Gaeltacht Ghaibhnigh Arís

The re-forging process

Looking at some of the earliest maps of Ireland, one may notice something striking: they are drawn from the perspective of the occupier — gazing longingly across the fertile plains to harvest what was never theirs to sow.

The Inversion

And this brings us back to where the last point left off.

For the Gaelic League, Yeats, and many a poet and romantic since, the West of Ireland represented the last stronghold of the wild Gael — a living remnant of Gaelic Ireland. It was imagined as a kind of primordial chaos, untouched by modern woes. This idea has embedded itself, but from a living language perspective, I believe this has caused a quieter, more insidious harm: the peripheralisation of the language and the worldview that comes with it.

Rather than treating Irish as something distant, rural, or ancient, we should be doing the opposite: projecting this part of ourselves outward — first and foremost.

These places should not be seen as totems of a bygone era, but as the highest realisations of a linguistic nationhood — destinations, not starting points. Other regions should look to them not with nostalgia, but with ambition and aspiration.

The Formorian Wetiko and the disorder of language

Jack D. Forbes book - Columbus and Other Cannibals describes the Wetiko concept as the following:

Wétiko is a Cree term (windigo in Ojibway, wintiko in Powhatan) which refers to a cannibal or, more specifically, to an evil person or spirit who terrorizes other creatures by means of terrible evil acts, including cannibalism. Wétikowatisewin, an abstract noun, refers to “diabolical wickedness or cannibalism.”

Bringing this idea further, he mentions how imperialism and exploitation are forms of cannibalisation - which he defines as:

Cannibalism, as I define it, is the consuming of another’s life for one’s own private purpose or profit.

The Irish language was cannibalised. It was canninbalised by English, subsumed by it for profit and material gain. An apt example of this cannibalisation, and I propose, Wetiko in effect is the following video from CR Video Vault:

This is not to dismiss the pain or the relative material deprivation these people experienced—especially in comparison to their neighbours—during the difficult years following De Valera’s isolationist policies and the economic war. It's not easy to be content with “material wealth as a basis of right living” when Bernaysian television is selling us dreams by the dozen. Fintan O´Toole expresses this idea throughout his book We Don´t Know Ourselves. We wanted to be like JFK, the suave Yank with his big car and nice things. The seanchaí on the TV doeesn’t cut it when Wetiko has arrived.

I remember vaguely John Waters said something like the following in an interview (yes, one can take in both O´Toole and Waters), - It´s ok to have top of the pops (alluding to and mentioning other foreign cultural influences), outside culture, if our own culture can´t compete, our own culture cannot be forced down our throats.

The dominant culture ultimately wins. By isolating ourselves culturally and economically, a gap was created, by which our own culture didn´t have the competition or inspiration through new mediums to thrive. Therefore, when things opened up, the gap was insurmountable. People wanted progress, progress being the language of Wetiko.

Wetiko, widely written about by Paul Levy is a mind virus, contagious and psychospiritual and ultimately it is a disease of the soul. It operates below the surface, it finds dank corners in our collective unconscious and reproduces prolifically. People become blind to their madness and like the video above ultimately act against their best interest - that is by rejecting their mother tongue and the spiritual consequences that follow, that we see today…

And where do our familar foes the Formorians fit in?

While Wetiko blinds us, is a cannibalising force. The nature of the Formorian is one of chaos.

Agus a líon a bheith go mór, fiú ní laghdóidh sé sin ar an gcreach. Beidh gníomhartha fraochmhara ar siúl. Mairg don té a théann ina gcoinne…

Great their numbers, no less their destruction. Violent deeds are underway. Woe to him who opposes them…

Forbuis Droma Damhghaire - UCC Celt

Many who attempt to regain their language, their mother tongue, in Ireland must confront the Formorians.

One of the main issues regarding language reinstatement in Ireland remains the fact that it is the blind leading the blind. Language learners, who sound like language learners teach naive novices who know no better. There aren´t enough native speakers, custodians of the language in enough places to keep the language as it was spoken by the last speakers.

The school system has been far from adequate in giving the youth a basic footing, and it has lead to the anglicization of the language. See the excellent videos below for example.

Example 1: Patchy

Example 2: An Loingseach

Earlier, I wrote “the blind leading the blind.” In truth, it’s worse—the blind human is being led, not by another, but by Duolingo, akin to Formorian chaos. The platform is a primary purveyor of naive language learners, delivering garbled “sounds” that sound incoherent when uttered in the Gaeltacht. Thankfully, I rely on An Loingseach to elaborate on this point and he helps bring us back toward genuine mother tongue.

Cá bhfuil an slí? - Where do we go from here?

Michael D Higgins, the President of Ireland spoke in an interview of his childhood teacher who taught him Irish. He mentioned that his teacher said something along the likes of “ it will come to you, it´s your ancestral language etc.” Poetic as this may be, there is real groundwork that needs to be done, many hours of grammar and research. A romantic idea needs grit to come to fruition.

Case study:

Clare: From Gall(t)acht to Gaeltacht

But where are we going? We have Gaeltachts and we have the Gall(t)acht. Lets take Clare as an example.

Clare was recognized as a Gaeltacht in 1925 but lost its status in 1956 as there were too few Gaeilgeoir´s left. A local committee, Coiste Forbartha na Gaeltachta Contae an Chláir in 2012 met with the aim of presenting the case for a Gaeltacht status. At 170 daily speakers in the SW, this represented less than .15% of the population according to the 2011 census. What the figures lacked in seriousness, the committee made up for in optimism…..

The developments that followed have been pop up Gaeltachts, more funding allocated and a language plan for Ennis. From the outside, it appears to be mainly a grass roots approach. Elsewhere, towns have been designated as Irish Language Networks (Líonraí Gaeilge) and Gaeltacht Service Towns (Bailte Seirbhíse Gaeltachta).

Positive measures I´m sure, ignorant of much of this I am, however I think their needs to be a blueprint of sorts in place, the zone of operation and destination we are heading needs to be defined. Think of EU or Eurozone accension criteria as useful frameworks.

A trajectory is needed, new focail (words) are needed. If the Gaeltacht eptitomises the highest aspiration of linguistic nationhood, what is the path to get there?

This is where new concepts are needed. These are potential milestones that could have conditions attached to achieving their status. At the moment, there seems to be a sort of aimless wandering. There is an effort to keep what we have, to protect as the bathtub slowly leaks out water. Connla´s well is overflowing, the dam is holding the water back while the reservoir gets drier by the day. It´s time to release the valve, see what comes out, it may be clogged, may be a trickle, but its a start.

Please excuse if the grammar is off, these ideas are for sharing and to be hashed out. I propose the following:

Mion-Gaeltacht/Mion-Ghaeltacht ag Fás- little Gaeltacht/ a growing Gaeltacht

Pobal Gaeilge i bhFás - An Irish-speaking community in growth

Mion-Ghaeltacht Dhigiteach - While not on any map, the idea of a small or emerging online Gaeltacht community from Zoom to Gaelstack to online Ciorcail Chomhrá.

Gaeltacht Athbeo - revived Gaeltacht

Gaeltacht Ghaibhnigh Arís - the title, Gaeltacht forged again

The above and more could represent statuses and stages of development that areas sign up for. Perhaps intent and a petition of x% of the population of the area is needed to get to the starting stage, lets say the start is a “Mion-Gaeltacht”. From successfully meeting the criteria and getting enough critical mass, hyper local methods could be introduced to help the area ascend to the next stage of the process.

Mediums of revival

In the Mion-Gaeltacht, the primary idea is to reestablish the language. Not Duolingo Irish but the language as it was last spoken by the native speakers.

Below is a list of Irish words used up until recent times in a small town in Clare. there are about 300 words in the list. It was collected by John Egan. What we have here and in many localities is similar words, shards, fragments and ingredients used to re-gaelicise and re-localise. Bringing back these words into use, and while Manchán Magan´s book 32 Words for Field is a great primer, every town and locality has their own version and story to tell. Let us not get caught up in what word fisherman in Sligo used for the sound of water washing off the rocks, but lets tap into the locality of words where possible.

While many words may be agrarian in nature or not reflect the current society, they can be used as a framework for creating new words and modernising the language as was done creatively by the Gaelic League. Obviously this is done at national level also, but perhaps different Mion-Gaeltachts can be a part of this process by proposing and adding words, ultimately releasing new dictionaries as needed.

Other methods to reestablish the language and the local pronunciation for Clare and other regions are the following:

1. The dialects of Co. Clare, book by Nils M. Holmer

Brief description: Clare Irish monograph …..in phonetics, with a transliteration in the normal Irish orthography.

2. DIAS - Linguistic Atlas and Survey of Irish Dialects

Linguistic Atlas and Survey of Irish Dialects (LASID) is a comprehensive, four-volume study of the Irish language's regional variation, compiled by Heinrich Wagner with contributions by Colm Ó Baoill. It was published between 1958 and 1969 by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies

3. An t-éan óir -(The golden bird), a story by James Shannon

The Dogeen Records. Read along below and pronounce as was pronounced before- transcription here

Epilogue

If you have survived the romantic, idealised and ignorant “notions” so far then there is a special finale in store.

The first area to successfully reestablish the language will no longer be known by its anglicised name and it will earn the following title:

Image credit: The Fairground Heritage Trust

This Gaeltacht Ghaibhnigh Arís has risen, and with it, the Wetiko Formorian has been slain. This malevolent force—once hidden, now unmasked—found its final form in the Celtic Tiger, that psychic charge of accumulation, frenzy, and forgetting. It fed on our unconscious sense of loss, devoured memory, and seduced us through magical language in foreign tongue.

But the péist serpent who was in subterranean hiding, long exiled, emerged once more—not in vengeance, but in rebalancing. It slayed the Celtic Tiger. and As we know,

Decolonialisation Is Always and Everywhere A Violent Phenomenon

With the Celtic Tiger well and truly slain, the geis (taboo) is broken. The onus falls to us to replicate this formula. For each Tiger killed is a step toward the restoration of what was nearly lost, nestled beneath the surface in the collective Gaelic conscious —language, land, and soul.

(Some) Sources:

Public Meeting on Clare Gaeltacht revival

DRI Repository

Irish language plan Ennis

Forbes, J. D. (2011). Columbus and other cannibals: The Wetiko disease of exploitation, imperialism, and terrorism. Seven Stories Press.

Levy, P. (2021). Wetiko: Healing the mind-virus that plagues our world. Simon and Schuster.

O'Toole, F. (2021). We don't know ourselves: A personal history of Ireland since 1958. Bloomsbury Publishing.