***This is part 10 of 10 of a series of maps that looks at the decline of the Irish Language from 1771-1871.***
*”None of the Connolly Family could speak Irish except one girl who was reared by her Grandmother (Mrs O’Connor). When the others visited their grandmother this girl would have to act as interpreter so that the Grandmother could converse with her own grandchildren.”*
We have now reached the final map in our series. The account above, from Corcreagh, County Monaghan, reflects a reality that the series has not quite captured, and perhaps the depressing, grinding away of the language through this series has not quite imparted. Language shift has occurred extremely rapidly. Seventy years prior to this map, within a single lifetime, Irish is still an extremely widely spoken language, and is, in fact, the majority language of the island. Irish speaking communities had been found almost everywhere, even on the outskirts of Dublin city. It had still been possible to travel from Dundalk in County Louth, to Westport on the Atlantic coast, or from Cork city to Letterkenny, and speak Irish the entire way. Now, for the elderly of this map, who had been born into that world of an Irish speaking Ireland, they had lived to see the entire cultural world of their childhood disappear, so quickly, in many cases, that some could not even speak to their grandchildren. I do not wish to labour this point too much, but for example, in the first decade of the 20th century, there were still a handful of Irish monoglots in Cavan, Monaghan, Louth and Armagh.
*“We travelled about a mile from Ballyjamesduff to Rassan, to meet with Ms. Callaghan. She speaks only a few words of English, and these very imperfectly, and on account of the disappearance of the Irish tongue in these parts, is rarely frequented by visitors. When we entered the cottage, we found her stooped over the fire. James greeted her from the door in a few words of Celtic, and she sprung back from the hearth with such delight and joy on her face that it near brought the whole company to tears.”*
Margaret Callaghan was 89 years old in 1901. At the time of her birth, Irish had been the ordinary, almost exclusive, language as far south as Navan, and as far north as Manorhamilton, and from the Irish sea to the Atlantic ocean. It probably never occurred to her parents that she would need English, it probably never occurred to herself in her middle age and into the twilight of her life that she would need English; virtually all of her generation and friends would have spoken Irish. However, as the language faded away, and the generations raised with it died out, she would have found herself ever more alone, ever more isolated from the world around her, until, in the last decade or so of her life, confined ever more to her house, there was no one left who could talk to her.
In 1871, Irish speakers accounted for around 19% of the national population: 836,000 people. Around half of these were over the age of 45. Nationally, only 13% of children were being raised with Irish. The numbers and rate of decline was so stark that the Census report offered a rare note on the future prospects of the language:
*“The disappearance of this ancient member of the Celtic family of tongues from living speech may be somewhat delayed or somewhat accelerated by circumstances beyond calculation or conjecture, but there can be no error in the belief that within relatively a few years Irish will have taken its place among the languages that have ceased to exist.”*
Had Irish continued to decline at the rate it had up to this point, the final native speakers of the language would be born in the 1940s.
As it happened, the rate of decline in the language would dramatically slow through the late 19th and twentieth centuries. The Gaelic League and its ideals which would imbue the philosophy of the new Irish state would manage to slow the rate of decline, especially from the 1930s onwards. The decline of the language has not been halted but it has slowed drastically from where it was in the last years of the 19th century. Irish remains a native language of tens of thousands of people in the modern Gaeltacht, and although it continues to decay, its survival to the modern day is a remarkable testimony to the endurance of its native speaking population.
1 comment
***This is part 10 of 10 of a series of maps that looks at the decline of the Irish Language from 1771-1871.***
*”None of the Connolly Family could speak Irish except one girl who was reared by her Grandmother (Mrs O’Connor). When the others visited their grandmother this girl would have to act as interpreter so that the Grandmother could converse with her own grandchildren.”*
We have now reached the final map in our series. The account above, from Corcreagh, County Monaghan, reflects a reality that the series has not quite captured, and perhaps the depressing, grinding away of the language through this series has not quite imparted. Language shift has occurred extremely rapidly. Seventy years prior to this map, within a single lifetime, Irish is still an extremely widely spoken language, and is, in fact, the majority language of the island. Irish speaking communities had been found almost everywhere, even on the outskirts of Dublin city. It had still been possible to travel from Dundalk in County Louth, to Westport on the Atlantic coast, or from Cork city to Letterkenny, and speak Irish the entire way. Now, for the elderly of this map, who had been born into that world of an Irish speaking Ireland, they had lived to see the entire cultural world of their childhood disappear, so quickly, in many cases, that some could not even speak to their grandchildren. I do not wish to labour this point too much, but for example, in the first decade of the 20th century, there were still a handful of Irish monoglots in Cavan, Monaghan, Louth and Armagh.
*“We travelled about a mile from Ballyjamesduff to Rassan, to meet with Ms. Callaghan. She speaks only a few words of English, and these very imperfectly, and on account of the disappearance of the Irish tongue in these parts, is rarely frequented by visitors. When we entered the cottage, we found her stooped over the fire. James greeted her from the door in a few words of Celtic, and she sprung back from the hearth with such delight and joy on her face that it near brought the whole company to tears.”*
Margaret Callaghan was 89 years old in 1901. At the time of her birth, Irish had been the ordinary, almost exclusive, language as far south as Navan, and as far north as Manorhamilton, and from the Irish sea to the Atlantic ocean. It probably never occurred to her parents that she would need English, it probably never occurred to herself in her middle age and into the twilight of her life that she would need English; virtually all of her generation and friends would have spoken Irish. However, as the language faded away, and the generations raised with it died out, she would have found herself ever more alone, ever more isolated from the world around her, until, in the last decade or so of her life, confined ever more to her house, there was no one left who could talk to her.
In 1871, Irish speakers accounted for around 19% of the national population: 836,000 people. Around half of these were over the age of 45. Nationally, only 13% of children were being raised with Irish. The numbers and rate of decline was so stark that the Census report offered a rare note on the future prospects of the language:
*“The disappearance of this ancient member of the Celtic family of tongues from living speech may be somewhat delayed or somewhat accelerated by circumstances beyond calculation or conjecture, but there can be no error in the belief that within relatively a few years Irish will have taken its place among the languages that have ceased to exist.”*
Had Irish continued to decline at the rate it had up to this point, the final native speakers of the language would be born in the 1940s.
As it happened, the rate of decline in the language would dramatically slow through the late 19th and twentieth centuries. The Gaelic League and its ideals which would imbue the philosophy of the new Irish state would manage to slow the rate of decline, especially from the 1930s onwards. The decline of the language has not been halted but it has slowed drastically from where it was in the last years of the 19th century. Irish remains a native language of tens of thousands of people in the modern Gaeltacht, and although it continues to decay, its survival to the modern day is a remarkable testimony to the endurance of its native speaking population.
I finish this series, with a link to a 1960 interview with Annie Ó Hanlon, the last native speaker of traditional Irish in Leinster. She was born in 1871, the year of this final map and would die a few months after the interview. You can listen to Annie[ here](https://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/1981-proinsias-o-conluain/615547-gaeilgeoir-deireannacha-mith/).