With impeccable timing, as Stormont lurched into another funding row over the Irish language, Conradh na Gaeilge launched a report in Belfast on Tuesday entitled A United Ireland: A Transformative Opportunity for the Irish Language and Gaeltacht.
The report should not be read as a corporate policy. It is an academic paper commissioned following conference motions calling on Conradh na Gaeilge to take a position on unification. This is a push from grassroots members that has caused concern at leadership level. However, the report still usefully zeroes in on the key issue for Irish in a united Ireland: should the language remain compulsory in education and for some jobs?
The report’s author, Queen’s University doctoral student Róisín Nic Liam, notes that ending compulsion is one of the basic “bargaining chips” people imagine might be offered to unionists as an obvious aid to reconciliation along with a new flag and anthem.
Unlike a new flag and anthem, there is a consensus that compulsion should end. Advocates of this have included Professor Brendan O’Leary, Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan and Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond.
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In a 2021 radio interview on his vision for a united Ireland, conducted in Irish, O’Callaghan said: “It is very important to say that no one in the country would have to speak Irish, that everyone would have a choice and that the unionists or anyone else would not be under pressure to learn the language.”
The report calls on Conradh na Gaeilge to challenge this view of Irish as a divisive issue to be bargained away and instead for the organisation to see unification as a historic opportunity to enhance the rights of Irish speakers and the role of the indigenous language. It stops short of declaring compulsion must continue, but heavily implies ending it would be a backward step.
Strengthening Irish is portrayed not as a nationalist victory but as correcting the wrongs of colonialism and partition. Nic Liam believes this perspective could aid reconciliation by forcing everyone to recognise historic truths and “the continuity of imperial mindsets”.
She cites other academics making the same point, but only academics could make such an argument in all sincerity. To unionists and others it will appear as an unwitting parody of the republican conviction that everything will be fine once unionists snap out of their British false consciousness.
Nevertheless, once an organisation of Conradh na Gaeilge’s influence starts pushing back on the consensus against compulsion, it will scarcely matter that its argument was lowered down from an ivory tower.
There has been no substantive discussion on a united Ireland, so few people have had to give specific proposals much thought. If they start thinking about the Irish language in this context then Irish people might find the case against compulsion outrageous. It is an argument that has been handed down by the Republic’s political establishment, without any recognition from the unionists it is meant to placate. Why should a united Ireland be less Irish for unionists’ sake? The purpose of a united Ireland is to be less British to a significant and permanent degree.
Unionists have also given this issue little thought – they have largely chosen to stay silent on unification. If Conradh na Gaeilge starts a debate that requires them to think about it then many unionists might consider it somewhat daring to expect compulsory Irish to be dropped across the entire island. Most would probably be happy with Irish remaining optional in what had been the state schools of Northern Ireland. Would Conradh na Gaeilge consider that a weakening of compulsion and a continuation of partitionist mindsets?
Compulsory Irish for jobs is a trickier problem, although it may cause less concern to unionists when they realise how few jobs require using Irish. Most merely require the equivalent of having passed a GCSE, to put it in UK terms. That must be amenable to pragmatism.
The only normal job truly barred to non-Irish speakers in the Republic is primary school teaching. It is no coincidence that teaching unions are some of the strongest opponents of compulsory Irish in a united Ireland – INTO voted overwhelmingly against compulsion in response to the Belfast Agreement in 1998.
Teachers in Northern Ireland were exempted from fair employment legislation under the agreement, a unique provision that lasted until 2024, mainly to preserve the ethos of Catholic schools. Perhaps this could be taken as a precedent for exempting some teachers from Irish.
While unionists might reasonably be expected to live with the Irish language, and may accept some arguments for this themselves, the reality is that any hint of compulsion is still going to be enormously unpopular across the unionist population. Conradh na Gaeilge may not need to care about that, but other proponents of a united Ireland would be wise to continue doing so.
