Irish Radio Phraseology

Peter wrote:

In the Irish / Welsh context, practically the whole issue is nationalist, which is why – apart from local govt imposed political correctness – few care about it

Sure, but I can’t see nationalist reasons for not wanting to speak Irish or Welsh.

James,

Irish languange won’t be an issue for you at all. I’d be very surprised if you hear a single person speaking it. It’s a few years since I heard anyone speaking it to communicate.

If Irish languange was needed to get by, then the vast majority of Irish people would be in a lot of trouble!

Even in the few areas where it is spoken as a first languange, anyone speaking to you will speak English. If they know you to be a local, they’ll speak Irish to you but other than that they’ll default to English.

Enjoy your trip. Where are you planning on going?

James_Chan wrote:

So how is the Irish language related to nationalism?

Ask that question in Northern Ireland and you’ll quickly understand.

Peter wrote:

In the Irish / Welsh context, practically the whole issue is nationalist, which is why – apart from local govt imposed political correctness – few care about it

To give a practical example, I went to school in Wales and it was compulsory to study Welsh until the end of the third year of secondary school (age 14). In theory, according to the published curriculum, I studied Welsh for 10 years – ages 4 to 14. The reality is that almost no-one took it seriously, and my grasp of the Welsh language is limited to a handful of words and literally one or two sentences. Contrast with German, which I studied for 2 years and in which language I can manage most of the normal tourist and everyday stuff.

I have a brother who is two years younger than me. After I finished studying Welsh the rules were changed to make studying it to age 16 compulsory and one actually had to sit a GCSE (the UK standard age 16 qualification) in it. I can recall many, many parents at the school being very annoyed at this change because they took the view that a compulsory GCSE in Welsh took up space in the timetable that could have been used towards a GCSE in a useful subject. Aside from this localised issue with Welsh, the only compulsory GCSEs in the UK education system are Maths, English and some sort of Science (the bright do separate Phys, Chem, Bio, the less-bright do one general science course).

Some of those bits ahown on tha map above will be known as gaeltachts.
Back in my schooldays I went to one of those during the summer. No intention of learning any Irish of course, just the first holiday away from the parents. The people there did speak Irish of course but the younger ones only wanted to speak English to us outsiders as they saw speaking English as a way to get out of the place. That was 1965 and the country parts of Ireland were pretty seriously poor in those days.
Funny enough, the place I was at, Ranafast, is pretty near to Carrickfin, nowadays known as Donegal Airport. I suspect that in 1965 the 500 yard grass strip which was the original airfield was not even there.

Years ago I attended a summer school programme at Dublin University. It was some trip, in so many ways, however, as part of our Irish (I am an Irish citizen BTW) integration we were boarded onto an Executive Train which had been specifically hired for our party, and taken to Limerick. It was perhaps one of the more surreal trips I have ever been on and most were totally pissed by the time we reached Limerick. The executive ’’bit’’ was an old freight car with three piece suites and armchairs in it and a bar! Limerick was tumbleweed, and we went to a pub that had a talking Toucan called Thomas who spoke only in Gael. The locals were not that friendly to a bunch of Hooray Henry’s suited and booted from the UK, but when they found that most of us were Scots/Irish they softened…….a bit.