People and Language
latest update March 2008
Language
There's no getting round it. Your first brush with Irish is likely to be on the way into the lavatory. Do you know your Mna from your Fir? You'd better. Mna is for women and Fir is for men (see - these pages are nothing if not useful). You will next see it on road signs - most in the Republic are billingual, and in the age old welcome to tourists - Ceade Mille Failte - a hundred thousand welcomes.
Irish is a proud ancient language and the official language of the Irish Republic. In practice English is the everyday language. There are areas called Gaeltachts, mainly on the west coast, where Irish is spoken, promoted and people go to learn the mother tongue. In recent years there has also been a rise in Irish speaking schools in the Republic and in Northern Ireland. Many nationalists have learned the language as a celebration of their Irish Identity. It is now joked that the largest Gaeltacht in Ireland is in West Belfast. This may well be true. Derry City also has a high proportion of Irish speakers.
If Irish isn't the everyday language it still permiates everyday life. Irish family names and place names are mostly anglicisations of Irish names. When the Irish speak English they speak it with the intonation and frequently the word order of Irish - verb, subject, object - as in '"Would you be looking for the Bar? ". Whenever possible the Irish will speak in questions - always inviting another reply from the person they are talking to. Anyone with sensitive ears should also be forwarned that a swearing is hardly swearing in Ireland - it is more like punctuation - Feck, Shite etc. often pepper conversation. For an amusing website full of Irish slang go to www.slang.ie .
The mixing of English words with Irish culture - and as students of these things tell me - Irish Gaelic grammer has produced a distinctive form of the language that has been the wellspring for Irish Literature, Poetry and Drama for the last few hundred years. See Literature and Drama page.
Learning Irish
If you have fallen under the spell of the Irish you may want to learn the language. There are plenty of courses on offer. There is a choice between University College courses with offer intensive study often mixed with spending time in one of the Gaeltachts with an Irish speaking family or general introductions to traditional, Irish culture including the lauguage based in one of the Gaeltachts. For instance you can go to Glencolmcille in county Donegal and learn Irish while listening to the music, joining in the dancing and hearing the storytelling www.Oideas-Gael.com . University College Galway runs intensive one/two week courses. Contact the Irish Language Centre 091 595101 Bord Failte has more information on courses. There are a number of websites dedicated to the language side of Irish Culture: about the best (certainly in terms of links to further sites) is www.gaeltacht.ie . Also look at links on the Folk etc music page in this section of the site. If you want to learn the language before you get to Ireland there are a number of resources on the Web. Go to www.bookguy.com/Irish/Books/irishgae.htm for learning materials on CD. There is a site promoting the Irish language www.gaeilge.ie .
Irish on the Web
People
What's to be said? The Irish are famous as the life and soul of the party and for their hospitality. They certainly should be known for their intelligence (the best educated country in Europe) which comes across in their rapier sharp wit. There is something naturally extrovert about people. They are not argumentative, but they do love an argument. Don't be fooled by any old ideas about the lack of a work ethic. Dublin now lives at a pace to match any modern capital, but likes to let its hair down too. Rural areas keep rural time, more relaxed but also more extended than in the big towns. You can't run a farm, or a small business from 9am to 5pm. Things are no different in Northern Ireland. If anything the people of Ulster are the most hospitable of all and although Belfast may appear at first to be a stern northern city it parties as much as anywhere south of the border.
Who are the Irish ?
Well, as we all know the Irish are Celts who are given to riding around on the legendary Celtic Tiger. Mind you, there being 6 million* of them the poor tiger's been looking a bit tired out recently. It wasn't always this way. A century ago the Celts were called Gaels and inspired the Gaelic Literary Revival, which was started mainly by the Anglo-Irish who weren't Gaels at all, though there were partial to the odd bit of Druidry.
So how to sort things out? Well, a long, long time ago (about 500 BC) Ireland was populated by a legendary people called the Fir Bolg. The problem with being legendary, as the Fir Bolg were about to find out, is that people think you are past it. 'People' in this case meant the Celts/Gaels, a fast living, musical, amorous race who probably originated in north India, where there were now legendary, but who, by 500 BC were spread right across Europe.
The Celts settled down in Ireland and decided they liked the place (most people do). A few centuries later the Romans spread into northwest Europe conquering most of the other Celts/Gaels. Luckily they noticed that the further north and west they went the colder it became. And so it was that some poor runny nosed Roman General looked across the Irish Sea from Angelsea and decided not to bother crossing over to Ireland.
At the beginning of the 5th century AD Rome was having a hard enough time defending its home ground from invaders from the east. In the time honoured principle of last in first out they left England to its own devices. The country was slowly overrun by Angles, Saxon, Jutes etc. pushing back the British - who were also Celts/Gaels - who had never got as far as Ireland - probably got stuck in a bar in Holyhead and missed the ferry. Westwards the new invaders came until they stopped at the borders of Wales, either because they came from flat countries and Wales was too hilly, or because they didn't know how to fight sheep. They never got to Ireland either, and instead settled down to the long and painful process of becoming English. Any way, the Irish, who had recently discovered Christianity, decided that there was a definite shortage of decent religion in England and came over to share there new found faith. Shortly afterwards the Pope decided that the Irish Christians didn't know what a proper haircut was, or how to hold a crozier, and so they started converting England from the south. It was a classic pincer movement, the new English didn't stand a chance.
But back to Ireland. Fast Forward a couple of centuries. Ireland spends 500 AD to 1000 AD being The Most Civilized Country In Western Europe. But you should have seen the competition. For the second half of this period the Vikings came to Ireland, harrying the coast, molesting the maidens.......and then feeling middle age creeping on and wasn't it time to settle down and build somewhere to live: like Dublin, Wexford and Waterford. The Irish didn't seem to mind the building work too much, as they didn't have much use for towns at the time.
All good Irish people of the time liked a bit of a fight and the fiercest Irish lived in Ulster. Around 1000AD they felt the need to conquer something. Looking east across the water to the hills on the far shore they thought 'that will do'. At the time the hilly country on the far shore belonged to the Picts, who called the Irish 'Scots'........yes, you can see where this is going can't you? Poor Picts, they didn't know how to write, and as they were about to find out, people who can't write become legendary very quickly. Scotland was born. 600 years later the Scots came back to Ulster. But that is another story entirely.
As I said, the Irish liked a bit of a fight, mainly with each other. But during the 12th century AD someone cheated and called in reserves from England. Up to now the English hadn't bothered the Irish. They had been too busy becoming English. The new invaders of England had settled down and become Anglo Saxons. A new wave of Vikings had come and settled in North East England and finally the Normans (Vikings who had conquered Normandy and come over all French) had taken over the country. Confused yet? The English were. Unfortunately they were also good fighters. They came to Ireland, and, like most people decided they liked the place and stayed.
Now the Kings of England liked having English people in Ireland so they could stake a claim to the place, which they could do as long as English they sent didn't become too Irish and start siding with the locals. Well of course, it happened. Within a few generations the English spoke Irish, married Irish and thought Irish, despite the Statues of Kilkenny which told them that they should not do these things.
So the English Kings sent over some new people who were told to remain English in Ireland. To prevent themselves going native they granted themselves large tracts of land, built big houses and spoke in very proper English accents. Some of them are still doing it today. They are called the Anglo Irish.
Well I'm going to stop there as I don't want to start getting contentious, and we are now getting to a point in Irish History which leads up to the quest for Irish Independence. However. To answer the question Who are the Irish you have to know a bit of Irish History. The Irish are Celts (or Gaels) with a bit of Viking and several different generations of English thrown in. Red haired Irish are said to be descended from Spanish sailors who came to fight for the cause of Irish Independence and and ended up marrying the locals. In the south east of Ireland there's a fair bit of French, Flemish and Dutch influence - they even created their own language - Yola. In the north the Scots came back, plus more English and people fleeing religious persecution in Europe. But Scots/Irish culture isn't just a Protestant thing. The sea has knit together the north coast of Ireland and the west coast of Scotland for centuries, amongst Catholic communities as well. Many a tune can be heard in Donegal and the Western Islands of Scotland.
Remember one thing. Being Irish is catching. People have been coming for thousands of years intending to conquer Ireland, but instead Ireland conquered them. If you come to visit and find that you like the place, and wouldn't be a fine thing to stay a bit longer..........maybe its happening to you!
* Until recently the Celtic Tiger roamed mainly 'south of the border', but in the last few years with political progress and general economic optimism it has moved north with associated effects like huge house price rises.
