Gaining official status in Europe for the language will point to the near total failure to promote it at home, writes Dennis Kennedy.
Just how is the Government's decision to push for recognition of Irish as an official language of the EU a "worthwhile attempt" to increase the use of the language, as Denis Staunton argues (July 23rd) or a "significant act of language maintenance" whatever that may be (Editorial, July 19th)?
There is no actual need to add Irish to the existing 20 official languages. No one working in the institutions or dealing regularly with them needs to use it. Even Mr Seán Ó Neachtain MEP is perfectly capable of speaking and understanding Ireland's other official language, English. Those instances where there is a legal requirement for an Irish-language version of a document are adequately covered by present arrangements.
The addition of Irish will not mean that opportunities for the use of Irish will be significantly increased, as most Irish people will still prefer to do their European business in English. The only ones likely to use it in the new context would be those who already use it, such as Mr Ó Neachtain. If the institutions had to employ 100 or so fluent Irish speakers as translators and interpreters, as some suggest, then presumably most of these would be recruited in Ireland, thereby seriously reducing Irish language resources here.
The idea that Irish could formally become an official language, but be used only sparingly is surely fanciful. It would serve to underline the pointlessness of the Government's proposal - that it is seeking symbolic recognition of Irish, while agreeing that no one uses it anyway.
Surely the history of the language since the foundation of the State shows the folly of tokenism and of pretence. Despite its grandiose recognition as the first official language of the State, and the expenditure of vast sums on its obligatory teaching and official use, 80 years later it manifestly is not the language of the State. Only a small minority are capable of using it as their prime daily means of communication.
That is the reality, not the invention of those who might wish to deride and ridicule the language. In what way would that reality be altered by making Irish an official EU language? Seeking EU status, far from being a mark of the Government's confidence in Irish as part of the cultural heritage, is an attempt to camouflage the near total failure to promote it at home by securing meaningless recognition abroad.
How on earth can anyone see the move as a significant act of "language maintenance"? That awkward phrase presumably means an action in support of the language, and the support in this case is to see Irish accorded "its place amongst Europe's working languages". (Editorial, July 19th) Really? If accorded that recognition, it would be blindingly obvious to everyone in Ireland, in the EU institutions and in the other member-states that it was done on patently false pretences. The language would be held in even greater contempt than it is today by many of the citizens of the State.
Irish Gaelic is a rich language well worth preserving and encouraging. It is part of the island's cultural heritage - but only part. It has not been spoken widely as the daily language in most of the country for well over a century. A significant proportion of the island's population today do not see it as a central part of their heritage - their ancestors never spoke it. To continue to insist on an identification between the Irish State and the Gaelic language, particularly after the Belfast Agreement, is sectarian politically, and nothing but harmful to the language itself.
The language will survive, and perhaps flourish, only if enough people want to know it and study it. Wrapping it in hypocrisy will have the opposite effect, as past experience has shown.
At European level the Government's move will embarrass and anger other member-states which have real minority language problems. If it is successful, it will involve the EU in wasteful additional expenditure when the budget is under enormous pressure. It will also give ammunition to the growing number who see the EU as a foolish enterprise dedicated to finding ever more outrageous ways to squander taxpayers' money. Just think what the UK Independence Party would make of it in the upcoming referendum.
Or is it all just another exercise in political cynicism? When the idea was previously aired a decade or so ago, the private defence from Foreign Affairs was that EU enlargement would mean so many official languages that there would have to be a radical move to a few key working languages, and Irish should be in there to take advantage of whatever compensatory perks would be offered to the rest.
Much more recently a Labour Party elder, challenged on his party's support for such a narrowly nationalist move, agreed that it was foolish, but added: "Don't forget there's an election soon."
Dennis Kennedy is a writer on European affairs