Ireland As We Would Surely Have Her
Humanities
HIS 196E Modern Ireland
From its independence from Great Britain to the present day, the Irish government has struggled to preserve and spread the Irish language. Despite the language's importance to Irish nationalism and the revolutionary attitude that culminated in Irish independence from Great Britain, the government's efforts to teach the Irish language and prevent the assimilation of the communities that still speak it have largely failed to restore Irish as the preferred language of the island. This paper addresses an understudied subject in both Irish and language history. While much is known about the role of the Gaelic Revival in the Irish nationalist movement of the early 20th century, relatively little comprehensive knowledge is written regarding the Irish government's failure to revive the language. This paper looks at the role of the Irish language in Irish in the Republican movement, the effects of the Irish Civil War on the cause of the language revival, and the consequences of the Anglo-Irish Trade War on the nation's public spending. This paper will argue the combination of the disillusionment produced by the Irish Civil War and the emerging economic needs of the Irish state diverted government spending away from education and greatly contributed to the state's inaction in economically protecting the Irish Gaeltacht, ultimately culminating in the failure to preserve the Irish language where it was spoken and spread it to the rest of the nation. This paper examines reports, speeches, short stories, and parliamentary debates to construct an image of the Irish language's cultural and political importance, and the Irish government's failure to revive the language in the way envisioned by its founders.
