Irish language

[Roy]

Does anyone have any information about the decline of the Irish language in County Roscommon. Were there many Irish speakers left in the late 1800's? Were there small areas of Irish speakers scattered throughout the county or was the decline uniform? Any info would be appreciated.
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lgannon01@snet.net

[Patrick Brennan]

My great-grandmother came from Arigna - just over the border in Leitrim. She emigrated to England around 1885. She spoke fluent Irish, however it was a northern dialect with a lot of phrases similar to Scottish Gaelic - for example she would say ciamar a tha thu (forgive the spelling) rather than conas ata tu. This led to many arguments with one of her sons in law - a 1916 Rising veteran who claimed she didn't speak "proper" Irish. As to whether she did or not - I'm sure that is a debate that could run and run.<p>Patrick
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p@trick-brennan.com

[Ray McLoughlin]

: Does anyone have any information about the decline of the Irish language in County Roscommon. Were there many Irish speakers left in the late 1800's? Were there small areas of Irish speakers scattered throughout the county or was the decline uniform? Any info would be appreciated.<p>I read that Irish was spoken regularly throughout the country before the famine, Afterward the people began to speah english more frequently. I think it was more common in the North and among the border states where english was necessary, and then spread south over time. My grandparents who came to the US from Leitrim in the early 20s were still speaking fluent gaelic when I was a boy in the late 50s.<p>

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raymcl@optonline.net

[Jeanne Connell]

About 10 years ago, I took 2 years of Irish language at <br>Villanova University. The teacher was teaching the Ulster dialect.<br>We were taught "Cad e mar ata tu" instead of Conas ta tu also. <br>When she was teaching us, she would say this is how it is said in <br>the north and this is how it is said in the south and this is the<br>way it is said in "book Irish". But in conversation we were to use<br>the Ulster dialect. One dialect isn't better (or more proper than <br>the other, they are just different. <br>
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siobhanabu@home.com

[Seosamh Mac Muirí]

: About 10 years ago, I took 2 years of Irish language at <br>: Villanova University. The teacher was teaching the Ulster dialect.<br>: We were taught "Cad e mar ata tu" instead of Conas ta tu also. <br>: When she was teaching us, she would say this is how it is said in <br>: the north and this is how it is said in the south and this is the<br>: way it is said in "book Irish". But in conversation we were to use<br>: the Ulster dialect. One dialect isn't better (or more proper than <br>: the other, they are just different. <p><br>Roy agus a Chairde, <p>Some time ago the matter of Irish in Ros Comáin came up for discussion and I posted the following piece. <br>(I've just done a search for 'Irish language' here on this site and I find quite a few messages to be read.) <p>An Ghaeilge i Ros Comáin (mar fhreagra ar cheist áirithe) : <p>One may find it hard to realise that Ireland never had as many speakers of Irish as it had just twenty years before your father's time, i. e. the first half of the 19th. c. <br>When linguicide - I think it's the best term - finally sets in, however, its progress is rapid. Under the Acht na dTithe Gaeltachta 1929 the following Electoral Divisions in Co. Ros Comáin were recognised by the Act as being within the limits of the Gaeltacht as set down by the Act : <p>Bealach an Doirín, Ceathrú Riabhach, Crannach, Críoch, Díseart, Cill Caradh and Teach Mac Chonaill. <p>Swaths of Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan, Limerick, Louth and Tipperary were similarly recognised as well as nearly all of the Gaeltacht as it is known to us at present. Thousands of speakers in Armagh, Tyrone/Derry and in Antrim, vanished. (I have tapes of some of them here beside me.) A major Gaeltacht area of some thousands of speakers in EAST Co. Galway has similarly disappeared - mar leá chúr na habhann - like the fading of foam on the river. <p>Quite a bit of Kilmovee Irish is in Heinrich Wagner's LASID = Linguistic Atlas of Ireland which you don't want to buy or carry around for too long. A tiny piece in phonetic script from Ballyfarnon appears in T. Ó Máille's 'Urlabhraíocht' 1927. <p>One person of your fathers era and area was An tAthair Tomás Ó Ceallaigh, Professor of Education in UCG who died 1924. Both a composer and collector, a book of some of the songs 'Ceol na n-oileán' which he had collected in Conamara was republished in 1990 by Cló Iar-Chonnacht, William Mahon of Harvard the editor. Is leabhar Gaeilge é/It's in Irish. <p>Books in English touching on the matter of the language would be 'The Great Silence' by Seán de Fréine, Mercier Press 1978; and 'The Irish Language' by Máirtín Ó Murchú. 'A Dialect of North Roscommon' by one of your own name, An tOllamh P. L. Henry is also a must for you, but it is one that you will only come upon in the reference section of your library or through a loan. <p>While we may lament what has gone during the last century and a half in the east to west wave of anglicisation, let us not forget that the last twenty eight years has witnessed another wave from the same direction, coming from city to province and to many towns. The Gaelscoil system of all-Irish education must have an eventual socio-linguistic payoff. There are probably less hang-ups and less guilt about not having Irish nowadays. That had to happen before anything positive could happen. Check out 'Gaeilge ar an Ghréasán' and delve into the various worlds of Irish out there. Just do a search on 'Gaeilge' and bang on anything that comes up. Check out the Gaelscoileanna site and take a look at the graph. Níl aon rian den 'chrúib is béal' ar Ghaeilg na linne seo! Irish of these times shows no signs of F&M! <p>In conclusion one may say that if north Ros Comáin was 'isolated' in your father's time, so was an awful lot of the rest of Ireland. <br>The language shift in Ireland of that time is remarkable by any standards, in a world spectrum. Historians seem to try to account for the economic collapse - a display of some genocidal tendancies - and yet seem to be blind to the demise, within one a half generations, of the consciousness which makes a people something unto themselves - a language which carries the memory of their entirety before them. When a language goes, it is not just a sound system with grammatical accompaniment that we miss. It is what is carried within the language, a system of conscious and subconscious thought. A subjectivity and a unique view of the world. The modern Gaeltacht we ought to view in this light of survival and continuation of an unbroken link. <p>Go n-éirí leat - Best wishes <p><p><p><p><br>

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Seosamh.macmuiri@ul.ie