Revival or Survival?

Abstract

Abstract There is a good deal of confusion about the exact character and objective of Ireland’s language policy. This is in no small measure due to the enduring tendency, in popular and academic discourse alike, to refer to the policy as the ‘Irish Language Revival’. As informed commentators have frequently pointed out, Ireland cannot, strictly speaking, be included among the examples of ‘pure’ language revival (e.g. Paulston, Chee Chen, and Connerty 1993, Bentahila and Davies 1993). The Irish language was not extinct at the time Ireland became independent, but was spoken by a minority of the population in western areas. There are other confusions. ‘Language Revival’ has often been taken to mean the displacement of English by Irish among the national population (0 Cuiv 1969: 130). Whatever may have been the views of individual politicians or spokespersons of the language movement, the constitutional and legislative provisions made for Irish in the 1920s and 1930s do not suggest that anything other than the establishment of a bilingual state was ever envisaged. The first Constitution of Ireland in 1922, and all subsequent revisions, recognized both English and Irish as official languages of the state.