Conference tallis::celt

    Jose,
    
    A good question.
    
    The Irish language isn't dead -> it has been hibernating now for
    some 150 years.  Out of a total population of about 4 million people
    in Ireland, some 100,000 people consider Irish as their "first
    language", and more likely, around 20,000 - 30,000 people speak
    Irish as part of their everyday life.
    
    Many more people "know" the language well enough to carry on a simple
    conversation.  I don't know what that figure would be - maybe 400,000?
    
    Irish is spoken heavily in geographical pockets in Ireland, known as
    Gaeltachts.  If the map of Ireland represents a bear, then these
    Gaeltachts are located at the paws and the head of the bear (Kerry,
    Galway, Mayo, and Donegal mainly).
    
    The Irish language is also very strong in Northern Ireland in
    Nationalist areas (Derry and West Belfast), probably because the
    British government does not recognize Irish at all.  Today, you can
    enter Belfast, get a taxi, rent a hotel room, and go out to a fine
    restaurant without mentioning a word of Be/arla (English).  You couldn't
    due that in Galway (or could you?)
    
    Maybe some day, the sleeping bear will awaken from his hibernation
    and realize what he is missing.
    
    "Bain triail as"
    
    Se/oirse/

    Irish language is a compulsory cor subject in all schools in the
    Republic and usually every student will have 12 years of Irish done
    by the time he has finished school.
    In spite of this the spoken language is rarely used except on 
    ceremonial occasions and is not held in high regard by a lot of people.
    Some people feel the time would be better spent on more practical
    subjects at school.This is a sign of the fierce level of competition
    for jobs and university positions in Ireland.
    The teaching method in schools is also to blame, putting emphasis on
    the written word and not enough on the spoken,using out-of-date text
    that is not relevant to todays world.In many ways the teaching of Irish
    is like the teaching of Latin,where a student is expected to remember
    hundreds of poems and literary passages,as well as hundreds of 
    grammar rules.There is not much joy in learning it.
    

    Anybody (maybe Craig) know how many active Scottish Gaelic speakers
    there are?  And how about the other Celtic languages?
    
    -george

It's funny, caith me cupla la abhaile i Mbaile Atha Cliath
last week and I was thinking not too much has changed.

Then I got back to Boston yesterday afternoon and watched
a great program on PBS last night called the Story of English.

It dealt with how the british used language as a political
tool and a means of ruling Ireland and discussed the effect
that Irish-English has had on the original language.  Several
people who were interviewed seemed to be saying that they
believe that the Irish will use their particular version
of English as a means of self-expression in the future.

BTW, it was interesting to hear some people interviewed
in some Tropical location (Montserrat ?) whose forebears
came from Cork originally.  They were coloured, yet looked
and SPOKE like Corkonians.  Apparently the Cork accent and
speech mannerisms are based on Elizabethan (Liz the First)
english.

Very interesting program with, of course, plenty of praise
for Synge and Joyce.

Anois back to your regular schedule.  By the way, I believe
we don't speak much Irish because of a kind of shyness
that seems to be part of the charm (and maybe the problems)
of the Irish race.  We won't do things we don't feel we
can excel at.

Bernard

    I presume that you the know the difference between an Irish Wedding and
    a Irish Wake....
    
    
    There is one less DRUNK !!!
    
    I saw a documentary on the Irish speaking tropical Island. Its history
    is as you said, the original inhabitants were from Cork in Ireland. 
    What happened was that, the English claimed the Island and had
    plantations there. Their overseers were Irish people who were deported
    for some crime (probably stealing something trivial) and were sentenced
    to work on this Island for the English Landlord. Their culture was
    passed on to the black natives and when they learned the English AND
    Irish tongue, they did so with a Irish accent.  It was a fasinating
    programme as it demonstrated how a culture can be transported thousands
    of miles and if the location is remote eneough it can thrive.
    
    Rgds
    
    Dom

R.e .5 More numbers.

>>>Anybody (maybe Craig) know how many active Scottish speakers there are? And
how about the other Celtic languages?

Some figures: (bearing in mind that census figures don't include people not
resident in the u.k.)

Scots Gaelic: 79,000 (approx 1.6% of the population of Scotland) claimed to
speak Scots Gaelic in the 1981 census.

Gaeilige (N.Ireland) approx. 60,000 (estimate)

Kernewek (Cornish) - approx 50-100 people can converse freely in Cornish. This
is due to a linguistic revival in the language. The last native speaker died in
the nineteenth century.

Welsh - In 1981 census 503,550 people claimed to speak Welsh - 19% of the
population of Wales.

Breton - 600,000 speakers.

Manx Gaelic - not sure. No native speakers left.

HTH,
Catrin

    Today newspaper came out an article about Ireland. The article spoke
    about having election and about the referendum they had about divorce.
    We heard a lot of Northern Ireland but little of Ireland. News travel
    slow about Ireland but violence in Northern Ireland we receive it 
    within 24 hours.

    Does the Irish flag has a story behind it ? How did the flag came to it's
    existence ?

    Leaprechauns say yes.
    
    Originally Ireland was a group of Celtic Kingdoms up to 1170.  Then the
    Normans invaded and set up their own kingdom as a sub-kingdom of the
    English kingdom.  This situation obtained until 1800 even though the
    kingdoms of England and Scotland had been united in 1603 approx.  The
    principality of Wales was also sub-sumed into this greater kingdom but
    Ireland maintained a "separateness" with its own parliament even though
    it was subservient to the English crown and maintained as such by force
    of English arms.
    
    The Irish Flag is actually  A gold coloured Harp on a green background.
    This is the original flag of the country (indeed the president's ensign
    is a gold harp on a blue background.)
    
    In 1800 the Second Act of Union was passed by the British Parliament in
    London.  When they did this the abolished the the Irish Parliament and
    decided that Ireland was part of a new entity called Great Britain.
    
    In so doing the modified the "Union Flag" into the "Union Jack" as it
    is now known.  This modification was the addition of two diagonal red
    bars. You see the British version of the Irish flag was considered to
    be St. Patrick's cross which is similar to the Scottish flag of St.
    Andrew's cross.  They cosidered the flag to be two diagonal red bars
    on a white background. (This subject is called heraldry by the way).
    
    However shortly before this decision was made for us by the British in
    1800 a new form of government had just emerged on the planet called 
    republicanism where the divine right of monarchs was tossed aside and 
    replaced by the will of the people.  The Irish had completely turned
    over to the gospel of Republicanism (led for the most part by the 
    protestant community of Dublin and the North East).  They had staged
    a rebellious uprising in 1798 and had earlier tried to land a massive
    French army in Co. Cork.  
    
    This was a time of remarkable upheaval.  The flag at this time was as
    I earlier described it, gold Harp on a green background.  There was no
    way the new flag of Great Britain was going to accept a symbol of 
    rebellion and republicanism.
    
    However the french had also invented a new flag a tricolour.  THere was
    a new fashion for this type of banner in the world in the early part of
    the 19th century.  In Ireland it was flaunted first in the late 1830's
    I believe.  Green and Orange to represent the two traditions of the 
    island.  White was chosen only because it was a good colour to put in
    between the other two as in the French model.  Later this was to be
    interpreted as a symbol of peace between the two traditions.  This only
    became the case when the protestant tradition was divided from the 
    republican ethos it had espoused by judicious doses of religious
    attachment to the protestantness of the U.K. throne and through liberal
    encouragement of industry in protestant communities.
    
    Thus the great experiment of the 1790's in Ireland was destroyed, it
    will take many more years to re-build that which was torn apart and
    later cemented into a partition.
    
    Snake illustrates.
     

    Re .16:
>    The Irish Flag is actually  A gold coloured Harp on a green background.
>    This is the original flag of the country (indeed the president's ensign
    
    	Mike, I thought that this was the coat of arms of Leinster (which is
    why the coat of arms of Ireland has a blue background so that Leinster
    would not be confused with the whole country...). When was the
    distinction brought between the two?
    	Incidentally, about the French flag, the reason why it is blue,
    white and red goes back to the first years of the French revolution
    when there was still a constitutional monarchy instead of the republic
    which followed. The French royal flag of the time of absolute monarchy
    was white with three gold lilly flowers. During the revolution the city
    of Paris played a proeminent part and as the coat of arms of Paris has
    a blue and red background, the new flag was devised as a symbol of the
    union of the new constitutional monarchy and the capital after the king
    had been brought back from Versailles to Paris (Versailles had become a
    symbol of absolutism and originally the reason why Louis XIV moved
    there was to be out of reach of the Parisian mob, he had never
    forgotten that he had to flee out of Paris when he was 8 or 10 during
    the rebellion called la Fronde). Not long after, the king was
    overthrown, and eventually beheaded...
    
    Re .13:
>	Breton - 600,000 speakers.
    
    Catrin, where does that figure come from? The French census forms sure
    don't have a question about native language, everybody is supposed to
    speak French... I have seen some other figures (circulated in the 70s
    by some militant Breton speaking organizations, so they might be
    biased) which mentionned 2 millions fluent speakers and 4 more millions
    able to understand the language. What I'm interested in is the sources
    of these figures. Do you have some info about it?
    			Denis.

    Leaprechauns know who the real leaders are.
    
    The Irish Constitution provides for three types of election.
    
    1. The "real" election or as its known here as the General Election.
    This election decides the shape of the government.  The maximun term of
    office of a gvmt. is 5 years.  Elections for gvmt. can happen much more
    frequently if the gvmt. is unstable (e.g. loses an important vote in
    the parliament).  The Prime Minister (Taoiseach) is the boss of all
    bosses.
    In this general election you vote to elect local members of parliament 
    in your own constituency only. There will be a minimum of three and a 
    maximum of five per constituency. (We are over-represented by 80%).
    
    Depending on the result the parties then decide in parliament who is to
    be the leader. The majority vote elects the Taoiseach.  The canditates
    for taoiseach are selected by the parliamentary party (elected members
    of parlaiment of that party) , but this will always have been
    done long before the election.
    
    2. The Presidential election.  This can be quiet a rare event.  The
    office of the president is only a figurehead role with little power.
    A president:s term is 7 years and they may have two terms only.
    If the parliament agrees on a single canditate (nominations require the
    support of twenty parliamentarians) then there is no election.  
    
    3. Local elections for the appointment of local gvmt. representatives.
    These reps. have no power. The local gvmt. civil service wield the
    power and they hold most of that from the central gvmt. department of
    the environment.  These representatives provide a talking shop where 
    mgmt. decisions are lambasted or praised and in this way the people
    think that mgmt. hears what the people have to say. (You see most
    people think that their local representatives direct and manage the
    affairs of local gvmt. when if fact they are virtually powerless to 
    do anything about it).
    
    Snake has a weather eye on the politicians.
    

    RE MIKES LAST NOTE AND LOCAL GOVT.
    
    I am one of the much maligned local representative. They act (in
    business terms) like a Board of Directors but we can't fire the CEO !
    
    The officals cannot adopt policy without or approval but if we do not
    approve we are disbanded.
    
    My own view is that we are the whipping boys for the decision which are
    made by officals. We rubber stamp their work simply because we have no
    option. We can debate until the "cows come home" but at the end of the
    day we effect little or no change is the officals original request.  We
    must take budgets as they are presented as we don't have any facilities
    to propose alternative figures.
    
    BUT, come election time and we are blamed for everything from a cracked
    pavement to the the colour of a public building.
    
    For all this we get paid $30 a month.
    
    rgds
    
    Dom

    > The officals cannot adopt policy without or approval but if we do not
      approve we are disbanded.
    
      Dom, can you explain this a little more ? Also you earn $30 a month
    is this a part time job or full ?
    

    Leaprechauns cannot be specific
    
    THe oldest structure in Ireland is Newgrange tomb which because of its
    orientation with the Sun had a religious purpose, is about 5000 to 6000
    years old.
    
    Since christian times the oldest structure would appear to Gallearus's
    church in Co. Kerry.  It dates from the sixth or sevent century and is
    very tiny.  Around the same time a bunch of monks also lived on the
    most westerly point of Europe on a craggy inhospitable rock off the
    coast od Co. Kerry called Skellig Michael.  Their beehive shaped stone
    cells still exist.
    
    In most cases in Ireland later church structures were constructed on
    top of the ancient religious sites. Some of these newer structures date
    back as far as the year 800 to 900 and they are to be found all over
    the country.
    
    Snakes were victims of early Irish christian genocide.
     

    The strong of heart (and pure of mind??) always survive though.......
    
                             M. (Suffering U.S. media war hype).
    
                                                    

    Can someone verify a story of St. Brendan who sailed from Ireland
    to Central America, they say that he the first to land in the New
    World.
    
    Jose
    

    One day, the monks of Clonmacnoise were holding a meeting on the floor
    of their church, and as they were at their deliberations there, they
    saw a ship sailing over them in the air, going as if it were on the
    sea. When the crew of the ship saw the meeting, and the inhabited land
    below them, they dropped anchor and the anchor came right down on the
    floor of the church, and the priests seized it.
    
    A man came down out of the ship after the anchor, and he was swimming
    as if he were in the water, until he reached the anchor; and they were
    dragging him down then. "For God's sake let me go!" said he, "for you
    are drowning me."  Then he left them, swimming in the air as before,
    taking his anchor with him.
    					Irish, 14th/15th Century
                                        Author unknown, translated by
                                        K. H. Jackson.
    
    So you see Jose, the Brendan myth must be untrue - why would the Irish
    *sail* to America, when they had already invented airships?  ;-)
    
    Regards,
    
    Colin
    

    re .26 
    Now that's what I call Poteen !!

    
    
    	It MUST be true .... Why else would Christy Moore sing about it ??  :-)
    
    
    
    
    	keVin