Sir, - In her letter of February 13th, Ms Hanna Dengel-Dowling made some interesting comparisons between Ireland and Poland countries which have had somewhat similar histories of conquest, occupation and persecution by a foreign power. However, the Polish language survived, thanks to the stubborn resistance of a proud Polish people to either learning or speaking Russian under Communist rule, whereas the Irish language, for various reasons, almost died a natural death.
Ms Dowling tells us that Poland was erased from the map of Europe for some 125 years. Ireland was perforce part of the once-great British Empire for many centuries. The job of colonisation was thorough, and our language so debased and despised that it became synonymous with ignorance and poverty. Moreover, since emigration became an economic necessity for so many of our people, the Irish language seemed no longer useful or necessary.
It is unfortunate that since we gained (comparative) freedom, Irish-language teaching methods were so sterile, stultified and unimaginative, relying more on abstruse grammatical constructions than on the joy of the spoken language. that children did not want to learn what was to them unintelligible, and not the language of the home. This failure was also reinforced by an in-built bias towards the Irish language from the parents of the children. Strangely, our identity survived, mainly through our love of music, song and dance, and our undoubted gift of imagination.
The miracle is that the language did survive at all, and I can assure Ms Dowling that it is very much alive, even in Dublin 14. She simply has not chanced to meet an Irish-speaking family there. I myself am happy and feel enriched to count fluency in my own language as an important part of my identity as a citizen of this sovereign state, and I feel sure there are many like me. - Yours, etc.,
Cartronkeel House, Moate, Co Westmeath.