Congratulations Ireland!!!!!

Drapper

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

true - it does reflect what it means to be irish..... squandering money.

thats the spirit m8 ! ;-)

Drapper

toiletduck wrote:

so is druidism, worshipping celtic gods, the brehan laws... should we follow these aswell, so we can assert our "Irishness"

Yes, is there anyone pushing it for recognition?

toiletduck

i sincerly hope not!

Drapper

toiletduck wrote:

i sincerly hope not!

care to say why? seen as you raised it?

toiletduck

i dont think "Irishness" (whatever the hell that is) is defined by our clinging to what our ancestors spoke, believed or did. I dont believe ploughing money into a dying language is a good idea

Drapper

toiletduck wrote:

i dont think "Irishness" (whatever the hell that is) is defined by our clinging to what our ancestors spoke, believed or did. I dont believe ploughing money into a dying language is a good idea

we plough money in Latin and other old classic languages why not Irish?

toiletduck

Drapper wrote:

we plough money in Latin and other old classic languages why not Irish?

really? i didnt know that all government documents, road signs and EU documents were translated into latin. Im not aware of any state funded latin tv stations (although i do enjoy tg4!).

simu

Eh, okay - this thread is a bit strange as it started out in AH. This is a warning to people to discuss the topic of the thread from here on rather than going off on tangents about "scumbags" and what not.

simu

Kingsize

A mate of mine had an interesting conspiracy theory about IRISH which basically was that the decline of the use of the language was propogated by
the government (post civil war) as a means of social control .
It became the secret language of the elite & soon declined throughout the 30's & 40's.
Census figures do show that the decline in the use of irish happened After British rule, i.e.when ireland was the governer of its own destiny. although in school we were always led to think that if it wasn't for "the brits" we'd all be ag caint gailge.
ignoring the fact that if it wasnt for the same "brits" we might all be speaking German it still seems to me that succesive Irish governments from the inception of the state onward have done their best to wipe this language out
(inadvertantly or otherwise)
Lets also not forget that the "official eu language" campaign was started by a small non government group who managed to drum up a lot of support through emails & online petitions & by lobbying TDS.

Drapper

Kingsize wrote:

A mate of mine had an interesting conspiracy theory about IRISH which basically was that the decline of the use of the language was propogated by
the government (post civil war) as a means of social control .
It became the secret language of the elite & soon declined throughout the 30's & 40's.
Census figures do show that the decline in the use of irish happened After British rule, i.e.when ireland was the governer of its own destiny. although in school we were always led to think that if it wasn't for "the brits" we'd all be ag caint gailge.
ignoring the fact that if it wasnt for the same "brits" we might all be speaking German it still seems to me that succesive Irish governments from the inception of the state onward have done their best to wipe this language out
(inadvertantly or otherwise)
Lets also not forget that the "official eu language" campaign was started by a small non government group who managed to drum up a lot of support through emails & online petitions & by lobbying TDS.

Disagree with this, read the history books! the demise of Irish came from the British and the use of English as the "langauge of prosperity" ! A clever way to control the Irish. Legal, education and social system was changed to facilitate this. Hence, no english no education no job and hence no life!!

Its true there has been considerable demise since 1947 but the catalyst was started long ago!

Kingsize

Agreed about the catalyst but surely at some stage we (the irish ) had it in our own hands to change things & blew it (which was my point)
one only has to look at the Welsh language revival of the 60's & 70's to see how effective the proper promotion of a second language can work.
however pehaps a certain level of genuine national pride is required to acheive this

(as opposed to singing "the fields of athenry" every now & again when your pissed..i.e.There are plenty of people who are "proud to be Irish" but not to the extent of actually throwing their litter in a bin or anything like that )

Drapper

Kingsize wrote:

Agreed about the catalyst but surely at some stage we (the irish ) had it in our own hands to change things & blew it (which was my point)
one only has to look at the Welsh language revival of the 60's & 70's to see how effective the proper promotion of a second language can work.
however pehaps a certain level of genuine national pride is required to acheive this

(as opposed to singing "the fields of athenry" every now & again when your pissed..i.e.There are plenty of people who are "proud to be Irish" but not to the extent of actually throwing their litter in a bin or anything like that )

I would love to see a revival ! but its too late............ yes your right about Wales! but the Irish Gov as you've said seems to have taken the same route as the former rullers!

blah

I think that if we want Gaelige to be an official language, we should all start speaking it as our first language. Documents and conversation in meetings being translated by the EU should have a purpose, it should be because it's a requirement of the participants eg the MEPs etc. If those people are native english speakers then they should (and they are still going to) make use of the english versions.
The money would be a lot better spent on improving the image of Irish and encouraging people to use it here in everyone's daily lives.

Recognising Irish as an official language is pointless if it's not spoken by nearly all of the population here. The cost is too high simply to boost its profile internationally.

Why not translate documents into esperanto and klingon as well, since the translation is purely an academic exercise anyway.

Someone has mentioned previously that Luxemburgish is in the same situation, an official EU language, but not really used in Luxemburg. If this is so, then that's another waste of money.

electrode

It's a pure waste of money. Can't understand why anyone could bother to apply for the thing in the first place.

electrode

It's a pure waste of money. Can't understand why anyone would bother to apply for it in the first place.

joe.

What if in a few generations time there was very few Irish speakers left as people gradually stopped speaking it. Imagine if you were born then. Would you be curious as to what it was like? How it sounded? How it was written? Would you like to be able to read,write and understand it? I know I would. At least this way it will be kept alive and I'm all for it.

Drapper

joe. wrote:

What if in a few generations time there was very few Irish speakers left as people gradually stopped speaking it. Imagine if you were born then. Would you be curious as to what it was like? How it sounded? How it was written? Would you like to be able to read,write and understand it? I know I would. At least this way it will be kept alive and I'm all for it.

Very well put! Totaly agree