"Who Needs Irish?" Reflections on the Importance of the Irish Language Today (review)

The Irish language, it seems, provides endless disputes, ranging from the language's official status in the European Union, the construction of apartment complexes for English-speakers, the banning of Anglicized place-names in The Gaeltacht, the private schools doling out exemptions to opt out of Irish examinations, to the declining numbers studying higher-level Irish. If the language if not widely spoken, it is nonetheless widely debated.

The arrival of 'Who Needs Irish?' Reflections on the Importance of the Irish Language Today, edited by Ciarán Mac Murchaidh, a lecturer at St. Patrick's College, Dublin, is both timely and welcome. Mac Murchaidh's introduction contends that two debates currently exist about the Irish language: a sporadic debate in English and a persistent debate in Irish. Who Needs Irish? focuses on the contemporary importance of Irish. The basic premise underpinning Who Needs Irish? is the "intrinsic worth in preserving the Irish language for ourselves, for our children and for all generations still to come—and that is the greatest challenge of all." Thirteen essayists explore what it means to be an Irish speaker, both in the Republic and in Northern Ireland; several, notably Alan Titley and Breandán Ó Doibhlin, explain why there is a need for Irish. Titley candidly and uncompromisingly argues that language is central to identity. For Titley, "if 'Irish' identity is to mean anything at all, it must mean something in the first place." Titley's key essay is one that every aspiring Irish Studies student would do well to read and genuinely consider, before regurgitating the clichés of Ascroft et al. in the topic sentence of their opening paragraphs.

The length style, and tone of the articles varies widely: some are brief and clear-cut, while others, such as Ó Doibhlinn, are somber and complex. Donncha Ó hÉallaithe provides an excellent, if brief, overview of efforts to revive Irish in the twentieth century. Recalling his youth as a native-speaker in Donegal, Lillis Ó Laoire suggests that for Ireland to exist as a postcolonial entity "we need to learn how to do it better; to improve teaching; to realize that teaching alone is not enough to build bilingual communities; to shed our myopic monolithic attachment to 'English only' together with our fear and suspicion of the Irish other."

One of the more successful articles is Pádraig Ó Mianáin's critique of what it means to be "an ordinary man with ordinary interest" in Northern Ireland, where Irish is often perceived as "the language of the bomb and bullet." Lorcán Mac Gabhann contributes a useful discussion of the bias against Gaelscoileanna (all-Irish "charter" schools) exhibited by the Teachers' Union and the Catholic Primary School Management Association, which see the dramatic growth in such schools as a threat to the status quo. Anna Heusaff describes the interaction of recent refugees into Ireland and the language, and, in doing so breathes a welcome note of inclusiveness into a book where the pronoun "we" is used extensively, but often without much consideration.

The literary contributions are the strongest in the volume. Scholars will revel in frank and enlightening articles by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and Gabriel Rosenstock. Ní Dhuibhne's "Why Would Anyone Write in Irish" represents a major scoop for the editor; this essay alone makes the collection worth purchasing. Rosenstock's essay, "How I Discovered Irish or How Irish Discovered Me" offers those unfamiliar with his work an insight into the most prolific poet in modern Irish, a man of wide and catholic literary taste. Máirín Nic Eoin reviews Cathal Ó Searcaigh's poetry to examine hybridity in Irish language culture. Her reading of "Idir Dhá Theanga" serves as a wonderful introduction for anyone unfamiliar with her literary scholarship in Irish.

Given the polarized and stereotyped nature of debate surrounding the Irish language, Who Needs Irish? makes the case for Irish. The...