Irish Language: Who Needs Irish? The question in itself will immediately divide people into two camps: those who care and those who, even as we speak, are turning the page to find something else to read.
Still, the question needs to be asked and it is to the credit of the book's editor, Ciarán Mac Murchaidh, and to his publisher, Veritas, that we now have a collection of essays in English which will provide an entrance into the Irish language for a general audience.
Mac Murchaidh writes, correctly, that the language debate is an ongoing issue within the Irish-language media but that it makes only a sporadic appearance in the English-language media - and usually, in this reviewer's experience, along the lines of, "Waste-of-money Irish forced down my throat by wrinkled old crone, says outraged taxpayer".
The contributors here bear no resemblance to such stereotypes. Their approach is one of enlightened engagement: Alan Titley ponders the State's commitment in his own unique style; Neasa Ní Chinnéide and Muireann Ní Mhóráin provide moving memoirs on childhood and language; Éilís Ní Dhuibhne's essay is a thoughtful meditation on the writer's way; Breandán Ó Doibhlin reflects on the spiritual needs of culture; Gabriel Rosenstock offers an urbane look at language discovery while Donncha Ó hÉallaithe emerges from the Gaeltacht corner in pugilistic fashion and takes on allcomers.
Máirín Nic Eoin's fine essay, "Idir Dhá Theanga: Irish-language culture and the challenges of hybridity", epitomises all that is best about this book and scholarship in general. Exploring necessity through poetry, she examines the work of Cathal Ó Searcaigh, a native of the Donegal Gaeltacht, and a wonderful contemporary poet from Cork, Colm Breathnach.
Ó Searcaigh's Gaeltacht Irish is a hussy, free and easy with her favours; she leaves the landscape "bungaló mod conach" and "mobile homeach". Breathnach's physical reality is "the speckled land/and every town there has two names".
His fate is to live "between two colours/between two words/between two names/between two minds/between two places/between two tongues . . ."
Nic Eoin's question, "where will the Irish language end up in the face of ever more vigorous processes of hybridisation?" is an urgent one. Is there the will to maintain even "two colours" or will Ireland become monochrome?
Pól Ó Muirí is a journalist with The Irish Times. His poetry collection, Na Móinteacha, is published by Lagan Press