Transatlantic Context for Gaelic Language Revitalisation

The notion of the ‘new speaker’, and its salience particularly in relation to minority language sociolinguistics, has become increasingly prevalent in the last decade. The term refers to individuals who have acquired an additional language to high levels of oracy and make frequent use of it in the course of their lives. Language advocates in both Scotland and Nova Scotia emphasise the crucial role of new speakers in maintaining Gaelic on both sides of the Atlantic. As a result, Gaelic language teaching has been prioritised by policymakers as a mechanism for revitalising the language in both polities. This article examines reflexes of this policy in each country, contrasting the ongoing fragility of Gaelic communities with new speaker discourses around heritage, identity, and language learning motivations. Crucially, I argue that challenging sociodemographic circumstances in Gaelic communities in Scotland and Nova Scotia contrast with current policy discourses, and with new speaker motivations for acquiring higher levels of Gaelic oracy in North America.

“Exile from Ireland Left Him a Stranger Everywhere“: Representation of Dublin in Selected Louis Macneice’s Poetry and Some of the Stories from James Joyce’s Dubliners”

This paper discusses the representation of Dublin in the selected poetry of Louis MacNeice and some of the stories from James Joyce’s collection Dubliners. A close investigation of the city as a representative of urban space is interlinked with an examination of its role from the perspective of psychogeography. Both techniques are applied to show why and how two Irish authors portray the multi-dimensional decay of life in the city. In order to paint a whole picture of the relation between ‘space’ and ‘human’, I will also review the biographies of MacNeice and Joyce. For MacNeice, who was tormented by the experiences of domestic Belfast, going to the South was a promising escape. Yet, the change of urban setting did not bring him the expected result. MacNeice quickly became aware of the dirty, paralysed face of Dublin. Similarly, the childhood and day-to-day reality of the lower-middle-class profoundly shaped Joyce’s perspective of Dublin and, eventually, prompted him to go into deliberate exile in Europe. In his writings, however, Dublin constitutes the focal point of the structure, becoming an active participant in the events. Therefore, Dublin for MacNeice and Joyce is a place characterized by blandness, powerlessness in the face of foreign influences, and suffering caused by inertia.

“Dúthaigh Na Súpanna”: An Insight Into “Souper Territory” from the Folkloric Repertoire of Seán Mac Criomhthain

West Kerry storyteller Seán Mac Criomhthain (1873-1955) was born almost a quarter-century after the Great Irish Famine. Nevertheless, his upbringing occurred in a context which included both overt and covert references to the kinds of sectarian divisions which initially had contributed to the famine, and which later were entrenched by it. Sectarian division in the Irish context expressed itself primarily via denominational attachment, and to a lesser extent, along linguistic lines. Such divisions were explored across the country through traditional lore and through song; and in the specific repertoire of Seán Mac Criomhthain, through the medium of a mellifluous ‘brand’ of Munster Irish for which the Corca Dhuibhne peninsula has since become renowned. This article attempts to describe attitudes to sectarian division in the evidence of Mac Criomhthain’s repertoire. With extensive reference to a composition translated for the first time to English, it will be argued that concerns of immediate social pragmatism are afforded much greater importance than those of denominational or linguistic attachments.

The Nativeness of Breton Speakers and Their Erasure

I discuss the nativeness of heritage speakers of Breton in the twentieth century. I present a syntactic test designed for Breton that sets apart its native speakers from its late learners, for whom Breton is a second language. Nativeness is revealed by a better tolerance to syntactic overload when sufficient linguistic stress is applied. Both heritage speakers of inherited Breton and early bilinguals whose linguistic input comes exclusively from school answer this test alike, which I take as a sign they are cognitively natives. The syntactic nativeness of children deprived of familial Breton input suggests there is many more young Breton natives among contemporary speakers than previously assumed. Taking stock of these results, I discuss the cultural erasure of Breton native speakers. I compare their cultural treatment with the figure of the ghost. I end by a discussion of the term new speaker.

Gender-Fair Language in a Minority Setting: The Case of Breton

This paper explores the use of the Breton language (Brittany, North-West France) in contexts where speakers wish to signal their commitment to social equality through their linguistic practices. This is done with reference to examples of job advertisements which have pioneered the use of gender-fair language in Breton. Linguistic minorities are often portrayed as clinging to the past. This paper, however, sheds a different light on current minority language practices and demonstrates a progressive and egalitarian response to modernity among some current speakers of Breton, in their attempts to assume gender-fair stances.

Haunting Vocabulary and Celtic Lexicography: Towards a Taxonomy of Ghost Words

Most Humanities scholars probably have an intuitive sense of what is meant by a “ghost word” – it is a word that, in one way or another, exists as the result of someone’s unrecognized mistake. However, upon closer examination it becomes clear that the term is liable to be employed so broadly that important distinctions can be lost. For one thing, ghost words are often regarded simply as nuisances that should be deleted whenever they are detected. But in practice they often prove to be too useful simply to discard: this article presents some examples that have made their way into active usage among the Celts. In other cases the etymology may indeed be unnatural, but turns out to be the result of more than a hint of deliberate word-crafting right from the start. A taxonomy is here proposed that distinguishes true ghost words and dead words, on the one hand, from active items that may be described as poltergeist words and even Frankenstein words on the other.

The Transmission of Irish Law in the Fourteenth and Sixteenth Centuries: Exploring the Social and Historical Contexts

This paper seeks to examine the contexts in which the Old Irish law tracts were transmitted in the period following the church reforms and Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century, focusing primarily on the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Within these time frames two major themes will be appraised: 1) the English attitudes towards the practice of Irish law, and 2) the roles of the medieval lawyers and/or their patrons in political life. The central aim of this paper is twofold; firstly to shed light on the historical and social contexts in which the legal materials were later transmitted, and secondly, based on this, to posit some theories as to the possible incentives behind the transmission of the law tracts in these periods.