Eire is the only European country to gain independence last century which still speaks its oppressor's tongue.

Question

What the hell happened to de-rail Pearse's vision?

An anglophone Eire was not an inevitability. What happened between Independence and WWII that sealed the fate of Irish?

Tír Gan Teanga, Tír Gan Anam.

Primordius, I appreciate your thoughtful response but you can't really credit de Valera with coming up with the idea on his own. Until the day he lay down his life, it was a cause as dear to Pearse as independence itself.

rdenig,you're not telling me anything I don't already know. Try to answer the question posed or don't bother.

gpf, you're an idiot. I'm guessing you're English.

So is it a matter of poor execution or just too little being done too late?

Wales provides a good model for what a country can do to save its language if it really wants to and the resurgence of Irish in Belfast in the last twenty years, even aside from the jailtacht, demonstrates that when an Irish community places value on the language, it can endure.

Answer 1

It was DeValera's vision that the Irish speak Irish; he didn't take office until 1937.

Then, in typical Fianna Fail fashion, promotion of the Irish language became a muddle - part toothless mandate, part lofty goal without practical application, part outright racket.

Dubliners in particular reacted to mandatory Irish language classes by learning as little as possible, and forgetting that as soon as they left school. With Dublin speaking English, the rest of the country followed suit, except areas in the far West.

Edit: DeValera took office in 1932.

True, the Irish tongue was dear to many of the 1916 rebels, but it wasn't promoted much by the government of Cosgrave in the 1920's, so it was Fianna Fail that came to office promising to change that, but didn't except through mandatory school classes and insisting all street signs be bilingual.

Answer 2

Erse, or Irish Gaelic, is virtually a dead language, despite the attempts by Irish Governments to make the country bi-lingual. It's the same in Scotland. There has been an attempt to make that country bi-lingual with Gaelic as a second language, but it seems half-hearted - you don't notice anything until you get well into the Highlands. Wales is much more pro-active with Welsh a compulsory subject in all schools and even some schools that teach entirely in Welsh. I wonder how many accidents are caused by every road sign being in two languages?

Answer 3

most Irish people can barely speak English you do not expect them to speak Irish.