Making the case for Irish through English: eco-critical politics of language by learners.(Critical essay)

Abstract. This paper examines recent accounts by Americans who have learned Irish. Their narratives from the West of Ireland express what translation theorist Michael Cronin calls "individualist politics of language". He claims that the English-speaking majority will determine the survival of 21st century Irish. Cronin shifts Irish into a globalized, "late modern" network. Foreign-born learners enter this network when they choose to study Irish. They counter the stereotype of Irish schoolchildren forced into rote recitation of a moribund language. Patricia Monaghan combines goddess-worship with academic research into indigenous spirituality, place-name lore, literature, and the Irish environmental inheritance. Her travelogue and reports by five other American visitors to Gaeltachtai are compared with John Montague and Eilis Ni Dhuibhne's literary depictions of 20th-century Irish-born school-level learners. Feminist, post-colonial, and literary criticisms enrich understanding of how American students apply ecological and cultural strategies that seek to recover this indigenous language. Choosing to make the case for Irish, adult students share Cronin's "individualist politics". In English-language books, American advocates preserve and expand a linguistic ecology in which Irish may survive.

Key Words. Eco-criticism, Irish language learners, Irish Americans, Feminist spirituality, John Montague, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, Post-colonial, Dindshenchas or Irish place-name lore.

Resumen. El articulo examina relatos recientes sobre el aprendizaje del gaelico-irlandes por parte de norteamericanos. Sus narrativas del oeste de Irlanda expresan lo que el teorico de la traduccion Michael Cronin llama 'la politica individualista de la lengua', al tiempo que afirma que la supervivencia de irlandes en el siglo veintiuno dependera de la mayoria de angloparlantes. Cronin considera el irlandes una red globalizada 'moderno tardia'. Los estudiantes extranjeros entran en esta red al decidir estudiar la lengua irlandesa. Contrarrestan el estereotipo de los escolares irlandeses obligados a memorizar una lengua moribunda. Patricia Monaghan combina la adoracion de diosas con la investigacion academica de la espiritualidad autoctona, la ciencia de la toponimia, la literatura, y el legado ambiental irlandes. Se contrasta su relato de viajes, y los informes de otros cinco visitantes americanos a la Gaeltachtai --franja gaelico-parlante-- con las descripciones literarias que John Montague y Ni Dhuibhne Eilis hacen de los alumnos irlandeses del siglo XX. Las criticas feminista, post-colonial y literaria arrojan luz sobre la aplicacion, por parte de los estudiantes americanos, de estrategias ecologicas y culturales que procuran recuperar esta lengua autoctona. Decidiendo hacer el caso para el irlandes, los estudiantes adultos comparten 'la politica individualista' de Cronin. En los textos de lengua inglesa los defensores americanos conservan y amplian una ecologia linguistica en la cual el irlandes puede sobrevivir.

Palabras clave. Ecocritica, aprendizaje de la lengua irlandesa, americanos-irlandeses, espiritualidad feminista, John Montague, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, post-colonial, Dindshenchas o toponimia.

**********

How Americans visiting in the West of Ireland learn Irish expresses what Michael Cronin calls an "individualist politics of language" (2006: 58). My essay explores how learners embody this 'politics' through an eco-critical response that links language to landscape. Cronin asserts that English speakers will decide if Irish survives. Its "intrinsically transcultural status" provides "an invaluable ally for an enhanced relatedness between (and within) self and environment" (2006: 58). The Revivalist construction of 'communitarian utopianism' collapsed; Cronin insists for Irish re-formation within 'late modern' globalization. 'Virtual' Irish has begun. Irish-language learners use the Internet, CD-ROMs, and language-learning software to communicate across the global diaspora. Recently, learners from throughout the world (and those not only of Irish descent) come to Ireland to adopt the language in its native habitat. They hope to transplant Irish.

American authors enter the Gaeltacht. They receive the Irish language at its communal source. They widen the Irish-speaking community beyond its traditional territories. Patricia Monaghan revives dindshenchas in The Red-Haired Girl From the Bog (2003). Rosemary Mahoney, in Whoredom in Kimmage (1993) battles female codding with her sudden burst into Gaeilge. Nikki Ragsdale, interviewed in Beo (2003), speaks in Irish of how she mastered sean-nos. Lawrence Millman's acerbic Our Like Will Not Be There Again (1977) evokes a rapidly eroding Gaeltacht. Kevin O'Hara, as Last of the Donkey Pilgrims (2004), circles the island with Missie and cart; O'Hara's linguistic talismans ward off spirits and Yanks. Anthropologist Lawrence Taylor acquires Irish from Donegal informants, for Occasions of Faith (1995). Steve Fallon, in Home with Alice (2002), tests his emerging fluency as he visits Gaeltachtai. Liam O Cuinneagain tells Fallon that Irish may wither as community speech, only to survive as a networked language. Acting out Cronin's suggestion, learners transplant John Montague's metaphor of 'a severed tongue'. Their individual interventions transmit the Irish language by their narratives and actions throughout a global community with Cronin's 'intrinsically transcultural status'.

These visitors assert Cronin's 'individualist politics'. We need not accept that the 21st century demands a binary 'either-or' solution to linguistic--and I add ecological--survival. One language surges over Europe; English drowns Irish. The alternative provides an analog model. Rather than English eliminating or excluding native competition, individual activists opt for innovation. Analog may have become outmoded in electronics as digitization dominates, but audio aficionados prefer the former's warmth to the sterility of ones and zeros. Learners choose analog sounds: the 'both/and' solution. In English, Americans preserve linguistic ecology for Irish to survive, and perhaps thrive.

This paper applies eco-critical theory to analyze Cronin's 'individualist politics' within learners' accounts. An ecologically informed literary criticism provides a foundation for understanding the effects of a learner's decision to enter Ireland and to study the language while exploring the land. Ecocritics acknowledge how language …