Essay Question:

Evaluate the reasons put forward to account for the shift in language use in Ireland, 1700-1840.

Write a short essay of between 1,000 and 1,500 words following the suggestions below.

Reading:

Garrett Fitzgerald, ‘The decline of the Irish language 1771-1871’ (1990) in Mary Daly and David Dickson (eds.), The origins of popular literacy in Ireland: language change and educational development 1700 – 1920 (1990), 59-72

Maureen Wall, ‘The decline of the Irish language’ in Brian Ó Cuív (ed), A View of the Irish Language (1969), 81-90

J.J. Lee, Ireland 1912-1985 (1989), 662-669

Brinley Thomas, ‘A Cauldron of Rebirth: the Industrial Revolution and the Welsh language’ in Thomas, The Industrial Revolution and the Atlantic Economy (1993), 208-231

The period 1700-1840 saw a rapid and comprehensive shift in the spoken language in much of Ireland. This phenomenon can be explained in a number of different ways. Your essay will explore one or more of these.

Here are some suggestions for lines of argument. Do not try to follow all, or even most, of them. Careful consideration of one or two is more than sufficient. Confine your analysis to the period 1700-1840. The Great Famine of 1845-50, for example, is not relevant.

• For the period before 1700, Wall refers to centuries of ‘foreign occupation’ before 1700 as a crucial factor. If this is so, why in your view was the Irish speaking population still so large in the early nineteenth century, and also so well off? On the role of the state, see Liam Kennedy, Colonialism, Religion and Nationalism in Ireland (1996), p.204-208, ‘Language and language change’. There is a discussion of monoglot Irish-speaking voters in Nicholas Wolf, An Irish-speaking Island: the linguistic landscape in Ireland, 1770-1870 (2014), 164-172.
• Do the explanations correspond to what you have read in other parts of the course? For example, Wall emphasizes the effect of the repeal of the penal laws, since they restricted social advancement, whereas Connolly and Cullen tend to qualify their impact in practice.
• An argument could be made that Catholicism was even more strongly discriminated against than Irish speaking in this period. However, Catholicism flourished while Irish speaking declined. How do we explain this contrast?
• Wall emphasizes social and economic advancement as a reason for language shift. Lee criticizes this approach. Do you find his criticisms convincing?
• The same is true of emigration. Wall sees it as a driving force in language shift, while Lee disagrees.
• Does the geographic pattern of change described by Fitzgerald and illustrated by his maps bear out the explanations put forward by other writers? Wall, for example, refers to agrarian secret societies – did their areas of activity become English-speaking? Is there a relationship between Irish speaking and commercialization?