W2B-005 Irish writing - Churches-0.txt
CHANGING STATES transformations in modern Irish writing Robert Welch

Routledge

The most annoying aspect of this book is that it claims to be, or aims to be, something which it is not. To read the blurb one would be led to believe that Prof Welch has constructed a system in which the change from Gaelic to 20th-century, post-industrial culture in Ireland's literature is examined and the effects of that change shown. Hence, the reader goes through the various chapters with this in mind, only to discover that there is no common thread running through the work. What we have, in fact, is a collection of interesting and enjoyable essays on Welch's top 11 authors, with introductory chapters and a conclusion tacked on to give the book some sort of raison d'&/\etre.

This, to say the least, is a frustrating experience. At no time does Welch coherently, sufficiently, or logically develop his belief that the loss of Irish in some way deprives the Irish people of a unique Weltanschauung. The Irish language, which appears to be central to his argument, drifts in and out of the collection like a badly-directed actor Ð now you see him, now you don't. His belief that Irish culture is "deeply divided" because of the loss of the Irish language may or may not be true, but Welch never bothers to explain why he thinks it is. Indeed, one could argue that it is very untrue.

Contemporary Irish culture is predominately expressed in English and ruled by it. The gap between culture in Irish and culture in English is so great that even the analogy of David and Goliath seems inadequate in describing it. A gaggle of Goliaths versus a one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed David would seem more appropriate.

The unrelenting attacks upon Irish as the Zeitgeist of nationalist Ireland, launched by the many cultural nationalists, have rendered redundant much of Welch's argument that Irish is "a cultural system, full of signs and referents which call up associations and relations that are rooted in the past and are activated by the disposition and evocative power of the words we use"." These attacks have centred on stressing the everyday commonality of Irish as a language within the Gaeltacht, in an attempt somehow to remove Irish from the 'political arena' and denationalise it. As a result, Irish has been reduced from being a language which 'embodies a national ideal' to being simply a language which 'ought to be protected'. By continually stressing the language's banality, those who wish to protect it as a cultural artefact run the risk that any romantic notions concerning the language as being the soul of Ireland are blown away.
Welch argues that "The Irish... committed linguistic suicide." Perhaps. But suicide implies that they thought they were giving up something which was valuable, that there was a loss involved. The Irish, being a pragmatic bunch, may not have seen it that way and, if we are perfectly honest, still do not see it that way. Many, I suspect, would identify with O'Connell's pragmatism:
"I am sufficiently utilitarian not to regret its gradual abandonment... Therefore, although the Irish language is connected with many recollections that twine around the hearts of Irishmen, yet the superior utility of the English tongue, as the medium of all modern communications, is so great that I can witness without a sigh the gradual disue of Irish."

Recent opinion polls would indicate that the English-speaking Irish may let loose the occasional sigh for the language, but are still very reluctant actually to do anything to ensure its survival.

The pressure to acquire English, now and in O'Connell's time, means that communities did not commit suicide so much as make a conscious, if forced, decision to swap one language for another. There is no evidence to suggest that this loss has ever really bothered the Irish people to the extent that those of us who speak the language would like to think. The success of the Gaelic League at the turn of the century in English-speaking areas was not mirrored in Irish-speaking areas, and the lack of a widespread non-state language movement in most Gaeltacht areas would seem to prove further that the language holds little of value for many of its native speakers.
The difference in outlook in Donegal between Irish-speaking Bunbeg and English-speaking Bundoran is zero. There is no way one could seriously argue that if Irish were to cease being spoken in Bunbeg tomorrow the village would in some way be transformed into a pumpkin. No one would notice. The superstitions, folk-stories and lore of the Gaeltacht died with de Valera's comely maidens. While Welch argues that the poets Nuala N&/i Dhomhnaill and Michael Hartnett see the loss of Irish as "a cataclysmic clow to the psyche of the Irish people in that it ripped out and tore asunder all the secret interiors that sponsor the manifold activities that go to make up a culture", it is not true of society in general.
There is also something very odd in seeing M&/airt&/in O Cadhain and Se&/an O Ri&/aord&/ain bracketed with the likes of W B Yeats, George Moore and James Joyce. They may have lived in the same country but they came from different worlds. O Cadhain was of peasant Connemara stock, a committed republican and supporter of the Irish language. Moore, Joyce and Yeats had absolutely nothing in common with him other than the business of writing. They belonged to an urban, anglicised and anglophile bourgeoisie more interested in the pettier points of social status than the day-to-day reality of surviving.

Their interest in Irish was fleeting Ñ if that long. They didn't need the language, they didn't use the language and to imply Ñ as Welch does Ñ that their work in some way benefited from the tension between two languages and two cultures is wrong. Their work relied upon their imaginative ability in English and their view of literature was moulded by Victorian values. Yeats'summation of Irish as his national tongue yet English his native tongue neatly encapsulates his attitude to Irish Ñ and that of his class. What O Cadhain and his contemporaries wanted from, and demanded of, literature was far removed from what the middle-class and pre-Easter 1916 generation of English literature wanted.

What Welch does succeed in doing is to muddy the waters every once and a while by dropping the occasional Irish pebble into his English-language pond. Synge knew Irish, Heaney knows Irish and so does Friel. Fair enough; but can they all be tied together by this very thin thread? What Synge wrote about is not what Friel writes about and Heaney's interest in Irish is peripheral. Would he be any less a poet had he never heard a word of Irish? Do you need Irish to watch one of Synge's plays or Friel's, or to read and understand Heaney's work?

No.
