In its 10 years, TG4 has created some goodwill towards the Irish language, but will that generate more speakers, asks Pól Ó Muirí
When Ireland's Irish-language television station, TG4, first broadcast 10 years ago this Halloween (as TnaG), I was at a launch party in a community centre on the Garvaghy Road, Portadown. It was a small, but excited, gathering. Those were the days when television programmes in Irish were as rare as hen's teeth.
The feeling among the crowd was that the language was about to turn a corner, that the bad old days were about to end. We would be spoilt for choice for viewing and the language would never look back.
The launch - and the subsequent weeks - were a mixed bag. Getting the station at all proved difficult in the North, given that RTÉ was available only if you had a special aerial. Surprisingly, however, there were many areas in the Republic where getting Ireland's first Irish-language channel was as hard as catching the Little People céilí dancing on your kitchen table.
THE STATION'S SUPPORTERS urged patience. For them, TG4 was the best thing to happen to the language since the foundation of the State. For its critics - this journalist included - the station was arrogant, bombastic and a poor service for Gaeltacht communities and Irish-speakers. Who won the argument? Currently, the station has a 3 per cent audience share, no mean feat given the fractured natured of television viewing nowadays. It will do well to maintain that share as competition in the digital and internet era grows.
For Seán Tadhg Ó Gairbhí, editor of the weekly newspaper Foinse, the station's importance cannot be overemphasised: "TG4 has brought about a fundamental shift in people's attitude towards the language, and consequently has lead to an increased self-confidence among Irish language speakers.
"Irish was for too long associated with a narrow-minded nationalism, both cultural and political. Of course, this never reflected the reality of thousands of Irish speakers and was as much the product of an equally narrow-minded bias against Irish [ as] anything else. Its greatest achievement has been in convincing people that Irish speakers [ are] just like everybody else, that Irish is a living language that people choose to speak and not some sort of arcane ethical code that they choose to live by."
Ó Gairbhí laughs that it seems "that there was no sex in Irish-language circles before TG4. Now newspapers splash TG4 'babes' over two-page spreads with puff-pieces about how the language has been given a revolutionary makeover by the first generation of good-looking, Irish-speaking women. It can be amusing to observe reporters writing about Gaeilgeoirí in the excited tones of an anthropologist who has just happened on an exotic new tribe. Look, they're almost just like us! But the goodwill towards Irish that exists because of TG4 certainly beats the sort of hysterical ignorance that surrounded the language."
FEW WOULD DISAGREE with Ó Gairbhí's assessment, but what is TG4 like to work for and where does the famed "súil eile" come into the story? One producer, who asked not to be named, said: "I am delighted to work for them. Their budget is tiny but you make it fit. I would far rather be working in Irish making things that I care about than fighting for funding from RTÉ to make some 'sexy' new reality series."
The station is not without fault, according to the producer, who claims that there is sometimes a lack of awareness of how difficult it is to make programmes on a small budget. "They just keep asking for more and better without any more dosh!"
And dosh - or lack thereof - is a problem. From next April, TG4 will be independent of RTÉ and money will play an even bigger role. Currently, the station's budget comes from the Government (€28 million); from advertising (€4-€5 million); from programmes in kind from RTÉ (€9-€10 million) and from other production funds.
Ó Gairbhí believes the station merits increased Government funding: "It has proved itself to be an innovative and imaginative force. TG4 does rely too much on repeats and English-language imports but over the last 10 years it has proved itself a vibrant channel and has more than earned the right to grow old gracefully. It is as close to being an unqualified success as anyone could have imagined."
However, the quality and choice of programmes is a source of concern for the producer: "I think they can get a bit silly with what they consider to be funky ideas. Paisean Faisean and the likes are vacuous nonsense. They should stick to what they are good at - traditional music and culture, particularly and obviously in the Gaeltacht. It works. Keep giving younger ones and older ones with integrity the chance to be proud of their culture through TV. I have no time for the likes of Ros na Rún. They are just copying blood and guts drama of all the mainstream soaps."
The producer raises another matter of concern. Even though the station is an Irish-language one, not everyone working for the station speaks Irish - unlike at RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta: "The production companies vary. Nemeton [ famed for its GAA coverage] is great as they really try and have a common base of speaking the language and employing people who will speak the language.
"Other companies have Irish-speaking employees but they do all the business in English, including production meetings. This is a big shame. TG4 have no control over it but they should. Why bother if it is not nurturing the language at that basic production level?
'IT IS GREAT to have camera crews and editors speaking Irish, not just understanding it but speaking it. TG4 should be more proactive in training editors and camera people. I often go out with the intention of speaking Irish all day and the cameraman has not a word. You are powerless. The good cameramen with Irish are always booked up."
For Ó Gairbhí, the good of TG4 is to be seen daily: "They have normalised the presence of Irish in the cultural life of the country. It remains to be seen to what extent the goodwill it has generated will translate into actual growth in the number of genuinely fluent speakers or to what extent that goodwill is just another form of lip service. That said, it would be very easy to be facetious about how TG4 has made Irish sexy and to forget just how ingrained prejudice against the language was before its arrival."