Gaelic Language and Culture
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Gaelic Language and Culture

Part 7: Union, Suppression, and Rebirth (Ireland)
Introduction
This is Part 7 of my series of presentations on the impacts of history on the language
and culture of the Gaelic speaking peoples.

The sites mentioned in this presentation can be found online on Google Maps at http://
www.bit.ly/glcmaps.

Outline
• Nine Years War
• Fought between the Gaelic Irish chieftains (Hugh O’Neill) against English rule in
Ireland. Battles happened across the country, but mainly in Ulster.
• 1601 - Battle of Kinsale. 3,500 Spanish soldiers arrive and are besieged by crown
forces. Irish forces are routed and retreat towards Ulster. Many more Irish are lost
on the retreat than in the battle.
• 1602 - Scorched Earth and famine. After the Battle of Kinsale, the countryside was
ruined resulting in famine.
• 1603 - Treaty of Mellifont.
• The Nine Years War was very expensive for the English, costing 3/4 of the
Exchequer’s annual revenue and required a force of 20,000 men for many years.
Simultaneously, assisting the Dutch in the Eighty Years War only required 12,000
troops. Elizabeth I dropped her insistence on unconditional surrender.
• Hugh O’Neill would be reinstated as Earl of Tyrone, allowing him a seat in the Irish
House of Lords. He would retain all lands except church lands, and swear to be
loyal to the Crown.
• Brehon law would be replaced with English law.
• The Earls were no longer permitted to support the Gaelic Bards.
• English would be the official language.
• Catholic Colleges could not be built on O’Neill’s property, but he did not have to
convert to the Church of Ireland.
• 1605 - Gunpowder Plot. A group of English Catholics plot to blow up the House of
Lords during the opening of Parliament, killing James VI and I.
• 1607 - Flight of the Earls. A new Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Arthur Chichester began
to erode the freedoms of the earls of Ulster. After the Gunpowder Plot, it became more
difficult for Catholics to appear loyal to religion and the Crown. The earls of Ulster
planned to seek Spanish help (in violation of the Treaty of Mellifont). They fled to the
Continent, where they hoped to return with an invasion of Ireland. Spain was more
interested in keeping peace with England. This is the end of the Gaelic order in
Ireland.

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• Plantation(s) of Ulster (1606, 1609). This consisted of a three year plan whereby
land confiscated from the earls who had fled would be colonized with loyal settlers in
order to prevent further rebellion. King James wanted this scheme to be a “civilising
enterprise” that would settle Protestants in Ulster, meaning they were designed to
Anglicize the Irish.



Ulster was mainly Gaelic speaking and Catholic and, therefore, mostly outside of
English control. The English viewed Ulster as “underpopulated” and “undeveloped.”
Private plantations started in 1606 in counties Antrim and Down.



James wanted to reward (lowland?) Scots and assure them they would not be
neglected now that he had moved the royal court to London.



New landowners were banned from taking Irish tenants and needed to import workers
from Scotland and England. Irish landowners would be granted 1/4 of the land in
Ulster. Peasants were to be relocated to live near garrisons and Protestant churches.
New landowners were banned from selling their lands to any Irishman and were
required to fortify against rebellion or invasion.
• 1798 - Irish Rebellion. Irish Republicans, called the United Irishmen, inspired by the
US and French revolutions, staged a rebellion, which failed.
• 1801 - Act of Union. The Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain merge
to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Act passed in Ireland
mainly as the result of bribes of peerages and honors. The first vote failed in the Irish
House of Commons (109 to 104) but the second passed (158 to 115). Ireland would
receive 100 members in the UK Parliament. (Scotland received 45 members after the
1707 Union and currently has 59 MPs, down from the 72 Scotland had in 2005.)
• Emigration
• 1850 - Most emigrants were Gaelic speaking as their first language.
• 1890 - 40% of Irish-born people were living abroad.
• Famines
• 1845-1849 The Great Famine. The great potato famine, An Gorta Mór, in Irish.
• 1879 The Little Famine, an Gorta Beag.
• Home Rule Bills
• The Union represented a loss of Irish control (of Irish affairs) and identity. As time
progressed, more people wanted to reclaim both.
• 1886 - First Home Rule Bill, defeated in the UK Parliament.
• 1893 - Second Home Rule Bill, passed in UK Commons, failed in House of Lords.
• 1912 - Third Home Rule Bill, passed in UK Parliament (as well as a Scottish Home
Rule Bill) but implementation delayed by WWI.
• Easter Rising (1916). Irish Republicans, in the largest rebellion since 1798, conduct
an armed rebellion. 500 people were killed and 2,600 were injured. Inner Dublin was
in ruins. Organizers surrendered and were executed. The execution was seen
negatively by many people.
• Irish War of Independence (1919-1921). This was a guerrilla war fought between the
Irish Republican Army (IRA) and British forces in Ireland. After the 1918 election, Sinn
Féin (We Ourselves in Gaelic - a pro-independence political party) won a landslide
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election and formed a breakaway government, the Dáil Éireann, and declared
independence from the UK.
• The Irish Free State (1922). The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, established the Irish Free
State as a Dominion of the British Commonwealth. The six counties of Northern
Ireland (which does not constitute all of Ulster, and so the two terms are not
interchangeable) exercised an opt-out clause as outlined in the treaty. Members of the
new Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann had to take an Oath of Allegiance to the
Crown. Some were not happy about this.
• Irish Civil War (1922-1923). Irish Republicans (who later formed the current political
party Fianna Fáil) and the Nationalists (who later formed Fine Gael and were pro-
treaty) split from Sinn Féin. Pro-treaty forces (the forces supporting the Provisional
Government of the Irish Free State) are victorious, with the help of arms from the
British Government.
• Second Constitution (1937). The Statute of Westminster (1931) granted
parliamentary autonomy to the six British Dominions (Australia, Canada, Irish Free
State, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and the Union of South Africa). This constitution
sought to distance the Irish Government from the Anglo-Irish Treaty, eliminating the
most ‘offensive’ aspects, and put an Irish stamp on things by using Irish Gaelic
nomenclature. This is why most government agencies in Ireland have Gaelic names.
• Republic of Ireland (1949- ). The Republic of Ireland Act of 1948 is an act of the
Oireachtas (Parliament) establishing the Republic of Ireland. It came into force on the
33rd anniversary of the Easter Rising. This act ended the remaining statutory role of
the British monarchy and transferred those roles to the President of Ireland.

Conclusion
At the beginning of this exploration of the language and culture of the Gaelic speaking
peoples, I stated two questions that I had when I started learning Gaelic:

1. What was the origin of the language?

2. Why is the language in the condition that it is in today?

This is the part where I share with you my answer to these questions. As there is a bit of
interpretation of events, it is a bit subjective. No doubt you yourself will have your own
take on what the answers to these questions are.

In recent centuries, the Gaelic speaking peoples have had to cope with the forces of
society being used against them:
• The government
• The ending of the Lordship of the Isles (the Gaelic successor state)
• Jacobite Risings, Battle of Culloden, punitive consequences (Scotland)
• Establishing Church of Scotland public schools with the goal of eliminating Gaelic
• The Norman Invasion of Ireland (which resulted in the Lordship of Ireland and
Kingdom of Ireland, who would be in personal union with the monarch of England)
• The Nine Years War and the Flight of the Earls (Ireland)

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• The Plantation of Ulster (with loyal Protestant subjects)
• The church
• There was a stated desire to ‘civilize’ Gaelic speaking people with education,
colonization, and plantation centered around Protestantism.
• The economy
• Lack of tenant laws in Scotland, until the Crofters’ Act of 1886, and restrictive laws
regarding tenants in Ireland
• The Highland Clearances (which dispersed Scottish Gaelic speaking communities
into distant English speaking areas)
• The Famines (which dispersed Irish Gaelic speaking communities into distant
English speaking areas)
• The Industrial Revolution (which brought Gaelic speaking people into distant
predominantly English speaking cities for work)
• The Culture
• Punitive laws or customs designed to embarrass or shame Gaelic speakers into
speaking English (in schools and in general), or which diminished or outlawed the
language entirely.
• Educational systems which minimizes Gaelic language and culture and portrays
events from a non-Gaelic speakers viewpoint
• A sense that economic success comes through non-Gaelic language and identity

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The results of these societal forces can be seen on the following map. Celtic languages,
once common in Britain and Ireland have retreated to the fringe.

source: http://brilliantmaps.com/celtic-languages

Remember that you can find Gaelic speakers and learners in many places (even around
the world), so the areas shaded in white aren’t devoid of Gaelic, its just that the
numbers doesn’t meet the threshold to be included in a green category.

Language is a part of identity. In many minority language communities, efforts to

maintain the language in the home and community thrive due to the perception that
maintaining the minority language in the face of the dominance of a majority language
are a necessary component of the identity of the minority language speaker.

As an example of the relationship between language and identity, we can look at the
following map of the Irish language.

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source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language

The effects of the Ulster Plantation and The Troubles can be clearly seen. Despite Irish
being the indigenous language of Ireland, where the dominant/desired identity became
primarily British, the Irish language diminished. When “The Troubles” (1968-1998)
began in Northern Ireland, the use of force hardened identities. The Irish language was
seen as “anti-British” and this discouraged its use. However, nearly 20 years after the
“Good Friday Agreement” ended the conflict, we are starting to see people in areas that
would never have considered learning Irish (due to identity) learning Irish again in
Northern Ireland. Check out these articles on the web for more discussion.

In the trenches of a language war, The Economist, 12/21/2013

http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21591737-northern-irelands-
devolved-government-driving-revival-irish-language-not

Why is Irish language divisive issue in Northern Ireland?, BBC, 12/17/2014

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-30517834

Bringing an teanga Gaeilge to east Belfast, The Irish Times, 2/7/2015

http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/bringing-an-teanga-gaeilge-to-east-
belfast-1.2094285

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Irish language: How use in Northern Ireland differs from Republic, Belfast
Telegraph, 7/8/2015
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/irish-language-how-use-in-
northern-ireland-differs-from-republic-31432600.html

For Scottish Gaelic, demands for Gaelic Medium Education are increasing and census
figures seem to show that the numbers of younger Gaelic speakers are increasing - a
critical development.

I hope that this examination of the historical events related to the Gaelic speaking
peoples has shed some light on the language and culture of the Gaels, and provided
you with some knowledge and context for common historical and cultural terms that
people come across when exploring these ancient lands.

Note: This presentation remains a work in progress.

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 Updated 6/3/16


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