A topical and authoritative investigation of the Irish language and identity in Northern Ireland. The phrase 'our own language' has come to symbolize the importance of the Irish language to Irish identity for many Nationalists in Northern Ireland. However, different interests compete to have their version of the meaning and importance of the Irish language accepted. This book investigates the role of the Irish language movement in the social construction of competing versions of Irish political and cultural identity in Northern Ireland, arguing that for some Nationalists, the Irish language has become an alternative point of political access and expression.
This book tells the dramatic and often surprising story of the learning of the Irish language by Irish Republican prisoners held in the infamous H-block cells during the bloody political conflict in Northern Ireland. Using research methods and techniques, the author closely analyses the emergence of the Irish language amongst republican prisoners and ex prisoners in Northern Ireland from the 1970s up until the present. This pioneering study shows how the language was used exclusively in parts of the prison, despite the efforts of the prison authorities to suppress the language, and the dramatic impact this had on Irish society. Drawing on interviews with the prisoners, and various other materials, Mac Giolla Chriost shows how these developments gave rise to the popular coinage of the term ‘Jailtacht’, a deformation of ‘Gaeltacht’ - the official Irish-speaking districts of the Republic of Ireland, to describe this unique linguistic phenomenon.
Focusing on Irish speakers in Catholic West Belfast, this ethnography on Irish language and identity explores the complexities of changing, and contradictory, senses of Irishness and shifting practices of 'Irish culture' in the domains of language, music, dance and sports. The author’s theoretical approach to ethnicity and ethnic revivals presents an expanded explanatory framework for the social (re)production of ethnicity, theorizing the mutual interrelations between representations and cultural practices regarding their combined capacity to engender ethnic revivals. Relevant not only to readers with an interest in the intricacies of the Northern Irish situation, this book also appeals to a broader readership in anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, history and political science concerned with the mechanisms behind ethnonational conflict and the politics of culture and identity in general.
This groundbreaking book shatters historical stereotypes, demonstrating that, in the century before 1870, Ireland was not an anglicized kingdom and was capable of articulating modernity in the Irish language. It gives a dynamic account of the complexity of Ireland in the nineteenth century, developments in church and state, and the adaptive bilingualism found across all regions, social levels, and religious persuasions.
This book comprises the first complete treatment of the Irish language in social context throughout the whole of Ireland, with a particular focus on contemporary society. The possibilities and limitations of the craft of language planning for the revival of the Irish language are outlined and the book also situates the language issue in the context of current debates on the geography, history and politics of the nature of Irish identity. A comprehensive multidisciplinary approach is adopted throughout.
The British Isles are home to a vast range of different spoken and signed languages and dialects. Language continues to evolve rapidly, in its diversity, in the number and the backgrounds of its speakers, and in the repercussions it has had for political and educational affairs. This book provides a comprehensive survey of the dominant languages and dialects used in the British Isles. Topics covered include the history of English; the relationship between Standard and Non-Standard Englishes; the major non-standard varieties spoken on the islands; and the history of multilingualism; and the educational and planning implications of linguistic diversity in the British Isles. Among the many dialects and languages surveyed by the volume are British Black English, Celtic languages, Chinese, Indian, European migrant languages, British Sign Language, and Anglo-Romani. Clear and accessible in its approach, it will be welcomed by students in sociolinguistics, English language, and dialectology, as well as anyone interested more generally in language within British society.
The Glens of Antrim formed one of the last Irish-speaking areas of Ulster until the early 1900s. Until the opening of the Antrim coast road in the 1850s Irish was universally spoken in the Glens and on Rathlin. The turn of the 19th century saw the Gaelic Revival which in the north of Ireland involved both Unionists and Nationalists in an effort to preserve Irish as a spoken language. It was against this background of cultural renaissance that Feis na nGleann ('The Glens Feis') was founded in 1904 as the first Gaelic cultural festival in east Ulster. That inaugural Feis harnessed the talents of the Glens folk and a group of leading "Big House" figures in the locality, among them Miss Rose Young of Galgorm Castle, Miss Ada McNeill of Cushendun, and Miss Margaret Dobbs. Others included Sir Roger Casement, then a recent convert to Irish nationalism, Eoin MacNeill, Glensman and language revivalist, Francis Joseph Bigger, lawyer and antiquarian, John 'Benmore' Clarke and Joseph Campbell, the Belfast poet. This book traces the origins of Feis na nGleann in that 'crease in time' between Parnell and the 1916 Rising. In a series of scholarly chapters, experts profile the historic founders of the Feis and record the history of Irish in the district. There are special sections on the traditional arts and crafts fostered by the Feis, the once famous Glens toy-making industry, the role of hurling and the rich literary legacy of the Feiseanna. The book is lavishly illustrated with unique contemporary photographs. The result is attractive and readable volume which will appeal to all those interested in the history and culture of the Glens and the fortunes of the Irish language in the north of Ireland.
