Opinion

Alex Kane: Sinn Féin is doing enormous damage to the Irish language

Alex Kane

Alex Kane

Alex Kane is an Irish News columnist and political commentator and a former director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party.

Sinn Féin would do better to follow the example of TK Whitaker on the Irish language. Picture by Bill Smyth.
Sinn Féin would do better to follow the example of TK Whitaker on the Irish language. Picture by Bill Smyth. Sinn Féin would do better to follow the example of TK Whitaker on the Irish language. Picture by Bill Smyth.

TK Whitaker was one of the most extraordinary figures in modern Ireland.

Described by some as the architect of the post-1920 state, his recent biographer Anne Chambers wrote: "He played a hugely influential role in the economic, social, educational and cultural evolution of the state."

So it's no surprise that he had a view on the Irish language: "If as a result of indifference, the Irish language were allowed to die, the loss would be irreparable.

"We would have lost one of the most important elements of our identity. We would have cut ourselves off from an invaluable heritage and made ourselves even more vulnerable than we are already to absorption in an amorphous Anglo-American culture."

That said, he opposed compulsion as the bedrock of revival, arguing that it would serve only to "sharpen the antagonism of those who see no point in preserving Irish, alienate the sympathy of those who cherish Irish but value the possession of English and discourage even idealists who recognise such an extreme aim (compulsion) to be unattainable".

He wasn't interested in Irish replacing English; the purpose of revival was to "preserve and cherish Irish as the national language; to strengthen the Gaeltacht and extend the use of Irish as a living language, oral and written; and to give everyone growing up in Ireland, through knowledge of the language and its literature, wider access to our cultural heritage".

As Chambers notes (T.K. Whitaker: Portrait of a Patriot), his advice was subsequently adopted by Seán Lemass, who in June 1965 dismissed compulsion as a means of saving the language and urged instead the "building up of enthusiasm for its wider use, and reliance in the main on patriotism and voluntary effort" as the way forward.

Sinn Féin could learn a lot from Whitaker's approach.

Indeed, in April 1989 Whitaker warned about the hijacking of the Irish language by zealots as a "badge of extreme nationalism in Northern Ireland" and further warned that the "government must not allow extremists to capture the Irish language".

Now, as it happens, I have no objection to Whitaker's case for preserving the Irish language.

Language matters. It's what ties us together. We should promote and protect it.

And while I have no particular sense of what could be described as personal 'Irishness', I do accept and acknowledge that it matters to many, many others in Northern Ireland; and I also acknowledge the cultural/linguistic footprints all around me.

Northern Ireland is a place of competing identities and cultures; and it would be absurd to believe that either side would be prepared to dilute or sideline their personal identity and culture.

The problem I have with Sinn Féin's approach to the Irish language is that it seems to be arguing in favour of compulsion: even for those who have neither interest in, nor need for the Irish language.

But as both Whitaker and Lemass warned in the mid-1960s, compulsion usually ends up doing more harm than good to the cause you're promoting.

And that's precisely what seems to be happening here: even to the extent that it could bring down the entire political structure and leave us more polarised than before.

In That's The Way It Crumbles: the American Conquest of English, the author, Matthew Engel, considers the differences between American 'English' and English 'English' and notes: "The prime mover of this split was the mischief-making grammarian Noah Webster, who, asked by Benjamin Franklin to prevent the spread of Americanisms in America, and keep close to the mother tongue, did precisely the opposite. Webster argued that if independence were to make sense politically, it should be enshrined in language."

That's exactly what Sinn Féin seems to be doing now: hoping to use a language - in which the vast majority of Northern Ireland's Protestants, Catholics, unionists and even republicans, have no fluency - for political/electoral ends.

It's all about highlighting the differences rather than highlighting and promoting a joint heritage.

It's like a variation of the shibboleth - using language to differentiate and mark out someone as 'not one of us'.

I have no difficulty with funding the learning of Irish or Ulster-Scots; on the basis that learning about ourselves, and our common roots, is no bad thing.

But I do have enormous difficulty with compulsion, particularly when there is no such compulsion in the rest of Ireland.

I have difficulty, too, when the funding of compulsion diverts resources from areas where they would be much more useful.

I have difficulty when the primary purpose of the compulsion is political/electoral rather than cultural and communal.

I have difficulty when the compulsion feeds into an ongoing Irish unity project.

Sinn Féin is, I think, doing enormous damage to the Irish language. They would do well to heed Whitaker: "Far better to find more effective ways of advancing an acceptable bilingualism, neither embarrassed nor embarrassing but founded on love and respect for Irish and a resolve to keep it alive."

A wise man. Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann.