Irish is a living language that safeguards Ireland’s soul

Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam. Even if you are just one of the “cúpla focal” brigade, you will most probably recognise the phrase - “A country without a language is a country without a soul.”

It harks back to the earliest language revivalists in the century past and their attempts to codify in a few words the importance of the Irish language to Ireland. It is an older version of "Yes, we can!" if you will.

Those early revivalists, lacking money and influence, were most definitely rolling Sisyphus’s rock up the hill. They began the fight for the Irish language - and in particular the Gaeltacht - when Ireland was united but part of the British Empire. (“Why do we need Irish? Everyone speaks English.”) Ireland is now partitioned but the words still true in both jurisdictions for those who speak the language.

It is entirely appropriate that questions as to how effectively the language is promoted and supported, North and South, are asked. It is right and proper that politicians and political parties are scrutinised about what they say and what they do, North and South. It is right, proper and encouraging that the future of the Gaeltacht is a topic of public debate and that the means to keep the language alive in its cradle are discussed and implemented.

After all, a language community is a fairly simple thing - it is people who live in the same place speaking the same language!

Undoubtedly, the Gaeltacht gives the language its authority - the Gaeltacht is the unbroken link back through the centuries that ties the Irish speaker in Dublin and Belfast with the language as it once was, as a language that stretched from coast to coast - and still does, just about! At the risk of pointing out the obvious, the place names of Ireland show that much. There is other evidence too in literature and song - but not always as readily available to the average English speaker or, indeed, Irish speaker.

Yet the Gaeltacht is both a physical and metaphysical entity. The physical borders - those little An Ghaeltacht signs - do not mean that you cross over from one territory to another, like you pass from France to Germany, with a resulting uniform language shift. They are more like a promise that, out there in the landscape, you will, eventually, find a native speaker, much as you will, eventually, find a whale in the Atlantic. (Do you find the whale any less magnificent, any less wondrous, because they are so few?)

As children and adults prepare for their courses in the summer colleges we accept that they will find Irish or, at the very least, that Irish will be brought to them in the Gaeltacht. We should be amazed that it is happening at all. The fact that there are traditional Gaeltacht regions of native speakers in seven of Ireland’s 32 counties is astounding. The fact that there are still pockets of native speakers in all four of Ireland’s provinces is astonishing.

This country has suffered centuries of colonialisation, war, famine, emigration and economic hardship and the Gaeltacht still stands. The Roman Empire has fallen, as has the British one, the Spanish one and the Austro-Hungarian one. The Aztec and Mayans have left nothing behind but dead (and beautiful) stone. And the Gaeltacht survives.

That it is under threat and that it will always be under threat is, unquestionably, true. That we should, with every fibre in our body, do all we can to preserve and support the Gaeltacht is also true. That we are often too busy with other issues is, alas, equally true.

We are not good with metaphysical concepts. Were the Gaeltacht a vineyard, growing a unique grape variety, we would probably easier understand its importance to us and the world. After all, we are all awfully bourgeois now and know the value of a good glass of red!

The Gaeltacht is as much a faith community as it is a linguistic one. In a very profound way, native speakers, and many other Irish speakers, have kept faith with the language; every word uttered is a prayer, a verbal expression in praise of another kingdom, a sigh from this Vale of Linguistic Tears.

Therein is one of the biggest challenges facing language groups. A country without a language is a country without a soul. A soul? The dominant culture in which we move is one in which value is placed on what can be bought, sold and screwed. It is easy enough to sell your soul but impossible to buy one. How do you protect a faith community; how do you get more people to join the prayer group?

Pól Ó Muirí is Irish Language Editor