Speeches

Welcome back after the break and for those who’ve just tuned in, we have a marvelous panel of guests tonight who have been discussing with us whether the Irish language should be compulsory in schools and what, if any, relevance the language has in today’s world. Our distinguished guest here to my right shared his thesis with us before the break, that: No, Gaelic is a travesty to all that is progressive and intellectual and its continuance in modern Ireland simply vindicates the peasant status bestowed upon us as impoverished islanders throughout the last four centuries. We lend now our ears to our distinguished guest on my right whose perspective, if still willing to expatiate on the subject, will be relished.

How very noble of you, dear colleague, to permit me to accommodate our forlorn fellow adjacent. So simply satisfied an individual within so one-dimensional an existence is truly a thing to behold. It is no prize to be permitted to breathe the steam off the dung heap that is the monolingual culture and intentional state of ignorance left to us by English and Roman imperialism here in Ireland. This land we have watched be swallowed into the vacuum of conspiratorial piracy, for want of leadership, guidance and self-worth; a people running on empty, burning to its wick the candle of their once fulfilled soul. The Irish have become a people tricked and connived out of their cultural knowledge, confidence and intellectual prowess, derelict to ape after the manifestation of northwest German, Latin and other flotsam and linguistic jetsam of the last 400 years, that is, English. To speak one’s native tongue is an actual reality for all countries in the European Union, and even for those without. Ireland is the only European country which does not speak and pride itself in a native language, and the historical reasons are obvious. It is a fact that Gaelic is an Iron Age language, and it permeates all European tongues. Rome’s indifference to the island further west from Britain was a great gift to the continuity of the Iron Age Gaelic language that had hitherto been the only language of culture in Europe. We can easily find Gaelic words that make up the Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Germanic, Hungarian and Slavic tongues. Gaelic can claim such greatness as Mozart, the world of Troy, Salt, the Iron Age, Stradivari and so on.

I come from the country which has the longest uninterrupted culture in our world, and at the forefront of this continuance is language, which is manifested within geographical orientation, song and natural religion. The aboriginal languages of Australia kept a culture of people alive and culturally intact for forty thousand years. No Jesus, no incredulously tolerant mother and no English in sight. Gaelic too, orally transmitted, and that intentionally, for sacred and elite purposes, was the thread which sewed European culture together. It is a language of sound; hence phonetics and so its concrete form became disguised, as intended by its keepers, into the individual languages of Europe, only later to be deciphered by astute Gaelophiles like myself. Actual examples are following. I need not champion the advantages of multilingual, musical and intellectual and mechanical prowess here, but can state simply that Gaelic is indeed deserving of a reboot of confidence, because Gaelic gave us European culture.