"Spoken" Irish

Students and advocates of the Irish language alike are to be forgiven any wry smiles or mirthless chuckles they may have indulged in on reading in Friday's Irish Independent that the level of spoken Irish in the educational institutions of the state is "in freefall." Those familiar with the issues in the revival of the language are to be excused if the remarks reminded them of nothing so much as a doughty old dowager on the Titanic complaining about a waiter serving red wine with the fish while the Atlantic waters washed the table away.

It's like the old saw about Northern Irish politics, where those that thought they saw a solution had to be informed that the only reason they thought they saw a solution was that they did not fully understand the problem in the first place. As such, to fret and worry over the state of spoken Irish is to miss the elephant in the room; that is, that the State has been criminally negligent in its responsibilities towards the language and it's only the efforts of enthusiasts, idealists and amateurs - to say nothing of cheques guaranteed by Her Majesty's Government across the way - that are keeping the ancient language in such a state of life as she currently endures.

For the past number of years, certainly since An Spailpín was in school - and that's not today or yesterday, I sadly note - emphasis on the spoken, rather than the written, language has been all the rage. I'm sure the best of intentions were behind it, as the earnest and idealistic remarked that it was a terrible thing to be able to write and read a language, but not to speak it. Unfortunately, twenty years down the line, we are still unable to speak our language, and are now considerably further towards illiteracy in reading and writing her as well. If this is progress, the Irish language will not survive much more of it.

It's always rather confused An Spailpín how a language that has no received pronunciation can be thought as a "spoken language" anyway - the absence of RP means that there is no official guideline on what the spoken language sounds like. Take "dubh," the Irish for the colour black - is it pronounced like the English "do," or the English "dove"? Nobody knows, but everyone is damned if they will change the way they were taught in school - even when they say they despised the language in school and that their teacher was a monster and a sadist.

There are three - at least - recognised dialects of Irish, and possibly more. Irish language enthusiasts claim that it's easy to tell them apart after only a little study. That may be true for talented linguists, but for twelve and thirteen year olds in secondary school, already hopelessly confused by inconsistent teaching standards in the national schools, it's all too much. So they just give up, and the language inches just that little bit closer to Eternity as the generations go by.

Back in the 1920s, at the height of the language revival, the revivalists had a choice - they could take the classical form of Irish, which lasted until about the Flight of the Earls in the early 18th century, give or take a generation, as their template for the return of the language to the people, or they could consider the language as spoken in the Irish speaking areas of Kerry, Galway and Donegal as time capsules, that preserved the spoken language of the people in an ideal and pure state.

Miserably, they chose the latter option. Blinded by a philosophy that was one part Rousseau, one part Marxist, and one part I don't know what, they failed to notice when they were setting "the spoken language of the people" as their ideal that the spoken language of the people is English, actually. They also failed to note that all "spoken" languages are dynamic, ever-changing, which means that there is never a solid rock there on which to build a church. Better had they chosen the bardic Irish; it would have been difficult, but at least a high water mark would have been set, and everyone would know where they stand.

Beyond that, although not a linguist by any means, An Spailpín Fánach has severe doubts about this whole "spoken language" method of learning. It's like those books you see in airports, that promise you fluent French or German after three weeks' study. Anybody that clever doesn't do their book shopping in airports. Latin has survived for two thousand years by generation after generation sitting on hard benches and chanting "hic, haec, hoc..." until it went in their heads and stayed there. Maybe there's something to be learned from all that. Go dtéimidse slán go leir, agus ár dteanga féin linn. But An Spailpín is not that hopeful, I'm afraid.

Technorati Tags: Ireland, culture, education, Irish

A Long Way from Home - Goodbye to the Comfort Zone?

The Irish rugby team had their feelings hurt recently. The week before last, they decided en masse to boycott a member of the Irish working press, who was part of the party that travelled to New Zealand and Australia to cover the current tour.

The Irish rugby team thought that the Irish Independent’s David Kelly was, like, such a bitch for what he wrote about their moral victory but actual defeat in the first test against New Zealand. You can see what he wrote here; samples include “a squad high on confidence given the provincial and international success enjoyed this season ... played with Munster-like composure, forcing the home side into many uncharacteristic errors ... Richie McCaw and company knew they were in a match ... we looked threatening, O'Driscoll standing out the game's dominating individual ... This squad has come a long way under O'Sullivan.”

Pardon? You don’t think that’s hurtful? You think if you wanted to take a pop at the Irish rugby team in its totality you’d be coming up with cracks like “Eddie O’Sullivan is so unenthusiastic about making changes to the XV that the IRFU ought to consider getting him treated for obsessive compulsive disorder, before he goes Howard Hughes on them.” Or “the only wing more useless than Shane ‘Shaggy’ Horgan is the one that’s attached to an emu.” Or “the best sidestep Gordon D’Arcy ever made was on the dancefloor at Annabels.” Or “Ronan O’Gara takes his position of stand-off half too literally – he’s meant to get stuck into the bastards, not stand off them.” But hey, we’re all pals here, aren’t we? There’s no need for the nasty stuff.

The goys might be regretting their hissy fit once this morning dawns in Australia. The picture at the top of this piece was on the cover of this morning’s “Irish” Sun, and this evening it had made the Herald. The Herald tried to spin it into another “O Drico! My Drico!” angle, claiming that as well as being the finest rugby player in the history of Irish rugby, Brian O’Driscoll likes nothing more of an evening than to socialise with the travelling support – who are, incidentally, the Best Fans in the World™. Maybe so, but this piccy looks a lot more wild than a evening sipping Pimm’s at the Governor’s mansion, watching the sun dapple those verdant lawns that are that part of Africa that will be forever British. This looks more like a photograph of a man that’s out of his box.

Stories of rugby players partying to excess are part of the legend and lore of the game, most quite too lurid to repeat here. A friend of An Spailpín Fánach told me once he saw S**** B**** and V***** C******** sinking pints of strong black porter in some boozer in Westport once, and seeing those two former Irish internationals (and Blackrock alumni – Christ, how much more do you need?!) on the session inspired in him feelings similar to stout Cortez when he gazed upon the Pacific. But traditionally that’s been kept in the family, and only retold when everybody is old, grey and safely retired. The picture of O’Driscoll, though hardly flattering, is by no means unusual – An Spailpín received it by email yesterday, actually – but the printing of it is a new one in Irish journalism. No doubt the boys will console themselves this morning that there are only oiks and Northsiders working for or reading The Sun and as such they don’t count, but the goys have to worry if the good times in the Comfort Zone are over. And they’ll worry some more if, for all their jawing about “respect,” the team bites the dust by the eight points or more that Paddy Power is predicting. Another lesson in being careful about what you wish for.

Technorati Tags: Ireland, sport, rugby, Brian O'Driscoll

Tubaiste i nDán don gContae Mhaigh Eo?

Tá an Spailpín Fánach buartha go leor sular imreofar an cluiche leath-cheannas Connachta Dé Domhnaigh seo chugainn idir Liatroim agus mo bhinnchontae Mhaigh Eo. Bím ag cur allais i rith mo chodladh. Tagann crith chois is láimh orm uaireanta nuair a smaoiním ar an gcluiche. Níos measa go leir, táim beagnach cinnte gur chualas an bhean sidhe oíche Dé Céadaoin, agus mise ag cur an bhrúscair amach.

Ní hí foireann Liamtroma amháin atá ag cur imní ar bhur scríobhnóir rialta, cé go bhfuil foireann Liatroma i bhfad níos maithe ná mar a thuigtear. Ní bhfuair Liatroim pioc áidh ins na blianta le deanaí - bhaineadar geit as an Mhí, Ros Comáin agus cúpla fhoireann eile ach níor chríochnaigh siad an obair. Insíonn siad sin don Spailpín go bhfuil drochlá ag fánacht ar fhoireann éigin i bPáirc Sheáin Mhic Diarmada, agus tá eagla mór orm go dtiocfaidh an drochlá sin ar Mhaigh Eo Dé Domhnaigh.

Ní chloistear scéal dochasach ó Mhaigh Eo le fada - chuaigh foireann Mhaigh Eo níos measa, in ionad níos fearr i rith an Sráith Náisiúnta, go dtí an lá uafasach i gCaisléan an Bharraigh, agus bhuail na Gaillimhí orainn mar a bhuaileann an casúr ar an dtairne. Fuaireamar amach an lá sin go raibh an séasúr bun ós cionn againne, nach bhféidir linn ár múinin a chur in imirt na Sráithe, agus go bhfuil an fhoireann fillte ar Chéarnóg a hAon arís. Tá éis imirt Ghéaróid Uí Bhrádaigh i gCil Áirne ag tús an Sráth síleadh go raibh rogha ag Mícheál Ó Móráin, bainisteoir Mhaigh Eo, idir an Brádach Óg agus Ciarán Mac Domhnaill, ach tuigtear anóis go mbeidh Mac an Bhaoil ag caitheamh Uimhir a hAon Déag arís i rith an tSamhraidh. Imreoir den scoth é Mac Domhnaill, ar ndóigh, ach ba ea seift - nó dóchas, b'fhéidir - Mhaigh Eo Mac Domhmaill a chur isteach mar lán-tosach, agus an dhá éan a mharú leis an t-aon chloch amháin. In ionadh sin, beidh an Máilleach isteach ar imeall na céarnóige. Tá súil ag an gcontae go leir go mbeidh scaoileadh an Mháilligh níos cruinne ná mar a bheadh sula seo - mura bhfuil, ní dhéantar pioc dífríochta, mar beidh é ar an dteilifís a bhfeicfidh lucht Mhaigh Eo Páirc an Chrocaigh.

Is é filleadh Daithí Uí Bhrádaigh arís ar fhoireann Mhaigh Eo an rud is tabhachtaí agus is dóchasaí a tharla i bpeil Mhaigh Eo le linn an Mhóránaigh, agus mar sin is tubaisteach an scéal go bhfuil sé gortaithe anois. Bhris an Brádach cnámh chois éigin agus tuigtear go dtosóidh Stíofánach eile, Pat Harte, i lár na pairce in eineacht leis an cispheileadóir ar an nDomhnach. Níl dabht ann, afách, gurbh iad an seanBhradach agus an cispheileadóir rogha na h-imreoirí i lár na páirce ag Maigh Eo faoi láthair - guíonn gach croí Mhaigh Eo go n-imreoidh siad le cheile i 2006, mar níl an Brádach ag éirí níos óige.

Maidir le cursaí cúlaithe, níl an Spailpín comh corraithe suas mar atá sé leis na tosaithe. Tá Daithí Ó hÉanaí ag teacht amach ó lánculaí faoi dheireadh, agus tá múinin ag an Spailpín ar an fear nua, Liam Ó Máille. Cé bhfuil sé beag, tá misneach neart laidir aige, agus sin a dhothain ag éinne. 'Siad foireann na thaobhlíne atá ag cur imní ar an Spailpín is mó, agus nuair a léigh do scríobhnóir ins an Mayo News go raibh tréanáil Mhaigh Eo dúnta don lucht iriseoireachta agus tacaíochta, bheul, ba drochthuar eile ar tuairsc an bainisteora. Tá fíos maith ag gach tacadóir Mhaigh Eo gurbh é Seán Ó Mathúna rogha Bhoird Mhaigh Eo mar bainisteoir, ach ní fhéidir leo an margadh a dhéanamh. Deirtear gurbh bainisteoir den scoth é Mícheál Ó Móráin, ach ní fhéidir liom tuiscint cén fáth. Cá bhfuil an fianaise? Cad a bhuaigh sé? Agus más fear glic é an Móránach, cén fath go bhfuil John Morrison aige mar sár-eolaí, fear nach ndéanann faic ach labhairt óna thóin?

Tá an Spailpín buartha go leor maidir leis an gcluiche seo. Cloisim an gúth sidhe uaigneach taibhseach sin arís ag seinnt ós comhar na fuinneoige, agus tá faitíos orm go mór go bhfuil Maigh Eo á chaoineadh ag na sidhe. Dia is Muire linn.

Technorati Tags: Gaeilge, Ireland, sport, GAA, Mayo

Top of the Pops Hits the Bottom of the Barrel

The news that the curtain is to come down at last on Top of the Pops after forty-two years fills An Spailpín Fánach with a strangely wistful feeling. Like the rest of the former viewership, An Spailpín hasn’t watched Top of the Pops in quite some time, but I still continued to watch TOTP long after I stopped listening to pop music radio, and after I had begun to realise that pop music, as we currently understand it, is as dead as dead gets.

The reason that Top of the Pops was essential viewing for so long was because TOTP was where genius would take its bow. The great appeal in watching TOTP, and the reason viewers kept going back week after week and sitting through twenty-five minutes of rubbish was the three minutes of magic that would make all the preceding worthwhile. It worked in two ways for fans – you could discover bands you never heard of when they made a triumphant Top of the Pops debut, or you could cheer a band you had followed for years when they finally went big-time between seven and half-past on a Thursday night.

All An Spailpín’s warmest Top of the Pops memories are of the ‘eighties, naturally enough, as that is An Spailpín’s vintage, when your faithful correspondent was that age when pop music seemed like the most important thing in the world. Wendy James snarling into a microphone that she did not want our money, she wanted our love, thus making her an exception in that famously venal and grasping decade. Enya singing Orinoco Flow playing a black piano bestrewn with roses. Kate Bush with the biggest hair in a big hair decade singing about making a deal with God – she always aimed high, Katie. And saddest and most magical of all, The Pogues featuring the wonderful Kirsty McColl, may God be good to her, all crowded onto a stage that was too small for them, just failing to have a Christmas Number One with The Fairytale of New York, and the bells ringing out for Christmas Day.

I remember Kirsty and Shane years later, back on Top of the Pops, or the new TOTP the BBC introduced in the 1990s to try and keep the thing going on a ventilator, dueting the Fairytale – Shane was wasted, and Kirsty sang the edited version of the “you scumbag, you maggot” line. It was very sad, and it was clear then that TOTP’s, and pop music itself’s, number was up. With the odd exception, like the Spice Girls, the magnificent Britney before she married Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel, and the gorgeous Rachel Stevens singing “Some Girls,” An Spailpín’s favourite pop song of the past three years at least, everything else in the popular music pantheon is, almost without exception, muck. Nick Cave has lost his muse, McCartney’s sixty-four, the Rolling Stones are a joke. You can take your Artic Monkeys, your Coldplay and whatever you’re having yourself, put them all into a sack and throw in a six-pack of stout for luck, and I still wouldn’t give you a fiver for the lot of them.

Nobody bought Rachel Stevens’ Some Girls. Sounded like Bananarama anyway. An Spailpín only ever listens to Raidió na Gaeltachta or Lyric FM anymore. And what I wonder now is: is pop music cat now, or was it always? Is my current distaste just a function of great age, or are people listening to someone now the way I listened to Lloyd Cole then?

Personally, I doubt it, and here’s why (hats off to The Community at Large for the link). This is Pitchfork Media’s list of the 100 Best Music Videos of all time. Most of them have not come within An Spailpín’s ken, and many of those that did have been ignored because they’re M-U-C-K, but there are some incandescent classics on there that you can’t help grinning like a fool with joy and delight as you watch them. Adam and the Ants, Madonna, Kate Bush of course, ZZ Top. Transvision Vamp are a loss, but I don’t suppose they ever did that well in the States. No excuse for no Blondie, though. Funnily enough, a lot of the videos I associate with MT-USA and fab Vinnie Hanley, God have mercy on him, rather than Top of the Pops - ZZ Top, Van Halen and Pat Benetar, God help us. The interesting question is: is this genuinely good stuff, or is it just An Spailpín relieving his youth in front of the telly? “We are YOUNG, doo doo doo, doodoo…” Noël Coward once quipped that there’s nothing quite so potent as cheap music – looks like he had a point.

Technorati Tags: culture, music, TV, Top of the Pops

A Moment of Hibero-Argentine Solidarity

Fantastic.



Technorati Tags: You Tube, Doo Wops, U2, Sunday Bloody Sunday

The Chinese Death Van

There's a fascinating article in USA Today about lethal injection gaining over shooting as the prefered method of capital punishment in China. A company called Jinguan, aflame with that spirit of entrepreneurship that currently rages through China, has therefore invented a "Death Van," to make it much easier to dispatch the wrongdoers.

It turns out that prior to this, if you wanted a hood killed by lethal injection, you had to send him all the way to Beijing, whereas if you would settle for just shooting him all you needed apparently was a gat, a back garden and a prisoner willing to keep his mouth open while being shot in the back of the head - they don't care for the bullet wrecking the face, you see. Spoils the effect. Now, because China supports human rights, you can just send for the Death Van, and they'll take your hood(s) on board and do the neccessary.

Nasty cynics in Amnesty International aren't convinced, though. It seems that organs taken from criminals who have died by lethal injection are in better shape, and therefore more saleable in a China currently aflame with entrepreneurship, that some guy that got riddled.

The Chinese Governement has sixty-eight crimes on the statue that are punishable by death. They are maintaining the numbers who are executed every year as a state secret, but Amnesty reckon it could be as high as eight thousand a year, which works out at a little under one an hour, all day, every day. That's a lot of second-hand liver to hit the streets in a free market.

Technorati Tags: World, China, capital punishment, death vans

Charlie Haughey: The View from Outside the Island

Now that Charles Haughey has crossed over the River Jordan, we as a nation seem no wiser in trying to figure out what to make of him. Perhaps it's best, then, to let an outsider cast a cold eye, on life, on death. Steven Pearlstein's assessment of Haughey in this morning's Washington Post is headlined "Ireland's Economic Transformation began with Charlie Haughey." In the article, Pearlstein goes through what Haughey did in 1987 and what its repercussions were, and cuts through all the cant and bile with a final, pithy summing up of Haughey's legacy in real - dollars and cents, darling - terms: "... Charlie Haughey, a rogue of a politician who taught Ireland the age-old truth that it is better to focus your energies on growing the pie than fighting too long or too hard over how to divide it."

Ar dheis Dé go raibh anam uasal Cathail Uí hEochadh, laoch mór na hÉireann. Ní bheidh a leithid arís ann.


Technorati Tags: Ireland, culture, politics, Charles Haughey