Taking a forensic look at future of the Gaeltacht

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

Our economic future might be as difficult to gauge as a date for the end of pandemic cocooning – but the specific problems that present for those who make their living along the west coast is laid bare in a new two-part documentary that began on TG4 this week.

It is an authored piece presented by Eibhlín Ní Chonghaile, who has been best known in recent years for presenting Iris Aniar on Raidió na Gaeltachta. It is directed by Seán Ó Cualáin of Aniar media.

Ní Chonghaile has an incredibly sunny engaging disposition but even that can’t overcome the pretty grim subject matter she is tackling – the state of Irish Gaeltachts in 2020.

She visits all the regions where Irish is still the first tongue (from tiny Rinn in Waterford, to the largest, South Connemara). In between are South Kerry, West Kerry or Corca Dhuibhne, Baile Bhúirne and Cúl Aodha, the Donegal Gaeltachts, and Belmullet in Mayo.

The opening premise is a sobering one. The number of people living in regions where Irish remains the dominant tongue has shrunk to 17,000. That’s essentially the size of a medium-sized Irish town.

It’s not that the living language is on its last legs: we may be beginning to hear its death rattle.

The language activist Donncha Ó hÉallaithe illustrates the true extent of the decline in three maps he displays. The first is from 1926 which shows significant tracts of the western seaboard where Irish is still a living language.

The next is from 1956 which shows significant decline. It’s clear, he says, that at that stage the authorities knew the language revival effort had failed.

The extent of that failure is laid bare by the third map which is shown by Ó hÉallaithe. It portrays the true Gaeltachts (na fíor Gaeltachtaí, mar a thugaimid orhtu i nGaeilge) as a tiny sliver on the western coasts, almost reduced to the thick outline you sometimes see on maps.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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