Sunday, October 12, 2014

The end or "What good is Irish this side of Maam Cross?"

This is a CineGael film, directed by Bob Quinn with commentary by Desmond Fennell, made some decades ago. I found it on the stimulating TGcóa YouTube site. Well worth a look!

What has the government done to serve the people of the Gaeltacht before or since?  It would appear to have been taken over by those, in the words of our President, "for whom the language is not dead enough!" President Michael D Higgins has said that to prevent people from speaking their own language is a denial of human rights.  Addressing an international conference last year (May 2013), he said rights are denied when people are discouraged from speaking a language or when a language is allowed to become subordinate in usage.

Read also "Waiting for eggs for omelettes since 1892!" for an assessment of current affairs as of December 2013. Is it too much to ask that the call of Ireland's first President in 1892 be listened to again?

Has the Government of Ireland, or indeed any state agency, done anything at all to discourage, never mind to halt, this subordination of the Constitutionally recognised language of the historic Irish nation used and fostered by the people of the Gaeltacht for millenia?

Watch this 30 minute film from the early eighties!