Irish, official language of the European Union

 

On Jan 1^st 2022, While we were celebrating New Year’s Day, People from Ireland were celebrating that their national language, the Irish language, finally gained full official and working status in the European Union (EU).

The EU has already 24 official languages. Every time a new country joins the EU, their official language is added as official language of the union as well. But the process of adding Irish language has been quite particular. On Jan 1^st 1973, Ireland joined the EU. But the process of inclusion of Irish language did not start until 2005, gaining finally official status in the EU on Jan 1^st 2007. But due to a shortage of translators, a derogation arrangement has been put in place, limiting the amount of texts that were translated into this language. This derogation arrangement ended on Dec 31^st 2021. This means that the national language of Ireland has now the same status of the rest of EU languages and all important documents of the EU have to be translated into this language. 

At the end of January, an Irish Member of the European parliament (MEP), Seán Kelly, has proposed an amendment in Irish to a piece of European legislation, being this the first time that this language is used to propose an amendment in the European parliament. 

To understand this unique path, we should understand the particular history of the language. Irish is a Celtic language spoken in Ireland and in other places like the UK, USA and Canada, where it was brought by Irish immigrants. It is also known as Irish Gaelic or Gaeilge by the speakers of this language. It is a member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages. The decline in the use of this language in Ireland started during the 17^th century and it was gradually replaced by English. Many sources claim that the potato famine in the mid-nineteenth accelerated the decline of this language. With the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, Irish language was adopted as official language along with English.

But it was not until very recently, that Irish language experienced a revival, and there are more people interested to learn this language. However, according to the last census in Ireland in 2016,  the number of Irish speakers decreased comparing to the results of the previous census in 2011. There are approx 1,761,420 speakers in Ireland (39.8% of the population of this country), considering different degrees of knowledge and fluency. This number represents approx 13 thousand less speakers than in 2011. Only 73,803 speakers declared they used the language daily, while 111,473 speakers used it weekly. The rest of speakers are divided in groups where they say that they speak Irish at school only, not very often or they never use it.

Ireland is a bilingual country, where both English and Irish are official. Schools offer education in one of those languages while the other is studied as second language. The government offers services in both languages. However, still a majority of citizens of this country are monolingual English speakers. Most Irish speakers live in areas of the west and south of the country that are known as Gaeltacht , areas where Irish is or was the primary spoken language of the community, and cover parts of 7 counties. Not many people know that here in Ontario, we have a certified Gaeltacht in Erinsville. 

But talking about the topic of Irish language getting full status as an official and working language in the EU, does this have an impact over the use of this language? Will we see more speakers of Irish language? In my opinion, the positive impact we are going to see is still very limited. It is true that many more documents in the EU will be translated into this language, and there are now new good job opportunities for translators who are speakers of this language. But even these positive points are of limited impact, as jobs will be tied to the EU offices and the material to be translated might not reach to many readers.

After much hard work, Ireland can see its national language used officially in this international institution. But still does not see its national language used officially by its own representatives in the EU. After review the CV’s and posts in Social Media of the 13 MEP’s who represent Ireland, I only found evidence that 3 MEP’s can actually speak Irish, plus a 4th one who posted a video speaking in Irish, but no more. This is a minority of MEP’s. In other hand, none of them have even a personal website in Irish (they all advertise to their constituents in English) and it seems that they do very little or none effort to promote this language.

The EU alone cannot do much to revive this language. No money or legislation can save a language if the speakers do not use it. I don’t live in Ireland, but during my research, I read a lot of articles from Irish newspapers and in my opinion, the decline of Irish language is a problem that politicians want to fix, but by proposing solutions that they themselves do not want to commit to.