We have probably had this thread before but has anyone ever put together a list of famous Irish speakers, especially native speakers?

Speakers that are famous because of their Irish (I mean, Irish writers, seanchaíonnaí, traditional singers etc), or just famous people, who are able to speak some Irish but who are famous for other reasons (actors, musicians etc) ?

Famous for any reason, why not.

Nua-Ghaeilge atá i gceist agaibh, is dócha? I mean, bhí a lán lán daoine ar nós Phádraig Naofa a raibh Gaeilge acu fadó. Cá bhfuil an cut-off point? Colm Cille? Gráinne Mhaol? Dónall Ó Conaill?

Cú Chulainn? :-D

What about Americans etc?

It is likely for example that Ned Kelly had a least some Irish, maybe even Jesse James?

Mother Jones??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_jones

quote:

maybe even Jesse James?

Conas sin? (Tá an scannán The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford iontach maith!)

No! ceart agat, bhi me ag smaoineadh ar dhuine eigin eile.

I have often wondered about Irish immigrants that migrated to Canada, the US, Australia, and beyond in the 1800's.

"In 1847, about 52,000 Irish arrived in the city..."
"During the entire Famine period, about 650,000 Irish arrived in New York harbor alone."

http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/america.htm

"By 1850, the Irish made up a quarter of the population in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Americans_in_New_York_City

Now my question has always been this, if the majority of the people who migrated were of the lower classes, if the lower classes were said to the be strength of the Irish language, and the majority of the lower classes settled into the cities in large Irish sections due to anti-Irish sentiments of the times. (At least in the US)

What happened to Irish?

A lot of potential Irish speakers living in a small area, I would think Irish would have been spoken?

I know that in my native Iowa, there are at least three "Irish Towns." Most of which became ghost towns before the 1900's. For those who don't know, "Irish Towns" were new cities established in the 1800's for the purpose of getting Irish out of the major cities. In fact, Lytle City was specifically designed to move "speakers of the Irish language" as it was stated in their charter, out of Boston. If speaking Irish was such a problem that they had to be relocated, why is there so little evidence of it?

But to add to a list of names:

John Barry (Confirmed Irish speaker)
Michael Corcoran
John Philip Holland (Confirmed Irish speaker)
Andrew Lewis (Confirmed Irish speaker)

These are the names that I know of from books I have here on American Warfare Strategies. I think you would be surprised to find that Irish was used as a code system in both the American Revolution and Civil War. Many Irish soldiers acted at "code talkers."

Interesting question, DC.

I can only give an anecdote as a response, but in the quadrant of Pennsylvania that I hail from, people who identify as being of Irish descent comprise the majority by a rather wide margin. About 40% of the populace identify as being of Irish descent, with the rest being divided up mostly among people who identify as Italian, Polish, German, English, or Welsh descent. All other ethnic background are quite sparse.

Growing up, I never heard a word of Irish and the language was practically mythologized as being:

a) practically dead (and damn those English to the nethermost hell), and;
b) shockingly difficult to learn

That said, a fellow student at my undergrad University (in the heart of this area) was another Irish-American gal. She came from a farming family way off in God's Country, Pennsylvania (frankly, we're talking "Deliverance" country)... and she had a faint yet definitely perceptible Irish accent. She also formed fast friendships with the many students from Ireland who attended that University.

I haven't thought of her in years but this topic reminded me.

Anyway, that's all I got...

Daniel O'Connell.

"Although the Irish language is connected with the many recollections that twine around the hearts of Irishmen, yet the superior utility of the English tongue, as the medium of all modern communication, is so great that I can witness without a sigh the gradual decline of the Irish language."

A Dhomhnall,

It's funny you say that. There is a family just down the road who moved here from North Dakota, and they have an very distinct Irish sounding accent. In fact, my wife from Derry couldn't believe they weren't from the Donegal region the first time she heard them. Turns out that their family settled the Dakota region since the 1800's. Their accent was unusually strong and very Irish.

And Danny, it is easy to understand that when the Irish settled English speaking lands, that English was going to take over, but the speed at which it happened is a little hard to understand for me.

"The decline of the Irish language and customs (in 1835, the number of native Irish speakers was estimated at four million -- in 1851, only 2 million spoke Irish as their first language"

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlkik/ihm/ire1841.htm


Now in 1835 there are an estimated 4 million speakers. In the famine period alone an estimated 1.5-2 million people came to the US who were high candidates for Irish. Yet there is so little evidence of Irish language in the US until 1875-1900 when the US Irish Language Revival first took off.

In fact, a great website about late 19th century Irish in America is:

"THE GAELIC REVIVAL IN THE U.S. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY" le GILLIAN NÍ GHABHANN

http://www.ucc.ie/chronicon/nighab2.htm

While she concentrates on the 1880's and later...I am looking at from 1700's-1870's. This time period had the greatest potential for the growth of Irish outside of Ireland and never did? I find this interesting.

Also in her article she gives more famous Irish speaking and Irish loving Americans of the 1800's.

Even today, when things are somewhat more "immgrant friendly" than they were in the mid-1800s, the usual track for non-english speaking immigrant families is as follows:
1 adults immigrating with no english will learn passable english with some difficulty
2 their american-born children will grow up bilingual, but prefer english
3 their american-born grandchildren will speak little to none of the original native tongue.

If the first generation immigrates WITH some english, the decline of the original language within the family is a generation faster (starting on #2, above).

at least that's the trend that was noted when I took linguistics as an undergrad.

I would imagine that the decline would be even faster in the openly-hostile-with-nary-a-legal-protection-for-immigrants 1800s.

I agree, even with detailed accounts of the hostile actions taken against Irish immigrants, I still don't think we can fully understand what they went through. The pressure may have been just too great to fight for something that was just going to bring them pain...

But what interests me is that during the period of time I feel there would have been the greatest chance for Irish being spoken in the US, there is little record of it. I am not saying that it didn't happen, of course it did, like I said, we were using Irish code talkers in the Revolution...but with exception of an off comment in a letter or diary here and there, there is little mention of the language at all? This is interesting to me.

I was allowed to look through some of the archives from Ellis Island for research once and what I noticed is that in a good portion of the records I saw concerning German and Italians migrants, they recorded English speaking ability. They would record their mother tongue, and then if they had English speaking capability. But they never did this with Irish immigrants, probably on the assumption they spoke English. Who knows...but just the fact that it was never questioned says many things for the mentality of the time period.

Now if Irish was as strong as it was claimed to be in the 1800's, I would think there would be some public mention of Irish being spoken. Even if it was only an "in home" language being spoken with a family.

But there are few city records, newspapers, personal diaries...or any dated records concerning it. It really won't be until the later 1800's that Irish is talked about. And that really only came about because of the part the Irish played in the Civil War, the Western Expansion, and the general take over of the business world. Suddenly the Irish were no longer seen as a primitive backwater people anymore, but rather a serious economic asset.

Another interesting fact, if you look the political, military, academic, economic, and social leaders of the US from 1700-1900...a large number of them were coming from Irish ancestry. How on earth did we view them to being inferior?

I understand that here in the states, Irish people were not considered to be quite "white" in the racial heirachy until sometime in the early 1900s.
The change to "white" status occurred largely because of the ability to blend in, and this meant abandoning the language as quickly as possible. Add to this the quite correct perception of Irish schoolmasters that only proficiency in English could bring any hope for a good future (in England or America) and you had strong incentives to give up the Irish language coming from both sides. In my Grandmother's day (between 1894 and 1917)back in Galway, students were thrashed if they were caught speaking Irish.
Having said all this, there are small vestiges of Irish in American English, such as the use of "Galore" (go leor) and a tendency to use an improvised plural form of "you" (yous, or y'all) as well as responding to "Thank you" with "You're welcome".
I also once read somewhere that the American term "Jazz" was first used in print by an Irish American Sportswriter, and that it may have derived from "Deas".

The weird part is that both Murph and Antaine bring up what one would expect following normal patterns of transitional migration...but here is the problem, when the Early Irish Revival efforts start to pop up in the 1870's...there are a surprising number of people who could speak the language with an native fluency.

Where did they come from? It wasn't a sudden mass of Irish speakers from Ireland, the groups were mainly native US citizens leading the speaking.

In my thinking, it means either Irish was continued and managed to stay off the radar for almost 160 years. Or it was kept underground as proposed above, and popped its head out when it was safe.

I just don't see how it could have gone unnoticed for so long either way...another Irish enigma...LOL

Also, all white minority groups were under the same pressures. The US didn't like German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Russian, or any other language anymore than they liked Irish. However, while most of these groups did conform to American culture, most of these groups didn't make such drastic sacrifices with their languages. Why did the Irish feel they had to?

I hate conspiracy theories...but we might have one here in the making...LOL ;-) Perhaps the Irish are guilty of some form of self-induced ethnicide?

(Message edited by do_chinniúint on June 02, 2008)

I think an important factor that didn't affect German, Italian etc speakers is the deep sense of inferiority that was beaten (often literary) into generations of Irish people. Their language, culture, the very blood that flowed in their veins they were told time and time again was dirt, and nothing more. Unfortunately I think many of them ended up believing it (and it seems many still do).

True, and it probably didn't help that the US was as English as the English during the shaping of its initial mindset. They may have seen the US as just another England.

But I would still liked to be able to go back there and see if there were Irish speakers in the closets...lol

Like I said, some of the US's earliest who's who list were first and second gereration Irish. I wonder how many had the ability to speak the language. Even if they didn't want to confess it...

I've just noticed I wrote 'literary' where I meant 'literally' :)

Oddly enough I think some negative ideas about the Irish have survived better in the US than even in England. Particularly the tired, old stage-Irish clichés.

A Dho chinniuint a chara,

Sometimes things that aren't considered important or valid or reputable are just not discussed. In fact I can think of no era more condusive to not discussing certain unmentionables than the Victorian era of which we speak here. Irish was considered a poor man's language: unsightly and not cleanly to discuss in mixed company or proper reputable publications. Most of the documents written back then were written by those with education, namely the more elite/wealthy/"white" folk, so it's their version of history that comes down to us.

The Irish, though they were keen to abandon their language due to social pressure, retained it a little for a while at least but kept it under the rug since everyone else disliked it so much and would discriminate against them more if they spoke it.

I think that "who's who" list of early American figures of Irish descent is mostly populated by those of Anglo-Irish blood and not Gaels.

This is all speculatory

Beir bua agus beannacht

That's just it Riona, they were Irish, born and bred. Some if not most of them didn't come to the States, or anywhere else for that matter until their mid teens and early 20's. The chances are, if they were born in Irish heavy area, they had the Irish.

Granted Irish had been stifled in certain areas and cities, but most of Ireland was still rural or lower class. Two social groupings that have been the backbone of Irish usage.

Here are some Irish Born political leaders that helped shape America. There are just to many to list so I will give the wiki link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Irish-born_United_States_political_figures

Going through most of the names certain things stick out. They are predominately of the mid to late 19th century. A good portion of these names come from northern counties. Most are coming from the rural areas more than the urban cities. And those of the southern counties tended to be rags to riches stories versus the those of the northern counties who tended to have come from wealthier families.

The same factors influenced Irish speakers on both sides of the Atlantic. It only takes a generation or two to lose/change languages.

In South Armagh for example there were 3,000 native Irish speakers in 1911 yet by the 1950s hardly any survived. Today's general population are mainly unaware of this.

as well as responding to "Thank you" with "You're welcome".

Surely that's 'Standard English'?

quote:

In South Armagh for example there were 3,000 native Irish speakers in 1911 yet

Damnú síoraí... Cha rabh ’s agam sin...

In South Armagh ....


Fuair an fear deiridh bás idir 1978 agus 1982. Is cuimhin liom alt gairid Béarla a léamh san Irish Press faoi. Tá tagairt ag Ciarán Ó Duibhín dó anseo:

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~oduibhin/oirthear/biblio.txt Árd Mhacha
Anon: "", Irish Press (Death of Paddy Murphy, ?Culloville, late Irish speaker).

Tuairiscíodh san alt go raibh Paddy i mBÁC in Éirí Amach na Cásca 1916 is go mbíodh sé ag gáire faoi. Bhí sé ar an taobh contráilte mar go raibh sé sna Leinster Rifles agus glaodh amach iad go lár na cathrach! Ceistíodh iad ag deireadh an lae faoina laghad piléar a bheith losctha acu. 'Only fired at identifiable targets Sir' a d'fhógair siad go léir, duine i ndiaidh a chéile. Bhí 5 urchar caite san aer ag an gcuid is mó acu mar gur thuigeadar go gcuirfí ceist orthu.

Bheadh cuimhne ag Máirtín Mac Cormaic, iaririseoir an IPress, ar an alt, murab é a scríobh.

track for non-english speaking immigrant families is as follows:
1 adults immigrating with no english will learn passable english with some difficulty
2 their american-born children will grow up bilingual, but prefer english
3 their american-born grandchildren will speak little to none of the original native tongue.


That's the way the shift occured according to our own family's oral history--my grandmother's parents understood but didn't speak, and my grandmother's grandparents were native speakers.

Damnú síoraí... Cha rabh ’s agam sin...

Ó go cinnte. Nuair a bhí mo sheantuismitheoirí ag fás aníos in áiteanna éagsúla in Ard Mhacha Theas sna 20aí/30aí dúirt siad go raibh go leor Gaeilge thart.

Ní bhfuair siadsan ach roinnt frásaí agus foclaí áfach - ba é sin mar a bhí.