That's one odd titke, AG. Where'd it come from?
That's one odd titke, AG. Where'd it come from?
http://www.hagsheadpress.com/images/callmother_big.jpg
I've never really done a book review before but here goes nothing!
I read call mother a lonely field by Liam Carson in work today. It is a memoir, focusing mainly on the author's years growing up in Belfast, his parents, and the family's relationship with the Irish language. By the 20th century, the Irish language had largely died out in the area that was to become Northern Ireland, but Nationalists in Belfast and elsewhere, including the author's parents, took it on themselves to learn Irish. This book is brief, only a little over 100 pages long. I can't think of a more elegant way of saying it, this book has absolutely fucking blown me away. It is bittersweet, at times hilarious, other times profoundly sad. There were parts where I was literally laughing out loud and in other sections I had to read through tears. The author packs so much in. His style is economical but deceptive in a sense. Using few words he conjurs a vivid lost world. His evocation of his father, a renowned Belfast amateur scholar of the Irish language and culture, and his mother are affectionate without ever becoming fawning. Carson's father was a postman by trade which brought him familiarity and friendship with a cross section of the community in his area on both sides of the divide. His account of his parents', especially his mother's physical and mental deterioration is just heart-rending. In the narrative he weaves in asides on multiple topics, comics, sci-fi, punk rock, childhood games, dementia, the Troubles, the Gaeltacht, Esperanto and other things that have featured in his own and his parents' lives.
That sounds like a pretty interesting subject.
Was this a pretty big movement? I admit I don't know too much about the relationship between Irish and English in Ireland, just that now there are very few who speak Irish as a first language and that seems to only be on the West coast of the Republic.Quote:
Nationalists in Belfast and elsewhere, including the author's parents, took it on themselves to learn Irish.
This is going to be a very long, so apologies.Quote:
Originally posted by Myrnalene
Well, with our War of Independence and prior to that, there was an emphasis on a revival of the Gaelic culture of this island, which had essentially been capitulating to English over previous centuries. The Famine was the last major blow to the language as many (perhaps most?) of those who suffered worst during those years were primarily Irish speakers. The last major bulk of Irish speakers in the country eithered succumbed to famine and disease or emigrated to the Americas and elsewhere where they stopped speaking Irish. In the latter decades of the 19th century came the Gaelic Revival, and anglophone intellectuals, artists, and patriots from the cities went to these diminished but still vibrant Irish speaking areas to learn the language and traditions.
Many of the Irish War of Independence leaders were proponents of Irish as a living, working language. To quote Padraig Pearse "Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam", essentially a nation without its own language has no soul... I don't necessarily agree with that but I understand the sentiment.
Anyway, after the formation of the two states on this island, the Free State (latterly the Republic) emphasised the primacy of Irish language in the national life, hence Irish is still an offical language, even though it has a relative paucity of speakers. In Northern Ireland, which was more avowedly British, Anglophone, Irish nationalists therein took to learning Irish as expressing their cultural nationhood when political nationhood looked impossible.
The Donegal Gaeltacht is very close to Northern Ireland, so there has always been a connection between Irish speakers from that area and Derry and Belfast. A lot of Irish speakers from those areas moved to the cities of Northern Ireland for work and met people who wanted to learn Irish. Irish lessons became optional but common for children over the age of 11 in NI. Because identity and politics were so tightly linked in the north, there was more impetus to learn and speak Irish in many parts and consequently Northern Ireland has a couple of small, urban gaeltachts, something that the Republic does not have. Shaw's Road in Belfast is the most successful and famous Irish speaking area in the North.
Political prisoners, who had lots of time to learn, often became fluent in Irish behind bars in the "jailteacht" (pun on gaeltacht). I notice when I visit Northern Ireland that lots of people are willing to speak in Irish, perhaps more than you would generally encounter in the Republic. However, those who are fluent either side of the border are a small minority.
I hope this long winded post explains a bit.