I've been gadding around the Donegal Gaeltacht in recent weeks. The first thing you notice are the roadside signs, erected by Údaráas na Gaeltachta, which state boldly: "An Ghaeltacht".
They are reminiscent of those old spy movies set in Berlin with the famous "Checkpoint Charlie" sign stuck in the background.
I've experienced something of the same dislocation on occasions as I leave the "An Ghaeltacht" sign behind me with a wearied groan. The physical border may well be marked, but the linguistic one within tends not to correspond with the sign.
I've come to regard these signs as little more than indicators, markers of potential meetings, a written promise rather than a legally binding contract. The Gaeltacht may be a physical entity for Government purposes. For the learner and lover of Irish, however, they are more akin to a seascape - full of tides, eddies, currents - in which swim shoals of speakers. I'm a hippy Irish speaker - I like to swim with the linguistic dolphins.
Charting tides
Charting these tides is what the learner is forced to do. I've been fishing for Irish in one region for many a year and caught absolutely nothing. Not as much as a passing salutation on the street, let alone an irregular verb, a noun uttered under the influence. Then, last year, I met a local who was, alleluia, organising a fight-back in the area to preserve the language. I heard more Irish in an hour than I had in seven years and realised that I'd been going about my search in completely the wrong way. I had a better chance of catching a trout on the top of Errigal than of meeting an Irish-speaker in the area.
Simply put, I didn't know the currents and had reached the conclusion that there was nothing in the sea. But then the sea is like that. They say whales swim in the water. I've never seen one, but I don't doubt that they are there. Visiting the Gaeltacht can be like that. We're looking for whales.
Unquestionably, there is an undercurrent to the debate about the future of the Gaeltacht and the Irish language. The disdain in which many commentators - whatever about the general populace - hold the language rears its ugly head regularly. Irish speakers are baited into discussions. Little lines are floated out, such as "forcing the language down people's throats". (You'll be a long time waiting before you ever hear of immigrants forcing their languages down people's throats.)
More often than not we have a debate which resembles a cultural cod war - the plucky little mariners of the Irish language ramming their currachs against the destroyers and friggers - I mean frigates - of the monocultural English speakers.
Yes, I've been out rowing what the poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill calls my "little language boat" when I've seen one of those huge vessels, SS Compulsory English, perhaps, change course to run me down. "It's for your own good," the captain shouts as he tries to drown me. "You don't know what you're doing," I shout back as I reach for the life-jacket. "We'll all drown in a monocultural sea."
Ignorance about Irish
The ignorance among many cultural commentators about Irish, its history, its circumstances and its developments is profound, matched only by the vitriol used when shouting down Irish-speakers. I got an O-Level in Italian 20 years ago and have never been to that country. I would hesitate to comment on Italy, its language and its literature in print. Having a tin of spaghetti hoops for my tea doesn't, I feel, give me enough insight.
No such barrier inhibits discussion of the Gaeltacht and Irish. The next time you set out to talk about the language, ask yourself the following simple questions: Can you name five living prose writers in Irish? (No, poets don't count.) Can you name any Irish-language newspaper or magazine? Have you read any of them in the past five years? Have you attended any Irish-language function/event in the past five years? Have you spoken to any Irish speaker under the age of 40 in recent memory? Have you stayed in a Gaeltacht region for any length of time or taken a course?
Fishing with hand-grenade
No? You're a fisherman without a rod, without a boat, without a clue. Indeed, might I suggest that you're the kind of fisherman who likes to catch his fish with a hand-grenade - just lob it in the water and watch all the bodies float to the surface, maimed, mutilated. Sure you couldn't eat something like that. Little surprise, then, that there is so little interest in preserving stocks.
To complete the fishy metaphor, many of you will be familiar with the story of Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the salmon of knowledge. Fionn caught the salmon and was charged with cooking it but, under no circumstances, was he to eat it. He burnt his thumb, however, while preparing the fish and sucked on the blister. With that, he gained the gift of foresight. He became intuitive, gifted, cursed.
Irish speakers are like that. You might like to think we're sucking our thumbs like petulant children. In actual fact, we're just checking the currents.
Gone fishing, a dhaoine uaisle, and I'm going to land me a big one.