Ireland, A Bourgeois Circus (Part II): The Irish Language

If you have read my previous article you will know the purpose of these articles but if not, in this series of articles I intend to discuss Irish political issues, to educate my comrades from all over the world on Irish political issues, and to educate my Irish comrades on why we cannot continue handing power to these parties and why we must take the country into our own hands.

In this article, I will be discussing an issue that is incredibly close to my heart, the Irish language. I happen to be residing in one of the Gaeltacht, (an area which is supposedly an Irish language majority area) in the country.

Before I begin discussing facts and statistics, I would like to underline, in my opinion, why it is vital to preserve the Irish language. As I am sure many people know, Ireland was, until 1922, one of the many countries under British rule. Similarly to practically every former British colony, we lost a lot. We lost millions of our people, during the Great Famine, our population dropped from 8.4 million to 6.6 million, we Irish were dependant on the potato, and when blight came to Ireland, many starved, all while the British continued to export food out of Ireland in huge quantities, as well as that hundreds of thousands of people left Ireland in the following decades, looking for better opportunities. The reason I mention this is because I believe that as a result of brutal oppression from our neighbour across the sea, we have lost more than enough. I do not want my peoples’ language, something that is incredibly important in our culture and history, to vanish. There is already an attitude among the youth of Ireland that Irish is a “dead” or "dying" language. I cannot disagree. Even if one was to look at a map of the previously aforementioned “Gaeltacht,” they would notice that these areas are ALL on the west of Ireland. This is also the region that was most heavily affected in the famine. The areas surrounding Dublin, while under British colonisation, were referred to as the Pale, in this area, English law and the English language was predominant. The “famine” was not a famine in my opinion, but an entirely preventable issue. It was an attempt at genocide. A genocide of the Irish language, the Irish people and culture. Of course the British are not entirely to blame for this. The current government (which has essentially been the same since our independence, give or take a few coalition partners) is also responsible for the dying of the Irish language.

According to the Central Statistics Office, in the 2022 Census, the majority of Irish speakers (55%) could not speak the language well that is out of the, only, 1.9 million people in a country of (at the time) 5.1 million people saying they could speak Irish. I would like to mention that in Bunreacht na hÉireann, (the Irish constitution) in Article 8 section 1, Irish is stated to be the first official language of the State with Article 8 section 2 stating that English is the second official language of the State. The Irish Times, referencing this census, states that the amount of people who speak Irish daily had fallen by 2% from 2016, from 73,803 in 2016 to 71,968 in 2022. While this number is already incredibly low for the amount of people who speak the, supposedly, first language of the State, it is worrying to see that it is continuing to decline.

I would like now to refer to the website of the largest party in Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann, (lower and upper houses of parliament) Fianna Fáil. In the section labelled as “Our Values,” the party states one of their values/aims is:

“To develop a distinctive national life in accordance with the diverse traditions and ideals of the Irish people as part of a broader European culture, and to restore and promote the Irish language as a living language of the people.”

I would like to note that, in their decades of power, according to the above statistics, the party is yet to consider fulfilling this aim.

I believe that the party does not ever intend on solving this issue. Nor does its historic ally Fine Gael, who in their party values, do not even once mention the Irish language, which I must thank them for not even pretending to care. From a quick glance at their website actually, it seems they are the more business-oriented party. This makes sense to me, because ultimately what is the focus of these parties? The interests of the ruling class. Is it in anyway beneficial for the government to promote our native language? No. Now forgive me for I may begin to sound conspiratorial, however, I personally believe that English has become the language of the international capitalist, what better way to greet them with warm greetings than doing so in their own language? Of course with the addition of the fourth lowest corporate tax rates in the European Union according to the Tax Foundation as well as a highly capable workforce. Everything these parties do is business first. Ruling class first. Why waste valuable time and money on restoring our language, as well as that, why promote a language, a culture that may be a source of unity among the people? Now of course when I say culture, I do not mean the commercialised version of Irish culture, alcoholism, red-headed leprechauns with pots of gold, I mean our actual culture.

I would like to end this article by saying that the restoration of Irish as the language of Ireland, can only be undertaken by the people of Ireland, when it is in the control of the working class. It should be seen as a unifying force, a rebellion against international capitalism. Oibrithe ar fud an domhain, aontú!

In Solidarity,

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