{"id":817,"date":"2007-02-10T21:13:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-10T21:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=817"},"modified":"2007-02-10T21:13:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-10T21:13:00","slug":"where-are-the-irish-speakers-in-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=817","title":{"rendered":"Where are the Irish-speakers&#8211;in Ireland?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now and again among North American Pagans, I run into an earnest student of Gaelic.<\/p>\n<p>When M. and I honeymooned in Ireland (back when the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Celtic_Tiger\">Celtic Tiger was still a kitten<\/a>), I learned to puzzle out the signage and to go through the door marked &#8220;Fir.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But outside of Co. Kerry, I never heard Irish Gaelic spoken conversationally. I did see posters from the Ministry of Something urging people to speak it. The very fact that these posters existed was probably a sign that they were not.<\/p>\n<p>A fluent Irish-speaker recently decided to put his fellow citizens to the test, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/g2\/story\/0,,1983434,00.html\">the results were not hopeful<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>In Killarney, I stood outside a bank promising passers-by huge sums of money if they helped me rob it, but again no one understood.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A century and a half at least have passed since Irish was the common language. Despite the compulsory schooling, I suspect that it is sliding into the antiquarian category. The goddess Bridget will be summoned in English.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps there is a parallel with the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gaelscoil\">Gaelscoileanna<\/a> (Irish-language schools) to something I recently heard in Canada. A friend in British Columbia said that she was sending her son to a special bilingual (French\/English) school, not because he needed the French so much as because the normal English-language schools were so full of immigrants with poor English skills that the teaching was slower and dumbed-down. I wonder if the Irish parents likewise see these schools as better overall and that is why they choose them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now and again among North American Pagans, I run into an earnest student of Gaelic. When M. and I honeymooned in Ireland (back when the Celtic Tiger was still a kitten), I learned to puzzle out the signage and to go through the door marked &#8220;Fir.&#8221; But outside of Co. Kerry, I never heard Irish [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,50],"class_list":["post-817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-celts","tag-ireland"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-db","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7362,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7362","url_meta":{"origin":817,"position":0},"title":"Irish Druids Now Officially &#8220;Indigenous&#8221; \u2014\u00a0They Say","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"That is how the Celtic Druid Temple frames government recognition as an \"official charity.\" The Celtic Druid Temple is a full member of the World Druid Order and now has legal and formal recognition in Ireland as a religious charity with a CHY number 20684 issued by the Dept of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Druids\"","block_context":{"text":"Druids","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=druids"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.celticdruidtemple.com\/uploads\/2\/0\/0\/7\/20074727\/1395427677.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8422,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8422","url_meta":{"origin":817,"position":1},"title":"CFP: Irish Network for the Study of Esotericism and Paganism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 11, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"(Extended) DEADLINE APPROACHING In association with the Study of Religions Department, University College Cork To be held on Friday, 31st March 2017 We are pleased to invite scholars to take part in the launch and first workshop of the Irish Network for the Study of Esotericism and Paganism (INSEP), a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"esotericism\"","block_context":{"text":"esotericism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=esotericism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/INSEP-Twitter-Image-square-White-BG.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12216,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12216","url_meta":{"origin":817,"position":2},"title":"Interviews with Some Irish Witches","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 7, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Thoughts from several contemporary Irish practitioners about the Craft and nature, including an appearance by Jenny Butler, a member of The Pomegranate's editorial board.","rel":"","context":"In \"Ireland\"","block_context":{"text":"Ireland","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=ireland"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11826,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11826","url_meta":{"origin":817,"position":3},"title":"How the Irish Invented Halloween (But Americans Saved It)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 22, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Friend-of-this-blog Jenny Butler (University College Cork) leads off this RTE video on \"How the Irish really invented Halloween.\" (You can watch a larger version at the link.) Also, divination with snails.","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7386,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7386","url_meta":{"origin":817,"position":4},"title":"A History of the Gods of Irish Myth","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Forthcoming from Princeton University Press, Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth (2016), by Mark Williams. Think of the \"Finding a God\" and \"Finding a Goddess\" chapters of Ronald Hutton's Triumph of the Moon \u2014 but book-length, dealing with Irish material, and the product of numerous quests\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Ireland\"","block_context":{"text":"Ireland","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=ireland"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6998,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6998","url_meta":{"origin":817,"position":5},"title":"Was Lugh a Comet?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is the trailer for an Irish television \"documentary,\" (in Irish with English subtitles), \"Gods from the Sky,\" which argues that celestial events changed ancient Irish religion. And if that sounds a bit familiar, perhaps you are remembering Immanuel Velikovsky's (1895\u20131979) somewhat similar thesis that the planet Venus entered our\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Celts\"","block_context":{"text":"Celts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=celts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}