Let’s face it, folks: Ireland now has three official languages, not two, and it’s time we adjusted the Constitution accordingly. No more than myself, you too are probably sick of referendums, but needs must. (Yes, it’s “referendums” now, no longer “referenda”).
Article 8 of our Constitution states that: “The Irish language as the national language is the first official language.” And that: “The English language is recognised as a second official language.” No mention there of the vernacular, our unacknowledged, unrecognised, but passionately used “third official language”.
You can’t go anywhere in Ireland – Gaeltacht or “Galltacht” – without hearing it spoken, even among those born in other countries. It’s even more popular than Polish now, officially, the third most frequently spoken language in Ireland.
What is remarkable is how (or why) this was ignored in the 1930s when they were drawing up our Constitution, because, as anyone who saw the recent Netflix series House of Guinness now knows, the vernacular was hugely popular in Ireland as far back as the mid-19th century.
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There is little doubt this surprised many. Even more so was a realisation that it was spoken at all levels of Irish society, among all classes. Okay, liberties may have been taken with historical fact in that series, where each episode did carry the advice that: “This fiction is inspired by true stories.”
Still, it was the first time that any internationally successful series included generous examples of Ireland’s three official languages: Irish, English plus copious examples of the vernacular. For that alone we should be grateful to House of Guinness.
The vernacular has always been there but it is only in recent decades it has been accepted, if reluctantly, in “respectable” circles. Much credit for that must go to that “Madonna of the F-word”, Mrs Doyle in Father Ted.
Who will ever forget the thrill of recognition that caused so many Irish hearts to flutter in 1995 as Mrs Doyle began, gently, with: “It’s a bit much for me, Father. `Feck this’ and `Feck that’. `You big fecker.’ Fierce stuff! And of course the F-word, Father, the bad F-word. Worse than ‘feck’. You know the one I mean?”
He did. Don’t we all!
Vernacular, from Latin vernaculus, for “native, indigenous”.
