The Celts

The Celtic legacy is infinitely more complex and elusive than the mere counting of genes or the tracing of pedigree. So complex, indeed, that even the safe and sensible criterion of language is not sufficient to enable us to explore the full range of meanings which the word 'Celtic' has assumed in commentaries on Irish identity in recent centuries. Any attempt to explore even some of these meanings must begin with a reminder of the defeat and collapse of the Gaelic order in the great convulsions of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Ireland - tonn-briseadh an tsean-ghathaibh ('the shipwreck of the old order') as the poet O Brudair described it.

These were the centuries of conflict, conquest and colonisation, with a centralising monarchic state extending its authority throughout the island; the establishment of a state-supported church resulting in lasting and bitter community division on religious lines in Ireland; military conquest, the confiscation of land, rank and status on the basis of religious loyalty; the introduction of a new ruling class and a substantial (if unevenly-spread) community of new Protestant settlers; the inexorable drive towards the cultural (in particular, linguistic) hegemony of English culture over the other cultures within the islands of Britain and Ireland.

This process of conquest and colonisation was a protracted process; progress towards the 'conquest of Ireland' was neither even-paced nor without interruption. But by the time the process had been completed, at the end of the seventeenth century the old Gaelic system was comprehensively defeated and, in a number of key areas, in the throes of rapid disintegration. As with all shipwrecks, there were some sizeable chunks of wreckage still afloat afterwards; these were to provide the rafts for some of the survivors of the old order for a considerable time to come. But Gaelic Ireland - as a vital, political, legal and social system - collapsed with the military defeat of the Gaelic aristocracy which had given it authority and practical effect.

As far as the Irish language was concerned, it is generally accepted that 'the demise of the native Irish-speaking aristocracy was to have a disastrous long-term effect on people's attitude towards the language'. English became the language of legal, political and administrative life, and overwhelmingly the language of economic and commercial life as well. It was the language of literacy, and in the course of time became the language of liturgy also. Marginalised from all the vital areas of public life, Irish became associated with defeat, poverty and ignorance.

Those who were successful or who aspired to succeed under the new English order abandoned Irish and adopted the English language as quickly as the opportunity presented itself. The state system of elementary education from the 1830s, and the fact that English was the language of mass politics in the O'Connellite movements, further accelerated the advance of English even among the poorer peasantry.

The figures tell their own story. By 1801 a quarter of the population was monolingually Irish-speaking. By 1851 this had fallen to only five per cent, while less than a quarter of the population admitted to being able to speak the language at all. The heavy famine mortality among the poorer elements in Irish society dramatically reduced the population of Irish-speakers, while large-scale emigration from Ireland from the second quarter of the nineteenth century largely to English-speaking countries strongly reinforced the desire to acquire English, and in effect, though not necessarily, to abandon Irish as obsolete and unprofitable in the modern world.

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From the Appletree Press title: The People of Ireland (currently out of print).
Also see A Little History of Ireland.