A chara, - After reading the letter from Eugene McKendry (May 5th) I can appreciate his concerns for the future of the Irish language in the north-east, should the Dublin Government decide once again against seeking full EU status for it.
However, even if full EU status for the language is sought and welcomed, there may remain some problems in schools there because many people appear to associate the Irish language exclusively with republicanism and Roman Catholicism - even though both work almost exclusively through English. Big mouths, lazy tongues?
A study of Irish history between roughly 1550 and 1850 gives an idea of the extent of the error in linking the language with Catholicism. During that period most literary work in Irish was being produced by Protestants. A Church of Ireland Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, William Bedell (1571-1642), insisted on instruction in the Irish tongue being given in the university. Later, as Bishop of Kilmore, Co Cavan, he co-operated in the translation of the Old Testament into Irish, a work which began about 1632 (viz. I bPrionta i Leabhair, Na Protastúin agus Prós na Gaeilge 1567-1724 by Nicholas Williams, Baile Átha Cliath, 1986: 49). By the year 1632 Bedell had learned a fair amount of Irish. The translation was complete by 1640. That great-hearted man died in 1642.
Two volumes of Bedell's translations may be seen in Marsh's Library, Dublin; the third and fourth are held in Cambridge University. After some delay, the Old Testament was printed and published in 1685, after which it became popular among Catholics and Protestants in Ireland and Scotland (viz. Williams, op.cit.: 95-103). My copy is dated 1830 and was printed in Dublin.
The Williams work (op.cit.) is a very scholarly account of Bedell and other writers in Irish. A very good account of Bedell's work, in English, is to be read in Two Biographies of William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore, ed. by E.S. Shuckburg (Cambridge University Press, 1902).
A few years ago, after a person had heard me speaking Irish with a friend in a Dublin tavern, he approached me and gave me a copy of An Introduction to the Irish Language in Three Parts by William Neilson, D.D., (Dublin, 1808). It was patronised by H.E Philip, Earl of Hardwicke, Lord Lieut General and General Governor of Ireland.
From the published list of 110 subscribers it would appear that most of them, at least, were Protestants, Lord rest them. Among them was the Lord Bishop of Sodor and Man, the Duke of Bedford.
At the beginning of the last century, in the northern part of this country, Presbyterian Church services were still being conducted in the Irish language in country districts.
In my own time the Irish language was generously supported by the likes of the late Rev Cosslett Ó Cuinn, the late Archbishop Simms, and the former Archbishop of Dublin, Most Rev Dr Card, inter alia. The late Risteárd Ó Glaisne, a Methodist, wrote a lot about the Protestant contribution to the Irish language, as did Dubhghlas de hÍde, a Protestant, and the first President of Ireland.
There are many Protestant signatures to appeals to the Government to seek full status for our common language - Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter - in the EU. - Is mise,
DEASÚN BREATNACH, Baile an Chnoic, Dún Laoghaire, Co Átha Cliath.