[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] On Canadian Irish and an Ontario Gaeltacht
A Globe and Mail article by Susan Krashinsky, "A tongue-twisting labour of love in Canada's Gaelic-speaking community" touched upon one of Canada's Celtic-language communities.
A point of nomenclature, first. The word "Gaelic" is non-specific in general use, potentially referring to both Irish Gaelic and Scots Gaelic. Of the two, the Scottish is the most common; Wikipedia's article "Canadian Gaelic" refers to Scots Gaelic, a language that--thanks to immigration--was so concentrated that it was arguably Canada's third-spoken tongue with quarter-million people across Canada with sizable enclaves across Canada, including in a Gaelic-majority Cape Breton Island. Irish, concentrated in Newfoundland, has had a much lower profile,for reasons I can only speculate on. (A concentration in Anglophone urban areas as opposed to more self-sufficient rural areas, maybe?) Canada's Scots Gaelic is just dying out; Canada's Irish variants seem to have diappeared a century ago.
But now, some language activists are trying to change this by creating an actual Irish-speaking territory, the "Permanent North American Gaeltacht"
[A] small community is drawn here, to a small patch of land in a tiny Ontario town where Gaelic acts as a lifeline to their history, their culture and to the Emerald Isle itself. This is the Canadian Gaeltacht (gail-tuck), a word that signifies the little pockets of Ireland where Irish is still spoken. These 62 acres contain the first Gaeltacht outside of Ireland, where they’re fighting to keep the language alive. Kian, who as a baby spoke some of his first words in Irish, represents their best hope.
“He’s our native speaker,” says Kian’s mother, Melinda, who drove here with her family from Rossie, NY, for the third year in a row. Ms. Ely’s husband, Bob - the Irish one in the clan - has been speaking nothing but Gaelic to Kian since he was born, while she speaks only English.
“People like to connect with their roots. There’s a sense of pride in that identity,” says Sheila Scott, one of the founders of the Canadian Gaeltacht and assistant director of the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute at the University of Ottawa.
In 2006, Ms. Scott and her husband, Aralt Mac Giolla Chainnigh, pooled their money with that of other contributors from Canada, Ireland and the United States, and bought the land in Tamworth, an area about 30 km north of Napanee, settled originally by Irish immigrants fleeing famine.
Nobody lives here permanently, but the Gaeltacht has language weekends, an arts festival, and each year a sort of Irish-language summer camp for adults - one week in August when participants gather for language classes, Irish dancing, music and games of Gaelic football. Because the land does not yet have any buildings, most people pitch tents.
“I grew up without running water. This is no big deal,” 76-year-old Bridget Guglich says, pointing to the tent she has been sleeping in all week. She is from County Mayo, but in half a century in Canada, she lost the Irish tongue. She has been studying for eight years, and coming to the Gaeltacht every year since it opened.
It might be easy to laugh off the quirky group that converges on an empty field to camp out and learn a language many people would consider to be in its death throes. There has been a vibrant movement to protect Gaelic in Ireland since the late 19th century. Today, Gaelic is taught in schools, and families often send their children to a Gaeltacht during the summer.
“People are looking more and more to the language as something very central to the Irish identity,” Mr. Mac Giolla Chainnigh says. “…When people are here in Canada, they can’t go to Ireland any time. They can’t just go to the Gaeltacht. We have something here now. ... That’s very special.”
This holiday camp won't bring Irish back as living language, in the sense of being a language of education and government and public life as it is in Ireland, and likely not even as a family language. This holiday camp is creating a space where knowledge and use of the Irish language is esteemed where none existed before, it does seem to be succeeding in its limited goals. It'll be interesting to see how the community develops in the years and decades ahead, I think. Why not a holiday language?
A point of nomenclature, first. The word "Gaelic" is non-specific in general use, potentially referring to both Irish Gaelic and Scots Gaelic. Of the two, the Scottish is the most common; Wikipedia's article "Canadian Gaelic" refers to Scots Gaelic, a language that--thanks to immigration--was so concentrated that it was arguably Canada's third-spoken tongue with quarter-million people across Canada with sizable enclaves across Canada, including in a Gaelic-majority Cape Breton Island. Irish, concentrated in Newfoundland, has had a much lower profile,for reasons I can only speculate on. (A concentration in Anglophone urban areas as opposed to more self-sufficient rural areas, maybe?) Canada's Scots Gaelic is just dying out; Canada's Irish variants seem to have diappeared a century ago.
But now, some language activists are trying to change this by creating an actual Irish-speaking territory, the "Permanent North American Gaeltacht"
[A] small community is drawn here, to a small patch of land in a tiny Ontario town where Gaelic acts as a lifeline to their history, their culture and to the Emerald Isle itself. This is the Canadian Gaeltacht (gail-tuck), a word that signifies the little pockets of Ireland where Irish is still spoken. These 62 acres contain the first Gaeltacht outside of Ireland, where they’re fighting to keep the language alive. Kian, who as a baby spoke some of his first words in Irish, represents their best hope.
“He’s our native speaker,” says Kian’s mother, Melinda, who drove here with her family from Rossie, NY, for the third year in a row. Ms. Ely’s husband, Bob - the Irish one in the clan - has been speaking nothing but Gaelic to Kian since he was born, while she speaks only English.
“People like to connect with their roots. There’s a sense of pride in that identity,” says Sheila Scott, one of the founders of the Canadian Gaeltacht and assistant director of the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute at the University of Ottawa.
In 2006, Ms. Scott and her husband, Aralt Mac Giolla Chainnigh, pooled their money with that of other contributors from Canada, Ireland and the United States, and bought the land in Tamworth, an area about 30 km north of Napanee, settled originally by Irish immigrants fleeing famine.
Nobody lives here permanently, but the Gaeltacht has language weekends, an arts festival, and each year a sort of Irish-language summer camp for adults - one week in August when participants gather for language classes, Irish dancing, music and games of Gaelic football. Because the land does not yet have any buildings, most people pitch tents.
“I grew up without running water. This is no big deal,” 76-year-old Bridget Guglich says, pointing to the tent she has been sleeping in all week. She is from County Mayo, but in half a century in Canada, she lost the Irish tongue. She has been studying for eight years, and coming to the Gaeltacht every year since it opened.
It might be easy to laugh off the quirky group that converges on an empty field to camp out and learn a language many people would consider to be in its death throes. There has been a vibrant movement to protect Gaelic in Ireland since the late 19th century. Today, Gaelic is taught in schools, and families often send their children to a Gaeltacht during the summer.
“People are looking more and more to the language as something very central to the Irish identity,” Mr. Mac Giolla Chainnigh says. “…When people are here in Canada, they can’t go to Ireland any time. They can’t just go to the Gaeltacht. We have something here now. ... That’s very special.”
This holiday camp won't bring Irish back as living language, in the sense of being a language of education and government and public life as it is in Ireland, and likely not even as a family language. This holiday camp is creating a space where knowledge and use of the Irish language is esteemed where none existed before, it does seem to be succeeding in its limited goals. It'll be interesting to see how the community develops in the years and decades ahead, I think. Why not a holiday language?