A chara, - I am writing to remind your readers that Sunday, May 7th marked the 10th anniversary of the sudden death of Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich, the most prestigious leader in the Irish language movement in the second half of the 20th century, if not since the Dr Douglas Hyde era.
As a historian of European stature, he was qualified to point out that Irish was the first settled language in Western Europe - at least a thousand years before, for instance, the emergence of the English language in Britain. His books, also, of course, illustrated the impact early Irish missionaries had on Continental culture.
But Tomas was not only a historian, he was also a man of action. He chaired the group which launched An Fainne Nua in 1964 and it was he who created the annual Glor na nGael competitions.
However, perhaps his most lasting work for the language was the Report of the Commission on the Restoration of the Irish language, a commission which he chaired from 1958 until it reported in 1963 and into which I, as a member, saw him put enormous energy during those years and into the drafting of the 400 page report itself.
That report is the bible for anyone seriously interested in promoting Irish. Its recommendations were not rejected by government, merely evaded for close on 40 years.
The latest example of this evasion in the promise of a language Bill apparently to satisfy the demands of that small minority who demand service through Irish from the State. There is no need for any legislation to meet a central and realistic recommendation in the Commission's report: implement a plan whereby, over a number of years, the internal work in civil service and other public sector offices would increasingly be conducted through Irish. Today this is not the reality even in some sections of Roinn na Gaeltachta.
A thought for Sunday on Tomas's anniversary: as a Northern realist he did not understand the amazing Southern capacity for political evasion of duty. - Is mise,
Donal O Morain, An Charraig Dhubh, Co Bhaile Atha Cliath.