A chara, - I would have thought that the type of opinion regarding the Irish language expressed by Enda O'Doherty (An Irishman's Diary, January 31st) had been long consigned to the dustbin of history or at least existed only among the uninformed.
While 100,000 people claim to speak the language every day (I am glad to be counted among them), some 380,000 claim to be able to speak, write or understand it to varying degrees. Mr O'Doherty knows that Irish speakers move in a world where English is all-pervasive and unless he is constantly eaves-dropping on everyone I don't know when exactly he is going to "catch" people speaking Irish in the street.
But for a starter, how about the thousands of children attending gaelscoileanna the length and breadth of the country? How about the plethora of Irish language classes, cultural groups, social nights, clubs and societies where the language is spoken? there are also many, many people who for a variety of reasons do not speak Irish but cherish it and wish it to flourish and grow. Like Ó Faoláin they recognise its "continuing value".
As one who works with the Irish language and with Ulster Scots, I know that most Irish speakers don't view Ulster Scots as a joke. They recognise that there are traces of the vestiges of the remains of proto-English to be found in the vernacular speech of some people in Antrim, Derry and Donegal, and that's worth preserving.
What they do not wish to see is Ulster Scots being used as a quid pro quo or as a political football to deny the legitimate rights of Irish speakers. To write modern English in a Scottish accent with a few Scots words thrown in - as Robert Burns and Walter Scott did - and claim it was a language, was a forgery in the 18th century.
For academics, who should know better, to do the same again with Ulster Scots is compounding forgery upon forgery and this is what some people see as the joke.
Seán Ó Faoláin was right to be pessimistic about Irish 60 years ago. If he were alive today he would be full of hope. In West Belfast you will hear teenagers talking like their grannies, and their great-great-great-grannies, as the Irish language flourishes among the modern youth. - Is mise,
CIARÁN MAC MURCHAIDH,
Droim an Tí,
Co Arda Mhacha.