A history of Irelands culture and language.... under British rule.

[Aladdin]

Just saw this on Instagram
I hope the link opens.



Basically children in school wore a little timber "tally stick" which was marked every time they spoke Irish.
At the end of the school day the children's tallies were counted and each child with marks was given a slap for each mark.



How fucking cruel was that?
No wonder the language practically disappeared.

 

[ElizabethofYork]

I think something very similar happened in Welsh schools, in order to stop people speaking Welsh.

 

[Aladdin]

@davy_holden on Instagram: "Bloody Sunday 1972 #irishhistory #ireland"

3,958 likes, 99 comments - davy_holden on April 4, 2024: "Bloody Sunday 1972 #irishhistory #ireland".

www.instagram.com

 

[Pickman's model]

surprised no mention of the anniversary of the start of internment, august 9th 1971

 

[weepiper]

Happened in Scotland too.

Education (Scotland) Act 1872 - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

In fact it goes right back to King James and the Statutes of Iona which made it a legal requirement for Highland nobles to send their children to be educated in the lowlands and thus be educated in Protestant schools. We can't even blame the English for that one.

 

[Pickman's model]

Just saw this on Instagram
I hope the link opens.



Basically children in school wore a little timber "tally stick" which was marked every time they spoke Irish.
At the end of the school day the children's tallies were counted and each child with marks was given a slap for each mark.



How fucking cruel was that?
No wonder the language practically disappeared.

tbh a greater reason the language practically disappeared was the famine, and the perception in later years that irish was associated with poverty - see for example https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01147770/document.

 

[Aladdin]

tbh a greater reason the language practically disappeared was the famine, and the perception in later years that irish was associated with poverty - see for example https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01147770/document.

Both caused by British policies.
Yes the Famine was one reason that Irish practically disappeared....well doh..of course...dead people can't talk!! But whoever wrote that piece seems to be forgetting
the deliberate, systematic systemic attempts by the British government / and British governance through Irish Parliament..(itself controlled fully by Britain and British interests) .to eliminate the Irish language....

The first British Law enacted in Ireland which specifically banned the use of the Irish language was Article III of The Statute of Kilkenny from 1367 which made it illegal for English colonists in Ireland to speak the Irish language and for the native Irish to speak their language when interacting with them.

This was followed in 1537 with The Statute of Ireland – An Act for the English Order Habit and Language that prohibited the use of the Irish language in the Irish Parliament.In 1541, further legislation was passed which banned the use of Irish in the areas of Ireland then under English rule.

The Administration of Justice (Language) Act (Ireland) was passed by the Irish Parliament in 1737.The Act not only forbids the speaking of Irish within the courtroom, it also prohibits the completion of legal documentation in Irish and imposes a financial penalty of £20 each time Irish is spoken in court in contravention of the law.

The Administration of Justice (Language) Act (Ireland) of 1737 forbids the speaking of Irish within the courtroom, and the completion of legal documentation in Irish and imposes a financial penalty of £20 each time Irish is spoken in court
Notwithstanding the secession of the south of Ireland from the United Kingdom in 1922, the situation regarding the use of the Irish Language in legal cases in Northern Ireland has remained unchanged. About 6% of the population of the North of Ireland speak Irish today, though the overwhelming majority of these speak it as a second language there is a very vibrant Irish language community in urban areas of Derry, Belfast and further afield among young people who view the language as a vital part of their cultural and political identity.

At present the only legal protection / status which the Irish language has in Northern Ireland comes from the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages to which the British Government is a signatory. The Charter calls for the promotion of minority languages, the facilitation of their use in public life and “the removal of restrictions which would discourage the maintenance of the language”

‘To extinguish their sinister traditions and customs’ – the historic bans on the legal use of the Irish and Welsh languages – The Irish Story

 

[bluescreen]

Awful.
Not just the Brits though -
Was still happening in French schools while my nephews were there recently. Kids reprimanded for speaking anything other than French, even in the playground, even using Occitan. Don't know if this is still true.

Reminds me of how left handed kids were forced to use their right hand. Conformity in all things makes people easier to govern, or so they used to think.

 

[Aladdin]

Re
The Administration of Justice Act in Ireland..

A notorious example of the Act resulting in a lethal miscarriage of justice is the infamous Maamtrasna Murders case whereby eight Irish speakers were tried for murder in 1882. The majority of the accused were monoglots who spoke so little English that they had difficulty pronouncing their plea of “Not Guilty”. Their solicitor could not speak Irish and a policeman interpreted their evidence into English for thecourt.

The accused were convicted by perjured testimony and one of them, Maolra Seoighe, was hanged for the crime. In 2011 the British Under- Secretary of State For Prisons stated that Seoighe was “probably an innocent man” but that he would not be seeking a royal pardon for him. On the 4th April 2018 the President of Ireland issued a pardon exonerating Seoighe.
Seoighe’s trial took place at a watershed moment in the history of the Irish language a generation after the famine and just prior to the birth of the Irish Revival movement. The level of spoken Irish before the famine stood at about 40% and rapidly declined thereafter.