the United States? They say anyone can become president.
RUÁN
The language as it exists represents a very different Ireland to the
Ireland that most people live in. Irish is supposed to be available
in the courts. Every lawyer and every barrister has to speak Irish.
Policemen, teachers and civil servants are supposed to be able to speak
Irish. If they were all speaking Irish the language would have developed
GABRIEL
I think the language is remarkably flexible, and has sufficient roots
and prefixes and so on, to create its own terminology without having
to mimic English at all. There are law tracts and astronomical tracts
and medical tracts. The material is there. I don't see any area (neither
Cosmology nor Physics) where Irish, perceived by some people to be a
peasant language, cannot perform in a very sophisticated level. There
is no question about that.
RUÁN
What do we do with the kids who don't want to learn Irish, and who hate
it, and who look it as their least favourite subject?
GABRIEL
We must foster a culture where it would be impossible for any self-respecting
boy or girl to say 'I hate Irish'. Where the words 'I hate Irish' would
never be heard again on this island. We must foster a culture to eliminate
that. It's a physic disorder.
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