Irish Translation Forum

jamesnp wrote:By their parents... had a fascinating lecture on how the Irish killed Irish, not the British, the other day.

-jp

Oh yeh, I forgot about that... Or maybe I blocked it from my memory

They had a stick tied to their neck and every time they spoke Irish, the parents (or teacher, whoever caught them) would hit them and put a mark on the stick so the other knew to hit them aswell.

Richie wrote:

jamesnp wrote:By their parents... had a fascinating lecture on how the Irish killed Irish, not the British, the other day.

-jp

Oh yeh, I forgot about that... Or maybe I blocked it from my memory

They had a stick tied to their neck and every time they spoke Irish, the parents (or teacher, whoever caught them) would hit them and put a mark on the stick so the other knew to hit them aswell.

An "elegant" way to kill the basis of a culture, don't you think? And I'm using elegant in the more mordant way as it's possible.

I had read that there were some recordings of last speakers of the Leinster dialect, so that would be something to look into James.

PJ wrote:I had read that there were some recordings of last speakers of the Leinster dialect, so that would be something to look into James.

Tá áthas orm go gcloise mé sin.

Richie wrote:
or forced to speak English.


By their parents... had a fascinating lecture on how the Irish killed Irish, not the British, the other day.

-jp

Yea, right - all the parents woke up one day and said 'Lets make our kids talk English or we'll beat them with a stick'!

I think you'll need a few more lectures, especially the history ones!

smaointe wrote:

Richie wrote:
or forced to speak English.


By their parents... had a fascinating lecture on how the Irish killed Irish, not the British, the other day.

-jp

Yea, right - all the parents woke up one day and said 'Lets make our kids talk Irish or we'll beat them with a stick'!

I think you'll need a few more lectures, especially the history ones!

smaointe wrote:

Richie wrote:
or forced to speak English.


By their parents... had a fascinating lecture on how the Irish killed Irish, not the British, the other day.

-jp

Yea, right - all the parents woke up one day and said 'Lets make our kids talk English or we'll beat them with a stick'!

I think you'll need a few more lectures, especially the history ones!

It wasn't as overnight as that. We had the same thing happen in the US with parents wanting their kids to speak english and purposelly killing the language in their household, and not just the Irish, either...

smaointe wrote:

Richie wrote:
or forced to speak English.


By their parents... had a fascinating lecture on how the Irish killed Irish, not the British, the other day.

-jp

Yea, right - all the parents woke up one day and said 'Lets make our kids talk English or we'll beat them with a stick'!

I think you'll need a few more lectures, especially the history ones!

At the time the parents recognized that the only way their offspring would get out of the economic climate of Ireland would be to go to either to America or Britain. The parents instigated the Bata Scóir or Scórín scheme themselves and refused to speak Irish what-so-ever with their children which as you can imagine was a terrible situation for the children, especially if they didn't have siblings or friends around. The school master would then, at the request of the parents, check the scóirín and administer punishment the next day. The Bata Scóir was optional, a choice of the parents, and the use of English was only required in school.

There's no doubt the British had no interest what-so-ever in keeping Irish in use, but the real people that caused the decline were the speakers of Irish themselves. They had no interest in keeping it alive either; English was considered the language of the wealthy, why would you inflict the language of the peasants, Irish, on your children?


-jp

jamesnp wrote:

smaointe wrote:

Richie wrote:
or forced to speak English.


By their parents... had a fascinating lecture on how the Irish killed Irish, not the British, the other day.

-jp

Yea, right - all the parents woke up one day and said 'Lets make our kids talk English or we'll beat them with a stick'!

I think you'll need a few more lectures, especially the history ones!

At the time the parents recognized that the only way their offspring would get out of the economic climate of Ireland would be to go to either to America or Britain. The parents instigated the Bata Scóir or Scórín scheme themselves and refused to speak Irish what-so-ever with their children which as you can imagine was a terrible situation for the children, especially if they didn't have siblings or friends around. The school master would then, at the request of the parents, check the scóirín and administer punishment the next day. The Bata Scóir was optional, a choice of the parents, and the use of English was only required in school.

There's no doubt the British had no interest what-so-ever in keeping Irish in use, but the real people that caused the decline were the speakers of Irish themselves. They had no interest in keeping it alive either; English was considered the language of the wealthy, why would you inflict the language of the peasants, Irish, on your children?


-jp

That was a very naive statement
English would not have been the language of the wealthy in Ireland (or of the court/law in Ireland) if the English hadn't dispossessed the (wealthy) Irish and planted it with non Irish.

You'll be telling me next that the English policy in Ireland wasn't responsible for the victims of An Gorta Mór!