yone for an aul uachtar reoite?
- Lip Service/Leaving Cert Irish (TnaG)
- Counterblast (UTV)
- Spotlight (BBC1)
- Pull Of The City (BBC2)
``Cad is ainm duit?
Tá mé fear sneachta ar an rothar.
Cad é do caitheamh aimsire is fearr?
Oh tá an aimsir sunny agus ag cuttáil an grass.
Cad a cheapann tú faoi dríodar raidió gríomhach (nuclear waste?)
Tá-Seá-raidió anois agus fear sneachta.''
Hard to believe this constitutes the Oral Irish Leaving Cert Exam for
many teenagers after studying the language since childhood, which was
the focus of TnaG's ``Scrudú-Béil-Oral Irish'' and the hilarious short
comedy ``Lip Service'' on Tuesday last.
Even more shocking can be the attitude of some, including
republicans, to our native language - ``sure what use is it? - it's
boring - French is more important''. Ignoring the fact that the
minority of us who do emigrate to France spend our time on building
sites with Paddies and the French usually refuse to converse with our
``Je m'appelle Jacques'' jargon.
``It was boring in school'' is another sentiment garnered from the
programmes ``Peig with her no teeth and her children falling over the
cliff, swimming twelve miles to school to be battered over the head
with an oar by an elbow jacketed maniac'' ample proof of the failure
of the 26-County education system to revive Irish as the primary
means of communication and the survival of the colonial mentality.
Despite the gloom encountered by Seán McGinley on entering a Dublin
secondary school, the large majority of Irish people are in favour of
the language, as evidenced by the thriving number of Gaelscoileanna
and the innovative TnaG.
McGinley is welcomed by the teaching staff, products of a
career-minded, establishment-based language system, which up to
recently saw the language, in Dublin in particular, becoming largely
the preserve of the middle class.
Keen to present a good image, the Cigire (Inspector) is met with a
barrage of Marietta biscuits and best china tea, replacing the more
common staple school diet of mouldy cheese sandwiches and úlla glas
(green apples) and depressing answers from the deágóirí (teenagers)
``Tá mé ag shittáil na briá, ar nós na gaoithe, séa, ní heá, an tarbh
agus an dochtúir, tá mé fear - mister!
haven't a bleeding clue what you're saying!''
A brow-beaten McGinley eventually makes a hasty retreat from the
ghetto, realising the object role Irish plays in their lives, but we
know better as the many working class communities from Ballymurphy to
Ballymun have repossessed their tongue, using it as a badge of self
identity and esteem in the same manner as driving out drugs. There
lies the future of an Gaeilge.
Ar aghaidh leis an eabhlóid ``onwards with the evolution!''
The progress of similar Welsh and Gaelic speaking schools across the
water irks the Anglophobic Alan Ford on UTV's provocative
``Counterblast'' as he laments the discrimination against ``Anglo-Saxon
culture in favour of minorities.''
Ford, whose views mirror National Front manifestos, informs us that
``the English have given more to the world than any other race on the
face of this planet'' and the Anglo-Saxon culture ``is a bounty of
riches'' identifying the Queen, the Church and daffodils as fine
examples of such, omitting The Sun, tattoos and lager louts, who he
proclaims ``are treated like animals abroad'' by a ``sore'' Europe, who
``we fought over the centuries and beat them.''
He laments pubs being granted licences for St. Patrick's Day and not
St. George's, the hijacking of the kilt by the Scottish, English
traditions losing out in schools in favour of minorities, a law that
favours ethnic minorities - tell that to the many Irish victims of
the PTA and the family of Stephen Lawrence, the overrepresentation of
Scottish ministers in the British cabinet and the Welsh and Scots
``doing well out of us'', omitting Thatcher's pillage of North Sea Oil
profits for the South East of England.
Ford, unfortunately, ignores the many traditions and races, including
the Irish that have created a multicultural British society. Rather
than accomodate them, would prefer forced resettlement of immigrants
from `non-white' countries and ``a much higher definition of English
citizenship''.
Bizarre but revealing, these views fortunately do not represent the
majority of the English people, but rather the minority that has
indeed ``tarnished the reputation'' over recent centuries.
Loyalist minorities and ``mavericks'' were blamed for the assassination
of Rosemary Nelson on BBC's ``Spotlight'', ignoring the malaise that
exists in many loyalist areas where ``Bibles and grenades'' are
combined to keep under heel unruly ``fenians'' such as Rosemary Nelson,
who ``pinpointed her work with victim of injustice Colin Duffy as the
beginning of a marked deterioration of her relationship with the
RUC''.
The spirit of resilence, as exemplified by the Garvaghy Road women at
last week's thronged Dublin benefit, is claimed to have uplifted New
York in BBC's ``The Pull Of The City'', where homeless men with
shopping trolleys have been replaced in the city centre by ``Internet
entrepreneurs'' and private security guards.
It appears many of the city's marginalised have been shunted forcibly
from the city, and ``the sidewalk - the last bastion of democratic
contact, has been semi-militarised'' to make way for entrepreneurs'
``synergy'' and the world's largest parties, yet they've banned
alcohol, tobacco, music and gambling - strange parties!
By Sean O Donaile
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