Gaelic revival

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For the Gaelic resurgence to overthrow English supremacy in the 14th-16th century, see: Gaelic resurgence.

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[edit] Early gaelic revival

Gaelic revival (Irish: An tAthbheochan Gaelach) refers to the late-nineteenth-century interest in the Gaelic language and ancient Irish folklore, sports, songs, and arts considered to be part of the pre-conquest heritage of the "native" Irish people. Reemergence of the Gaelic language in its native Ireland. Gaelic had diminished as a spoken tongue, having been pushed to isolated rural areas, with English as the dominant language of Ireland as a whole. The discovery of how to read Old Irish (Gaelic written prior to the year 900) strongly influenced the Gaelic Revival.

In 1842 the Young Ireland organization founded The Nation, a newspaper that published the poetic works of Thomas Osborne Davis, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, Richard D'Alton Williams, and Speranza (the pseudonym of Lady Wilde, mother of Oscar Wilde) which spurred the revival further. Jeremiah John Callanan was the first to use the Gaelic refrain in English verse. Thomas Moore, Charles Maturin, and Maria Edgeworth also incorporated Irish themes from earlier Gaelic works into their writings.

[edit] Irish language revival today

[edit] Education

The Gaelscoileanna (Irish-medium primary/secondary schools) of which there are currently 31,000 pupils/students attending gaelscoileanna, with 168 gaelscoileanna at primary level and 43 schools at post-primary level (gaelcholáistí), in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, making the Gaelscoileanna project the most successful minority language immersion education project in Europe.

It has helped to encourage other similar minority language immersion projects such as the Breton Diwan schools, Basque ikastolas, the Occitan calandretas and the Catalan Bressola. The Gaelscoil initiative has successfully managed to become involved in both urban and rural school life, with Gaelscoils in every city in Ireland. The two counties with the highest number of Gaelscoils are: Dublin with 28 Gaelscoils and 8 Gaelcholáistí while Cork has 22 Gaelscoils and 8 Gaelcholáistí.

[edit] Government

The introduction of the Official Languages Act 2003 in the Republic, brought about the establishment of the office of the Irish language commissioner. This and the fact that Irish was declared the 21st official language of the European Union in 2006, gave a certain newfound confidence to the language movement, both North and South and to both non-Irish speakers and Irish speakers alike.

In April 2008, the Taoiseach elect Brian Cowen made a speech in Irish stating that Irish was his "theanga dhúchais" native language and

"Sé atá a mholadh agam ná stadas na teanga a ardú agus sochaí na tíre a spreagadh agus a ghriosadh chun cuspóirí ár sinnsear a bhaint amach."

"What I'm proposing is raising the status of the language and encourage Irish society to achieve the aims of its ancestors".

May 2008, Gerry Adams put forward a proposal to turn part of West Belfast into An Ceathrú Gaeltachta/Gaeltacht Quarter encompassing a population of 20,000 people as it is widely regarded that if the language is to survive, it must make a come-back in Irish cities.

[edit] Media

With Irish language rights activists from the Gaeltacht regions, campaigning for language rights during the 1960s, there was a strong demand among native Irish speakers for their own radio station, which would bring together all Gaeltacht regions, RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta was the product of this. The station was founded in 1972 and it became one of Ireland's national radio stations.

Irish language in Northern Ireland was much more of a human rights issue, as Irish speakers did not have the same rights as someone in the Republic of Ireland. As a result of this, there has been a huge internal movement demanding rights for Irish speakers. The daily newspaper Lá was founded in Belfast in 1984 and today it has a circulation of 7,000 across all of Ireland. It has the biggest daily circulation of any of the other Celtic language newspapers.

This also had a knock-on effect on Irish radio programming with the demand for a new community radio station called Raidió na Life in 1993 within the Greater Dublin area, catering for the Irish native speakers in Dublin, civil service and pupils/students.

Two decades after Raidió na Gaeltachta was established, this paved the way to the setting up of Ireland's first Irish language television station, Teilifís na Gaeilge(now called TG4) in 1996. According to the census, as much as 1.5m people in the Republic declare themselves to be competent in Irish. This reason would become the basis for the demand for a new Irish language station. In its first year of broadcasting, TnaG had a 0.7% share of the national television audience with a much smaller budget in comparison to RTÉ One and Network 2. However, ten years later, TG4 now has a 3.2% share of the national audience, thereby tripling its ratings since the 1990s. TG4 became the catalyst and provided the environment for creativity and imagination to flourish. Many more non-Irish speakers were tuning into the station thereby improving their level of Irish.

At the same time as Teilifís na Gaeilge(TG4) was broadcasting for the first time, Foinse a new Irish weekly newspaper was launched in October 1996, based in An Cheathrú Rua County Galway, which today has a circulation of 10,000. It has the biggest weekly circulation of any of the other Celtic language newspapers.

Under the Good Friday Agreement, the Irish language must be promoted within Northern Ireland and as a result the public broadcaster the BBC Northern Ireland created a range of Irish language programmes for the growing Irish-speaking community in the North. As well as this, in September 2006, Greater Belfast's first Irish radio station Raidió Fáilte was established.

A company called Digital Audio Productions specialising in all aspects of radio programming has created two very successful Top 40 Oifigiúil na hÉireann and Giotaí brands of Irish-language radio programmes.

Since 2007, Top 40 Oifigiúil na hÉireann (Ireland's Official Top 40) is a new phenomenon, and it has become increasingly popular to hear the Irish Top 40 hits being presented entirely in Irish on what are regarded as English-language radio stations such as:

East Coast FM Flirt FM Galway Bay FM LM FM Midwest Radio NEAR FM 101.6FM Newstalk Red FM Spin 1038 Spin South West Wired FM

As part of Seactain na Gaeilge in March 2008, Digital Audio Production in cooperation with Conradh na Gaeilge created Ireland's first web-based youth radio station Raidió X completely in Irish. Ireland's first contemporary Irish monthly magazine nós* for young adults was also established.

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