Rite and Reason: The President, Mrs McAleese, has been criticised for using phrases such as 'God willing' . Kevin Williams argues that such expressions are part of our culture.
Polish-American author, Eva Hoffman, recalls that her secular, Jewish mother, when exasperated, used to say "Jesus, Joseph and the Sainted Maria". The expression captures the intimate connection between culture and religion that can sometimes be found in language.
In Italian, for example, the religious dimension of such expressions as Madonna!, Madonna mia!, O Dio aiuto (God help us), Che peccato! (What a pity! - literally What a sin) and Vai a quel paese (Go to hell) is probably negligible. Yet people over 40 there still say Grazie a Dio (thanks be to God) as an expression of genuine gratitude towards God, as they do in Spanish (Gracias a Dios).
In the Irish language the relationship between faith and culture is very marked. Perception of this relationship prompted the famous comments from Éamon de Valera that the language is "the bearer to us of a philosophy, of an outlook on life deeply Christian and rich in practical wisdom".
The language illustrates very clearly what John McGahern refers to as a "ghostly rhythm" in Irish culture where the interpenetration of the sacred with the secular is very obvious.
Idioms which make reference to God are quite common. Dia Dhuit, Dia's Muire Dhuit, Dia's Muire Dhuit 's Pádraig and Beannacht Dé Ort are everyday salutations (similar to Grüss Gott used in parts of the German-speaking world and Namasté in Hindi).
The invocations of God have a reality in these idioms which is certainly lost in the English "good-bye" and the Spanish adíos. Even in Irish there are words such as An Chéadaoin, Déardaoin and An Aoine - meaning first fast, middle fast, and fast - which have lost their liturgical significance.
To be sure, there are many common expressions such as buíochas le dia, le cúnamh Dé, bail ó dhia ar an obair or go cumhdaí dia sibh which can be replaced by secular idioms - just as it is possible to avoid using the expression Grüss Gott, with its religious connotations.
But only in informal greetings can an Irish-speaker, believer or atheist, avoid the reference to God in Dia Dhuit. The theological orientation of this mindset is also tellingly evoked in the use of the wonderfully sensitive term duine le Dia to describe a person who is learning disabled.
As in Italy and in the Spanish and Portuguese speaking worlds, the Virgin Mary has a very prominent profile in Ireland. This is expressed in the use of a special word Muire, to refer to the Virgin Mary, that is distinct from the Christian name Máire. Its use in the term Muire na nGael suggests something of special place attributed to Mary in Irish culture.
The "ghostly rhythm" of the language with its orientation to God does not lend itself to certain changes. Recently I have noted that some secular English-speakers, who are having their children educated through Irish, use the totally non-Irish expression maidin maith (good morning), which is about as appropriate as translating Bon appétit as "Good appetite". It would in fact be less alien to Irish culture to say "Hi" or "Hello".
The "ghostly rhythm" that gives expression to a religious worldview can assert itself almost unselfconsciously. I once attended a seminar on Relationships and Sexuality Education at which a representative of the Department of Education and Science in Ireland gave an impeccably liberal, neutral and sensitive address on the subject.
Yet in a presentation in Irish on the theme that she gave later, sexual intercourse was referred to as an gníomh giniúna (the procreative or generative act). This implicit endorsement of a Catholic view on sexuality was entirely absent in English. A Catholic orientation to moral theology was communicated via the language the speaker used, rather than because she believed that every sexual act must be open to the transmission of life.
I am not claiming that to speak Irish presupposes religious belief. Yet the prevalence of religious idiom does suggest the enduring place of religious commitment in the heart and minds of the people of Ireland. And in speaking the language of a culture of which religion remains a salient feature, we must enter to some extent into the religious and the moral life of its people.
Dr Kevin Williams works in the Mater Dei Institute, Dublin City University. This article is based on research supported by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences.