One Hundred Years of Irish Language Policy, 1922–2022 by John Walsh (review)

Abstract

When welcoming the Irish language achieving full status in the European Union at the beginning of 2022, President Higgins made the following call to all Irish people: Now I say throw off all the inhibitions, the excuses, the laziness and as the language of our ancestors becomes at every level in daily usage in the European Union, let us go and make a resolution to give it a place in our daily lives at home – i lár an aonaigh, inár ngáthchaint. It is particularly appropriate that in the centenary year of the foundation of the independent Irish state, our native language achieves full status as an active working language of the EU. This can be regarded as one of the achievements of what was undoubtedly the most ambitious and far-reaching policy objective to which the young state committed itself – namely the revival of the Irish language. Yet, despite it remaining an objective of public policy, it often appears to the interested observer as the policy that dare not speak its name, a rhetorical commitment supported by severely insufficient policy measures and largely isolated from the rest of the state’s activities, with the exception of primary and secondary education. Even the lack of any central focus on language revival as part of the centenary celebrations of the state reveals its marginalised status, which I have little doubt would greatly surprise and sadden the leaders of our independence struggle were they to return to today’s Ireland.