Madam, - Ever since Daniel O'Connell set himself to discard the cultural heritage of Ireland in view of the "superior utility of the English tongue", there have been plenty of poor creatures willing to follow his ignorant example.
Niall Ginty (July 21st) goes so far as to speak of the "more sophisticated and widely spoken" English language. Certainly English will continue to be widely used internationally, in exchanges of information and goods, for another two or three generations perhaps, until such time as the economies of India and the Far East eclipse that of America.
In the meantime, English is, as Michael Hartnett in one of his later poems remarked, "the perfect language to sell pigs in". We will all continue to use it at such a level, but quantity is not quality.
English is not an especially sophisticated language, despite Mr Ginty's assertion that it is so. English-speaking monoglots may well consider its chief dramatist, William Shakespeare to be the worshipful summit of Western literature but that wayward genius from the residual Celtic village of Stratford on Avon can hold only a very fitful candle to the Athenian dramatists of the 5th century BC or to such of his near contemporaries as Calderon in Spain or Corneille in France.
By comparison with English, the Irish language displays a great sophistication from an early period, which is to say, from the eighth century and earlier. In Early Irish Law this sophistication shows itself in such matters as the laws regarding marriage and divorce, eg Cáin Lánamna, or in such gems of legal fiction as the concept of "trespass by bees". In literature, one witness is Colman Mac Lénéni, who died in 604. Another is the distinction to be made between grádh Éagmuise and grádh teagmhuise, which a scholar of the eminence of the late Francis Shaw, SJ, failed to make.
The late 11th century work, Aislinge Meic Conglinne, is highly sophisticated. Much of the classical poetry, written between the 12th and 17th centuries is subtle and sophisticated in style and language. Similarly the occasional verse imitating Provencal models, the amour courtois of aristocrats such as Gerald FitzGerald and Pierce Ferriter. Aristocratic too is the basis of such supposedly folk-poetry as A Sheáin Uí Dhuibhir an Ghleanna, at least in the opinion of the historian Patrick Corish.
In our own day, it is unnecessary to stress the sophistication of writers such as Máirtin Ó Cadhain or Gabriel Rosenstock.
Niall Ginty does no service to Ulster Scots, when he reckons it to be a subject of "Barney" along with Gaelic. It was Irish, or "Common Gaelic", speakers coming from Scotland, who first taught Northumbrians to compose literature in their Anglian vernacular. Scots is the lineal descendant of the language of these Northern English Angles, and Ulster Scots is a regional Irish offshoot of this language from Scotland
Now that Ulster Scots has obtained official recognition we may hope that it will flourish to the benefit of us all in close proximity to the Irish language, under whose tutelage its ancestral vernacular took its first steps along the path of literate sophistication. - Yours, etc,
GEARÓID Ó CLÉRIGH, Goatstown, Dublin 14.