mainoff.gif
lastdyoff.gif
lastwkoff.gif
treeoff.gif
searchoff.gif
helpoff.gif
contactoff.gif
creditsoff.gif
homeoff.gif


The Daltaí Boards » Archive: 2005- » 2009 (May-June) » Archive through May 30, 2009 » Contact with the last native speakers of...? « Previous Next »

Author Message
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Acco
Member
Username: Acco

Post Number: 13
Registered: 04-2009
Posted on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 02:03 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

First of all, thanks for all the wonderful info. You guys should be paid by the Education Secretary to go around to schools to inspire the kind of interest and fascination that is created by this website. It's like reading those great popular science books when you've left school and asking yourself why nobody taught me the subject like that when I was in school; it would have made such a difference.

There must be some of you who had contact with the last native speakers in counties like Clare, Tipperary or Limerick where I see those red spots on that famous map about the Irish speaking regions that survived into the last century. Or maybe your parents did, if you are too young to have lived in the sixties. And do people who come from those counties feel sad that their local native Irish is lost forever - maybe a dialect that would suit them better. Maybe they could tell Gaeltacht people about it to encourage them not to be so squanderous about what they learn in the cradle.

Surely there are people around who are prefer not to draw attention to themselves because they believe their Irish is not up to scratch but who might have some of the proper pronunciation left because they had contact with those last native speakers.

What about Ring in Waterford? Are there real native speakers there - I mean people who can converse on the same level with speakers from Connemara? When I listen to the news on RnaG the speaker from Galway really belts it out sixty to the dozen! Can the Rinn people still understand all that?

Another question: I have noticed that there are still 100% speakers in county Cork, another small Gaeltacht. That Irish there is easier to understand for an English speaker. Has the fact that there has been a foreign influence there since the Norman times had an affect on that? They don't have so many of those sounds that the other dialects have that an English speaker can hardly ever hope to attain.

Beirigí Bua!

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Guevara
Member
Username: Guevara

Post Number: 30
Registered: 04-2007
Posted on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 02:36 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Hi Acco,

Re the last native speakers from Clare, Tipperary and Limerick Máirtín Ó Cadhain in his book An Ghaeilge Bheo-Destined to Pass written in 1962 said there was a plenty of Irish spoken in Fanore. Also that Irish was spoken by the schoolchildren in Doolin as late as the Second World War. While the last native speakers of Limerick Irish and Tipperary Irish are long dead there are still some native speakers around Fanore/Gleninagh -only two months ago John O'Donoghue the poet died aged 52 and in his obituaries listed as a native Irish speaker.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

N_iall
Member
Username: N_iall

Post Number: 28
Registered: 10-2008
Posted on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 03:26 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Met a few of the fellas from the Band Danú a few years back when they played at the North Texas Irish Festival in Dallas... 3 of the guys in the band at that time were from An Rinn I believe and were in their 20's and spoke Irish fluently. Its prolly a small community in An Rinn but evidently Irish is still spoken. U can hear their Irish via thier albums. One of the fellas had a great voice but I dont think he's with the band anymore. They were also teaching some of the other fellas in the band 'cupla focal' and corrected me a couple of times in my pronouncation, which I didn't mind at all... anyways thats just an fyi...

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Domhnaillín_breac_na_dtruslóg
Member
Username: Domhnaillín_breac_na_dtruslóg

Post Number: 539
Registered: 04-2008
Posted on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 06:01 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

quote:

Another question: I have noticed that there are still 100% speakers in county Cork, another small Gaeltacht. That Irish there is easier to understand for an English speaker.


You're not the first person I've heard say this and I really wonder what the basis for this generalisation is. Does it refer to the fact that the standard spelling drew heavily from the older literary language which, in turn, was based heavily on the Irish of Cork or what?

Personally I've always found that the common aspects of Irish pronunciation which cause trouble to English speakers (e.g. the "deep" orthography, the triller /r/, the broad-slender distinction, the unstressed long vowels, etc.) seem to far outweigh any dialect-specific features.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Taidhgín
Member
Username: Taidhgín

Post Number: 316
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - 07:00 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

An Rinn is still maintaining a level of spoken Irish and as has been so often repeated here on this forum use of Irish is moving from the involuntary use to the voluntary. Involuntary is where you speak Irish because you cannot speak any other language and all your relatives and neighbours are in the same --- situation. (I was going to write plight.)

The voluntary speaking of Irish is where you and your family and friends could speak another language but choose to speak Irish. Then you become so used to speaking Irish with particular people that neither of you would ever dream of speaking another language together.

Regarding people who remember old people speaking Irish or whose parents remembered their parents speaking Irish "when they didn't want the children to hear" I believe that many many tens of thousands of people from all parts of the country have learnt the language enthusiastically and well on such a basis, just as we did in our family.

Just because an area became so depopulated that it could no longer be considered a "Gaeltacht" i.e. an area where Irish was dominant, did not mean that those who emigrated to Dublin, Cork, Belfast or Galway lost their close affinity with Irish. I believe it is like tinder. Light a match and it burns.

I bet if you examined why all those who today are fluent in Irish outside the Gaeltacht achieved such fluency you would find the apple had not fallen far from the tree agus nárbh ón ngaoith a thóg siad í.

That's the story of Ireland. Learning Irish for us is not like a Germanic American learning Spanish or French, not like an English person learning Italian.

We have the warmth of Irish around us still and everywhere we turn in placenames and old sayings not to mention our education we aquire more. For us it is easy because we want to learn it.

Certainly we feel sad that our parents and grandparents were forced by poverty and blatant discrimination to hide whatever Irish they knew but that is not so any more. It is used in the Dáil, in Brussels, on Radio and Television. There are good jobs available to Irish speakers.

Those learning Irish today have more opportunities than any generation before them and I believe many Irish people have a burning desire to learn it and are only waiting for the opportunity to use it.

Outsiders may taunt us with "Ah, but your Irish is not the real Irish, not traditional Irish." There is an answer for them .....

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

An_chilleasrach
Member
Username: An_chilleasrach

Post Number: 50
Registered: 01-2009
Posted on Thursday, May 21, 2009 - 05:29 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Taidhgín's post reminds me of this.

My next door neighbours are in their eighties. I was in their house with my daughter, who was showing off her Irish to the lady of the house. She responded with the most beautiful natural Irish. I asked her where it came from and she said her father was from Coolea in West Cork and brought his Irish to Dublin with him. He helped found the all-Irish school that presently stands on the grounds of the Department of Education in Marlborough Street, where she attended. They spoke Irish more or less exclusively at home in Clontarf. She said that she was not as assidous in passing it on as some of her siblings.

I was at the funeral of her last surviving brother a couple of weeks ago in Swords. He had eleven children and they spoke only Irish at home. Some of them used to come to my next door neighbour on 'holiday' and the little (pre-school) ones had very little English. They had no TV at home and used congregate around it in my neighbours house like hungry children with their noses pressed up against the glass of the sweet shop. The funeral mass included plenty of Irish and his son gave the eulogy as Gaeilge. He apologised to those who could not understand but said that it is what his father would have wanted. One of the daughters sang all of the hymns in Irish and I have no doubt that most of the twenty plus grandchildren are similarly proficient.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Danny2007
Member
Username: Danny2007

Post Number: 328
Registered: 12-2007


Posted on Sunday, May 24, 2009 - 01:37 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

quote:

100% speakers in county Cork, another small Gaeltacht.


What does 100% speakers mean?

quote:

we feel sad that our parents and grandparents were forced by poverty and blatant discrimination to hide whatever Irish they knew but that is not so any more.


What do you mean by blatant discrimination? If anything, Gaeltacht people in the early years of the Free State were discriminated against because English and a good education were hard to attain there. The Gaeltacht Commission from 1926 is full of testimony from various people complaining about the poverty and lack of opportunities. No mention of being forced to hide their Irish though.

On the other hand, the forces of anglicisation (civil servants, judges etc) post-1922 further accelerated the language shift which was already well underway in most areas of the Gaeltacht. Native speakers were discriminated against because getting services in their first or only language was often hard to come by.

When writing your messages, please use the same courtesy that you would show when speaking face-to-face with someone.
- Daltaí.com

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Domhnall_Ó_h_aireachtaigh
Member
Username: Domhnall_Ó_h_aireachtaigh

Post Number: 635
Registered: 09-2006


Posted on Sunday, May 24, 2009 - 01:42 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Native speakers were discriminated against because getting services in their first or only language was often hard to come by.

Apparently they still are and it still is, based on the stories I hear recounted here.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Taidhgín
Member
Username: Taidhgín

Post Number: 323
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Sunday, May 24, 2009 - 04:36 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

It's a small world, An_chilleasrach.
Regarding
quote:

I was at the funeral of her last surviving brother a couple of weeks ago in Swords. He had eleven children and they spoke only Irish at home.


I was also at that funeral for the removal the previous night. I thought the priest handled the language issue really well.

Unlike what I had expected, the early part of the ceremony was entirely in English without even the opening "In ainm an Athar, agus an Mhic, agus an Spioraid Naoimh!" being in Irish.

Then somewhat later in the proceedings this old priest mentioned that he and the deceased had often met after Mass and discussed the issues of the day in Irish. In memory of this he introduced one prayer in Irish and then another, followed by a decade of An Páidrín as Gaeilge, and finally he had the whole congregation singing "Ag Críost an Síol" from memory. I am sure those attending the following day had no difficulty with Irish either. They would have expected no less to honour this heroic Gaeltacht family who had kept the language alive in their home.

Beannacht Dé lena anam uasal Gaelach.

This points up a fact worth remembering: the "Gaeltacht" is a very artificial geographical construct. Certainly it gives the State permission to declare Irish the "official" community language there and gives legitimacy to their treating the language as a living language.

But there are many such families as this one living outside the Gaeltacht where children, grandchildren, and probably great-grandchildren speak Irish and some method should be found to recognise them and build upon their knowledge and their active carrying on and transmission of the living tradition. I believe my own family would fall into the same category.

My own view is that new Gaeltacht "nodes of growth" should be designated where evidence exists of a substantial number of Irish-speaking families or even wannabe Irish-speaking families in the catchment area of an Irish-medium school or Gaelscoil for example.

Our own thriving Gaelscoil has had an average of well over 350 pupils every year for the last 25 years and is going strong. Three or four others have been founded in the region since then and feed into two secondary schools that teach all subjects through Irish in the same catchment area. It's progress, a chairde, but I'm not sure anyone has really noticed yet. I do however. I recognise many faces on TG4 who would not be there were it not for these schools.

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Smac_muirí
Member
Username: Smac_muirí

Post Number: 327
Registered: 06-2008
Posted on Sunday, May 24, 2009 - 06:54 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Luaigh Ormondo roinnt gnéithe de shaol na Gaeilge agus de shaol an chláir chomhrá seo ag Daltaí, ach níor mhiste, b'fhéidir iad a chíoradh anseo chomh maith, mar i ndeireadh báire, ba cheart dúinn a bheith ar aon treo amháin. Bhíodh muintir an chláir seo an-síochánta agus cairdiúil, tráth dá raibh, agus is géar a theastaíonn a leithéid.

Mhothaigh mé ó bhean roinnt seachtainí ó shin, gur mheas sí go raibh an ardchathair tagtha chun tosaigh ar Chathair na dTreabh féin i dtaca le labhairt na Gaeilge. Bhí cur amach agam le mo linn ar an dá chathair agus bhí mo leagan féin den scéal droim ar ais agam, ach tá meas agam ar a barúil sise.

Tá mé ar aon intinn leat a Thaidhgín faoin dá phointe sin: Tá an taoille ag líonadh agus ní thuigtear an méid sin go forleathan. Roinnt mhaith blianta ó shin, thug mé Joshua Fishman agus Séamas Ó Direáin thart ar áiteanna sa Chlár ar turas leath lae. Tháinig 'irelandization' aníos sa chomhrá. Ní dhearna mé mórán iarracht an scéal a chothromú dó. Dúirt mé roinnt agus d'fhág mé mar sin é. (Don mhuintir eile linn:) I realized that linguists and others outside of Ireland would not be au fez with the changes happening in Ireland and I left it at that. I could have continued, but I just let the matter sit. Séamas, who had known him for many years, wanted to impress upon him that the picture out there - and still abroad in Ireland itself - is out of kilter with what is happening and what has happened. We were walking up from Brian Bóroimhe's fort, on the Shannon, back to the car. He looked at Séamas and it registered. He was happy.

Point one for those outside of Ireland particularly: To privatize a scene in the Galltacht: 95% of my week, work and socially, is in Irish. Those who meet me in English would find that impossible to believe. It is only when someone from that small 5% part of my life sticks with me and walks through any town in Galltacht Éireann, that it becomes apparent. Irish speakers come in all shapes and sizes and they can be anywhere in town or countryside.

Point 2: The standard of spoken Irish in Galltacht na hÉireann is satisfactory to many Gaeltacht speakers who live there. I find native speakers living in the Galltacht to be very positively impressed, more positively impressed than I am, by the numbers and fluency around them. I find the same over/positivity evident in Irish second language speakers, from Ireland or elsewhere, who move into the Gaeltacht. I regard myself as one who is guarded in my opinion - as I feel we have a long way to go yet, in all parts of Ireland, Gaeltacht and Galltacht, but the people are moving in the right direction, or coming towards that point. We need an extra push of some sort to be sure that a reverse doesn’t set in.

Point 3: I'm worried that catalyst type people are few and far between. That’s our weak link. Bíonn tuirse nó cúram éigin eile ar dhaoine. Readers on this board could ponder what they might do. A little something on a regular basis. Time, teaching, encouraging others. Rather than ending up in a brawl here on line, contact might be made with Irish, non-Irish or interested others in one’s own area. One may become a lone member of Conradh na Gaeilge be it abroad, or not.

Cuireadh gach éinne an cheist air féin ag deireadh an lae; an cheist a chuireadh athair Joshua Fishman orthu timpeall an bhoird tráthnóna: ‘Céard a rinne tú ar son na teanga inniu?



©Daltaí na Gaeilge