Amú in Aistriúchán/Lost in Translation

This could be termed a bad blog, bad in the sense that I am simply reprinting an address I gave to the 21st annual Douglas Hyde Conference in Co Roscommon over a week ago on the theme Amú in Aistriúchán/Lost in Translation. Hopefully, you will find something of merit in it and I hope it adds something useful to the on-going debate on the language.

Amú in Aistriúchán

I have taken a very liberal view of my brief for this presentation. Indeed, some might go so far as to suggest that I have ignored it but I hope I not. What I would like to do is offer something a little more anecdotal on this theme – the perspective of a journalist and writer who has been amú in aistriúchán for many years and, God willing, will continue to be amú in aistriúchán for many more.

I am also delighted to be invited to events like this – though always a little nervous too. I am the archetypical hack in that I will give you 200 words on anything you want, in Irish or English. I will write the right amount of words and deliver them for the dead-line, move on and start again. I write in Irish for the Irish Times on matters pertaining to the language; I write a sports column for the Irish-language weekly, Foinse, called Saighdiúir Samhraidh, and I have just started a monthly column with the Internet magazine, Beo!, which deals with the lighter side of being a parent. In English, I write a column for the Belfast Telegraph on culture – in its broadest definition – and touch on politics. That is a very rough summing-up of my journalistic career so far.

The name on the columns is, of course, Pól Ó Muirí. However, there is an element of amú in aistriúchán there. My contemporaries from school and my child-hood neighbours from Belfast would have known me only as Paul Murray. The translation to Ó Muirí is as every bit as exotic to them as if I had changed my name to Marilyn Monroe. So there is Pól Ó Muirí the journalist and Paul Murray, his shadow. I have to say too that Paul Murray is alive and well. He is to be seen on Ulster’s handball courts where he has been playing handball for over 27 years and has managed, in all that time, to win next to nothing. Pól Ó Muirí may have landed himself a job with the Irish Times but the only way Paul Murray will ever win a national handball title is if he is drawn against Pól Ó Muirí in the final – and even then I would not put money on him winning.

I am not that old – only 42 – but old enough to remember a time in West Belfast when the number of Irish speakers could have all fitted into one small hall. The numbers of people speaking Irish since my youth has certainly grown but the language is still something that many people – both nationalist and unionist – don’t come in touch with.

In this context, I should mention that the Belfast Telegraph – or the Tele – is considered a unionist newspaper and I think I am right in saying that I am the first Irish speaker to have his own column – replete with síniú fada – in it. Not that I spend every week writing about the Irish language. I don’t. Even though the column is in English , there is an element of translation involved in writing about matters pertaining to Irish. I usually write about 1,100 words on six or seven issues. That usually means that if I am writing about the Irish language that I need to introduce the topic in question, give some sort of background information and then make my point as succinctly as I can.

Not surprisingly, there are many people of a unionist background who do not know anything about the Irish language – or if they do know something it may be a negative connotation, one associated with Sinn Féin or the Provisional IRA. Something has certainly been lost in the translation of Hyde’s vision in the North. Language matters are certainly still contentious in the North. The cultural battle lines between the DUP and Sinn Féin are quite starkly drawn – though one need not accept those battle lines.

The difficulty for both parties is that they appeal to fundamentalist cultural positions. For Sinn Féin, the language issue still remains one of cultural counter symbol – it is not English; it is recognisably something that pertains to Ireland; it is native expression. That is not to say, that there are not Irish speakers in Sinn Féin who value the language as language. There are but their party has its own baggage.

I think the DUP accept Sinn Féin’s definition of Irish. They do see it as a threat to their understanding of what it means to be British. That there are people – even now from a unionist/Protestant background – who speak Irish is something that makes them feel uncomfortable.

As a counter-weight the DUP have had to invent Ulster-Scots, a fiction that they promote as being exclusive to their voters, ie, unionists. The difficulty is that Ulster-Scots or Scots in Ulster – I will leave the definition – is spoken by many in North Antrim who are of a nationalist and Catholic background. The fact that they would not regard themselves as British is simply ignored by the DUP. Ignored too is the fact that Robbie Burns, that great poet of Scots, was a firm favourite of the Catholic Irish-speaking navvies and agricultural workers who crossed over from Donegal (and Mayo too) to take seasonal work in Scotland.

Indeed, Séamus Ó Grianna, author of Nuair a bhí mé óg and Saol Corrach, quotes Burns in his writings. To add to the irony, Ó Grianna took part in the War of Independence and sided with the anti-Treaty forces in the Civil War. I don’t imagine the DUP, however, will be celebrating his contribution to Ulster-Scots culture any time soon.

Things become even more complicated for both parties when we consider that Scots Gaelic and Welsh are both spoken in Britain and the promotion of those languages challenge the very narrow definition of what languages are and who uses them. It has certainly been an education watching the DUP oppose the promotion of Irish on the grounds that it is nothing to do with them while watching Irish speakers counter with the claim that in Britain Scots Gaelic and Welsh both enjoy measures of legislative protection.

Of course, the irony is that some of the more green-tinted Gaeilgeoirí can’t bear to use the name “Northern Ireland” and prefer to refer to the place as “the Six Counties”. Needless to say, it is not edifying but it may point to the fact that people in the North are tripping towards some understanding of Irish in the context of these islands. One often hears of areas of my home city, Belfast, as being ‘interfaces’. In truth, I think the North is one large interface – an area that has historical links with Scotland in particular due to Plantation and also more peaceful and more ancient social interaction between Irish speakers on either side of the Sea of Moyle.

Further, the North is an area where Irish is still very much lost in translation – translation into English – and it provides an alternative linguistic model to that in this State. People may and do give off here about what is termed ‘compulsory’ Irish but how much poorer we would all be if the founders of this State had turned a deaf ear to Hyde and his contemporaries and had continued a policy of compulsory English?

Of course, it is not difficult to envisage such a scheme. Simply go to the Border and watch as the bilingual place-names are replaced by ones in English only. We may all develop a certain language blindness to road signs in Irish and English but it is certainly even odder to find yourself crossing an Irish border and finding signs in English only.

I should mention too that that is not the case in Britain. I was recently in Cardiff and was astounded by how comprehensively the country was blanketed in Welsh/English road signs nor was it simply road signs or official areas that boasted bilingual signage. Street names in Cardiff were in both languages, commercial shops had bilingual signs and I even noticed that Tescos was bilingual.

Whether or not the North gets an Irish-language Act remains to be seen and what effect any act may have on the perception of Irish is also open to debate. Certainly, the status quo is not an option for Irish speakers in the North. Lesser-used languages need visibility in order to remain people that they are there. That is not to say that there have not been attempts by Sinn Féin, for example, to put the language in a public context.

The former SF health minister, Bairbre de Brún, put job adverts in the paper in Irish and it is not uncommon to see announcements on road closures or developments in Irish in the local press. What effect, if any, this has in raising the language’s profile or promoting its use is very debatable. At best, it is a very wooden way of signalling to unionists that the North’s English-only policy is not acceptable and, at worse, it is simply tokenism. And we all know by now that the language does not need tokenism. Are such adverts an example of amú in aistriúchán? They render English into Irish and provide some employment for some one. In the context of the North that is something, not much perhaps, but something.

However, the challenge for Irish speakers will always be to move beyond signage. The question is which is more preferable: bilingual road signs or attracting more Irish speakers from a unionist background to use the language? In an ideal world, you would want both. In an ideal world, a unionist or nationalist using Irish should be no cause for comment but we do not live in an ideal world.

Nor would I over emphasise the nationalist attachment to Irish. That there are many more people who speak Irish now than when I was younger is certainly true. It really is quite startling to see the number of young people who have an attachment to Irish and who have managed, or who are attempting, to carve out a little niche for themselves in the language.

30 odd years ago, at the age of 11, I was given my first formal Irish classes at a Christian Brothers’ Grammar School. I had gone through a Catholic primary system that did not teach Irish in any shape or form. 30 odd years ago I was confronted for the first time with translation from Irish to English and back with First Steps in Irish. What is the Irish for spoon? Where is the spoon? Is the spoon dirty?

Simple sentences that, at the time, were far beyond my ken. I wish I could say that things have changed greatly in the interim. They haven’t really. Many people still learn the language as I learned it; many have no access to Irish at the primary level and must wait until they are 11 before they realise that the language exists – and even then they might attend a school where it is not taught at all. One could become pessimistic in the face of that.

I would hope that that will not always be the case. I would hope that those who speak, write, create in Irish will be recognised as making a genuine and fruitful contribution to culture – irrespective of whatever flag flies over Stormont and that we can replace amú with abú!

DRB

The Autumn issue of the Dublin Review of Books is now on-line. I have a review (in English) on the Irish language. It is quite long so I won't reprint it here. You can access the DRB at www.drb.ie I should mention too that even if you are not interested in the Irish that there are some other, very interesting, reviews in this quarter's issue.

The Southern Budget 2008: Margaret Thatcher Would Be Proud

In a sickening act of right-wing piracy, the southern government has thrust a financial knife into the heart of working people by landing them with a budget that will make their lives misery.

At a time when most ordinary people in the south are having to tighten their belts to make ends meet, the Fianna Fáil/ Green/ PD administration is more interested in tightening the noose around their necks.

Among the jewels unfurled by Brian Lenihan and hurled at an unwitting public today were a massive 8c leap in tax on a litre of petrol, a half-percentage point jump in the already astronomically high VAT rate, and a 1% income levy on gross earnings up to €100,100.

And to add insult to injury, quite literally, the already grossly inadequate public health system has been boosted in its inability to deliver thanks to the abolition of the automatic entitlement to a medical card for over-70s. In addition, Accident and Emergency charges will be doubled to €100. God forbid something bad might ever happen.

Surely the fundamental basis of any public health system is to help people in medical need without asking for them to fork out for the privilege.

Clearly that’s not the case in the south.

In addition, university ‘registration fees’ have leapt up to €1,500 from a maximum of €980-per-year. Are the university admin offices filling out the forms in liquid gold using diamond-nibbed fountain pens?

Plus classroom sizes are set to mushroom, news that came as a shock to teaching unions.

Whatever happened to all the cash raised by the Celtic Tiger? Billions were flowing into the southern exchequer each year for over a decade, but now the economic climate has turned frosty it has become painfully clear that there has been no contingency built up by the government to cover such a rainy day scenario. Instead, hard-working low- to middle-income families, already facing spiralling energy and foods costs, are having to fork-out even more hard-earned cash to bail out the government.

Yes friends, the days of high-tax/ low-spend are back.

Unrestrained Free Market Capitalism On Its Knees

The cavalier approach of the world's financial institutions in recent years has come back to bite them with spades in recent weeks and now we see the ultimate humiliation of unrestrained free market capitalism with the UK's leading banks having to go with the begging bowl to the British government to ensure their very survival.

For too long, the banks have been allowed too much free-reign to play dangerous games with vast amounts of money with no restriction. Given the dependence of functional society on the smooth operation of the markets and the steadiness of business, it was criminally negligent to allow highly-paid bonus-laden idiots in the City to play Russian Roulette with the world's welfare.

The Financial Services Authority has now told the four biggest banks to work out how much money they need to stay afloat in a worst case scenario- in return, the banks will have to cede a significant level of control to the government which, among other things, could involve them having to curb executive pay and agree to resume normal lending to individuals and small businesses. It's believed that the government will have to stump up funds to the tune of £50bn to cover this venture. The ultimate goal is to steady the market and stem the flow of confidence from the system. While it can't exactly be described as nationalisation, it does involve government intervention on a scale unseen in recent times.

This is the death knell of Thatcherism, that most irresponsible and self-serving of 'ideologies'.

Good riddance.

'That One'

In an appallingly bad piece of phraseology, John McCain has stooped to new levels in the US Presidential campaign. At last night's debate in Nashville, Tennessee, between McCain and Barack Obama, the Republican candidate was speaking about an energy bill from 2005 and said: "You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one," while gesticulating towards Obama. "You know who voted against it? Me."

This was astonishing given the language fascism shown by the McCain campaign, not least over Obama's lipstick-on-a-pig remarks. But given America's history of treating black people as objects rather than people, to ditch the courtesy of 'Senator', 'Mr Obama' or simply 'Barack' in favour of "that one" is a ridiculous slip. McCain's lack of respect for Obama is amazing- how many times have we heard "he doesn't understand" coming out of his mouth? McCain might have experience, but he hasn't used it wisely.

As Obama stretches his lead over McCain ever more, the Republicans' desperation is becoming ever more evident. Keep it coming McCain- you're just making yourself looking like an ill-tempered idiot.

‘Shocked, dismayed, disappointed, disillusioned’

Sinn Féin Education Minister, Caitríona Ruane, announced last week that she was not going to support a development proposal for Coláiste Speirín in Cookstown, Co Tyrone. Coláiste Speirín was set up to provide second level education through the medium of Irish in the area. Ruane said: “My Department has a duty to encourage and facilitate the provision of Irish-medium education, but I must be satisfied that proposals for a new school will lead to viable schools providing good quality education for their pupils.

“I have considered this proposal very carefully and I have met with, and listened to, those involved. I am not convinced that this proposal would achieve sustainable intakes and that the proposed funding arrangements with Coláiste Feirste would represent a good way forward to deliver post-primary provision for the area in the medium of Irish. I recognise that there is a demand for post-primary provision in the area and there needs to be a full exploration of options which could deliver sustainable provision.”

She said that Coláiste Speirín had 6 pupils enrolled during 2007/08 and three for 2008/09. To qualify for funding the school would have needed an intake of 50 new pupils. As a result, the school was not “viable”.

One of the school’s founders, Cathal Ó Donnghaile, said Irish speakers in Mid-Ulster were shocked, dismayed, disappointed, disillusioned and indignant about the decision. He said that the school did not expect to be recognised as a free-standing school but as a unit of a larger, already established school, a model that was already in use in the North. He said that had Ruane and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness provided “the necessary leadership” when the proposal was sent in January 2008, then more parents would have enrolled their children for this year.

He has been involved in 60 projects relating to education through Irish over 15 years and many of them were deemed “unviable” by the authorities. He criticised the decision as being “bad” and said that it was “a sad day for Tyrone and Mid-Ulster, and indeed for the whole country. Coláiste Speirín was the only non-funded school in Ireland. The Minister had the opportunity to turn this situation around; instead both she and her party have failed the wider Gaelic-loving community. If this policy were to continue, it would have very negative ramifications for the language revival and everything good it represents throughout this jurisdiction.”

Ironically, it is a hundred years since Patrick Pearse founded the first Irish-language school, Scoil Éanna, in Dublin. I wonder what he would make of Ruane’s decision?

Arsing About

It's not often that a politician manages to sum up perfectly a situation, but hats off to Reg Empey. The Ulster Unionist leader, speaking at the Tory conference, commented that Sinn Féin are saying "no Executive" until policing and justice is sorted at a time when the Executive could be dealing with the fuel poverty issue. He added that a package was on the table from Margaret Ritchie to help people with fuel this winter, but "we’re arsing about on an argument that means nothing to people in the short term. It's a shame and disgrace."

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Policing and Justice certainly matters, but until it's sorted there is other important business that needs dealing with. With winter approaching, it's about time some of our politicians got their priorities straight. This isn't a zero-sum game- progress needs to take place on the devolution of policing and justice, but that doesn't mean everything else has to come to a standstill in the meantime.