On The Shoulders Of Giants . . . 'Irish Above Politics' - Máirtin Ó Cadhain
Today, as part of our On the Shoulders of Giants series, we carry segments of a pamphlet by Máirtín Ó Cadhain. Born in Conamara in 1906, Ó Cadhain is considered by many as having been the foremost Irish language writer of the twentieth century. His achievements are largely overlooked by the Anglophone dominated Irish literary world.
But Ó Cadhain was a political and social activist as well. He was a volunteer in the IRA during the 1930s and was later interned in the Curragh for his activities. He was also instrumental in the Gaeltacht land campaigns and the founding of the Ráth Chairn Gaeltacht settlement in County Meath.
In these segments of his ‘Irish Above Politics’ pamphlet Máirtín Ó Cadhain criticises the 1964 government commission and report ‘Athbheochan na Gaeilge: The restoration of the Irish language.’
This work first appeared as a series of three articles in the Gaelic Weekly, March 1964. In the pamphlet, Ó Cadhain also castigates the official language movement, Conradh na Gaeilge, for its cosiness with the state.
He then goes on to suggest a plan of action for those seeking to save the Irish language. While Ó Cadhain is better known for his Connollyite concept of Athghabháil na hÉireann, where he advocates socialism and a major redistribution of wealth as the only means of guaranteeing the salvation of the Irish language, in the following work he roughly sketches out the necessity for the formation of an Irish-language pressure group. Such a group, Misneach, emerged two years later in 1966.
Irish Above Politics
by Mártin Ó Cadhain, Gaelic Weekly 1964
MUCH, perhaps too much, has already been said and written about the Irish Language Revival Commission. Revival bodies have dug into it like a cat discovering a dump of fresh fish on dry land. Plenty of fodder for another forty winters!
Still very little worthwhile comment has emerged. I think the Report itself hardly deserved all the talk. With all due respects to Donall Ó Móráin, a member said the Commission was a packed jury.
He simply meant they were in agreement before they met: you have looked at the deluge of cliches, the great snowfalls of common-places. The worst of this kind of agreement is that no persistent grappling with any problem is necessary.
… In fact one of its great faults, if not its greatest, is that [its recommendations] won’t cost money. The Commission seems to have no idea how much. It had for instance a splendid opportunity of having a scientific investigation carried out on the Gaeltacht and its potentialities,
… Most significant reference to the Gaeltacht is the “demoralising effect” of the dole. It strongly reminds me of what Palmerston and the Government at the time of the Famine did at the instigation of, Irish landlords.
The latter, finding their labourers going over to the government relief schemes where there was more pay and less strenuous work, forced the Government to enact the Gregory clause. This deprived Guardians of the Poor Law of the power to give relief to any person having more than a quarter acre of land.
Soup was substituted for relief work. Not that I think it was the idea of the Commission at any time to open soup kitchens! Likely enough they did not have the imagination to think of it. It reveals - to use a charitable word - the snobbish attitude of inmates of Commissions to poor out of the way, and not so out of the way, places like Ranafast and Rathcarne.
Mr. Blythe as an ex-minister for Thrift would give £100,000 for the Gaeltacht. Through some pressure performance he fishes up a quarter of a million for a private institution in Dublin which by any national culture - or should we simply say culture accountancy - Gaoth Dobhair or an Taibhdhearc or An Damer deserves at least as well. Bord na Leabhar Gaeilge get the Hoggers’ share, what is left at the bottom of the empty Guinness barrels around the quays.
. . . An analysis of recommendations reveals they fall into two principal categories. One is the many-decades, mildewed ideas of Mr. Blythe who I think had a by no means enviable role to play in regard to a former language commission.
The other category is that of the Gael-Linn scholarship and industrial suggestions which when not futile are for most part dangerous. To be candid I doubt whether there is any basis for action, worthwhile action, in this Report. It is serving its purpose.
Let me revert to the Famine: “Nobody knows what to do, everybody hints at some scheme or plan to which his next door neighbour objects. Most people are inclined to consider the case as hopeless, to rest on that conviction, and let the evil work itself out, like a consuming fire which dies away when there is nothing left to destroy.
All call on the Government for a plan or a remedy, but the Government have no plan and no remedy; there is nothing but disagreement among them, and while they are discussing and disputing the masses are dying” (Greville’s MEMOIRS). Substitute “Irish language” for “masses”
… Yet the Report can be and must be made the -point of departure for action, action in this case necessarily meaning political action. As far as I have seen nobody suggested such a thing. Such a suggestion for Irish revivalists will bring on high blood pressure.
… It is not cynical to say that a Government never becomes sincere about anything until forced into a position where action becomes imperative. At this point some personal experiences may be relevant.
I have seen spontaneously organised groups of Irish speakers in Gaeltacht areas supporting two election candidates. They did not merit support but, at that moment, it looked as if they could be used to some purpose. However, in both cases, the language was only very indirectly an issue.
It may be more to the point to say something about an effort which was made in Dublin some years ago to organise the Gaeltacht people living there. It lasted for some time but petered out in failure.
… One thinks it strange that this should be so. In modern times-in nineteenth century England and America as well as in twentieth century Ireland - the Irish - have founded what have been probably the most effective mass movements known to any people.
Indirectly the Church of the majority may have something to do with this. In any case it is a historical fact. Why have the Irish revivalists failed to establish or maintain any worthwhile movement since 1921?
… Candidly the idea was to form a pressure group. Initially it seemed easier to attain this by concentrating on a well-defined section like Gaeltacht people and on a limited if big objective like Gaeltacht consolidation.
At that time too an attempt on different lines was being made to organise the Gaeltacht itself. Our intention was not eventually to confine organisation to Gaeltacht people or Gaeltacht interest. We know that the cause of the language, like the magpie’s nest which goes by the name of Irish culture, is indivisible.
The Gaeltacht mentality is as crotchety a bag of tricks as that of the Cetharnach Caoilriabhach. Still there seemed to be more hope in it for a start than among the iceberg zones of revivalist Dublin. The latter have been organising themselves since 1893 and have succeeded in forming if not five or six mutilated, at least five or six mutually self-excluding very select vestries.
The idea of a pressure group -was and should be to educate and train an elite who would give precedence to the language issue above all other issues arising in the political field. Irish revivalists, if the word is to have any meaning, must themselves realise that the cause of the language is of more importance than the fleeting vagaries of politics which are for the most part irrelevant at any deep level. Dublin did and does offer a splendid opportunity for such a group.
Five hundred people compacted into unselfish solidarity could conceivably decide the fate of three or four parliamentary seats and hence of a government. This is axiomatic. Seats have been and are decided by a mere handful of votes.
This would all depend of course on the willingness of a determined group to raise the language above all other issues, no matter how personal such issues, or how vital in themselves. I know it is a negative approach. “An té nach bhfuil láidir ní foláir dó a bheith glic.”
I am not discussing now what four or five hundred voluntary workers, even a hundred such, of the intellectual calibre and passionate persuasiveness of those contemplated here could otherwise do in maelstrom of an election. Nor am I forgetting the incalculable service that could be rendered by those who could not act openly but who would be with us. Nor am I forgetting the rest of the country. But Dublin gives better manoeuvring ground for an idea like this. Dublin is the Achilles heel for the Revolution. Let us not shirk at the word. Revolution it must be to get anywhere at this stage. And there is no use denying that the wrench which is required to be given to the minds even of the most passionate believers in Irish would be anything less than a revolution.
…. I know that neither Fianna Fáil nor Labour will have anything to show in the future unless constant intelligent pressure and, at times, doses of prudently administered compulsion are brought to bear on them. Their answer to everything will be more and more commissions relegated to dead letter boxes, huge dumps of fish offals for Revival land lubbers, if they do not see that there is sufficient courage and determination to change caterwauling into action.
Action will give the Irish Revival the self-confidence which it badly needs and will inculcate a healthy respect for it.