Every initiative to support Irish gets knocked. Why, wonders Alan Titley
This newspaper's editorial "The way we use Irish" (November 27th) was a useful and generally helpful contribution to the debate on the language.
Its more obvious inaccuracies were pointed out by Seán Ó Cuirreáin, An Coimisinéir Teanga, in his letter of the following day. He must, at this stage, be getting a little tired of pointing out, yet again, that the point of the Language Act is to underpin the rights of Irish speakers and those who want to use the language, and it does not in any way diminish the rights of others who wish to use English or any other language.
Unfortunately, in this zero-sum game, it appears that one set of rights is set up to appear inimical to others. The editorial rightly lauds the voluntary work and projects of many people and organisations that have enhanced the Irish language over many years. On the other hand, there is an implication that this is always going to be enough. Languages do not, however, flourish, thrive or develop by happenstance or by isolated individual efforts.
People did not suddenly wake up in Brazil and decide by chance that they were going to speak Portuguese; and the people of Nigeria, as far as I can make out, didn't just up and opt for English one fine morning out of love for its literary glories. Human agencies, usually governmental, certainly institutional, are always central to the health of languages. The Language Act is simply one way at attempting to bring human agency at Government level to bear on the situation of the Irish language.
There can, and always should be, a healthy debate about the nature of this support. This debate is probably most lively and presents greater disagreement among the Irish-language community than anywhere else. Irish speakers are no "bog oak monolith" as they were once described by a Government minister. But they are always concerned about the wilder shores of comment sometimes uttered by people who should know better.
Very few Irish speakers go through life without facing levels of comment and abuse that could be sometimes classed as racist. Although we rarely hear now the sentiment expressed some months ago in a letter to this paper that the teaching of Irish might be viewed as a kind of "cultural child abuse", there are still some times when one has to bite hard.
While, on the one hand, there is a very positive attitude to the language in the country at large, and even in Seanad Éireann, there is always a difficulty in translating this goodwill into action. Most people make the right noises and say the language is great, and a national treasure, and part of what we are, and love to hear it spoken, and wish more people used it and whatever you're having yourself.
But as soon as any proposal is made, big, small or indifferent, the barrage of excuses hit the fan: "This is not the right time"; "This is not the correct way to go about it"; "It costs too much"; "The money could be spent in a far better way"; "It is not real Irish anyway"; "The emphasis should only be on the spoken language"; "It will set back Irish unity another 30 years"; "We should spend more time on German/French/Japanese/
Chinese" (take your pick, according to the flavour of the year); "Nobody speaks it anyway."
The real question for your editorial writer, and for the Senators who wish "to encourage, rather than direct" public bodies, is what precisely "gentle encouragement and incentive" do they have in mind, and as soon as it is provided, which of the above excuses will they call up from the armoury?
• Alan Titley is professor of Irish in University College Cork and a writer