The Vernacular Crisis of the Gaelic communities in Ireland and Scotland, Professor Conchúr Ó Giollagáin

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Gaelic in Scotland and Irish in Ireland are in an advanced stage of endangerment (Ó Giollagáin et al. 2007; Ó Giollagáin and Charlton 2015; Taylor 2016; MacKinnon 2011; Ó Giollagáin et al. 2020; Péterváry et al. 2014). Given the centuries of neglect and denigration of Gaelic-speaking communities and their culture, the efforts to elaborate official policies in support of two Gaelic languages have had to contend with considerable historical challenges. Defining aspects of language policy in the contemporary period have focussed on the realms of educational provision for Irish and Gaelic, broadcasting initiatives and increasing the visibility and use of the Gaelic languages in official and public domains. Despite these considerable achievements, broader social policies aimed at supporting the use of Gaelic in the home and in community settings remain underdeveloped, amounting to a disregard of the social contexts in which vernacular competence is acquired and societal minority-language practice is reinforced.

This paper draws on the findings of major research projects in Scotland and Ireland (Ó Giollagáin et al. 2007; Ó Giollagáin and Charlton 2015; (Péterváry et al. 2014); and particularly, The Gaelic Crisis in the Vernacular Community (Ó Giollagáin et al. 2020) to assess the policy challenges of providing for critically threatened minority-language communities. We contend that the established Language Policy and Planning (LPP) framework has generated a de-societalised, and therefore ineffective, approach to the concerns of the vernacular communities in decline. We have depicted this non-optimal approach as Language Promotion with insufficient Language Protection. An alternative policy approach is suggested which aims to address the LPP deficiencies of the minority-language status quo. This paper argues for the prioritisation of an LPP alternative which focuses on the concerns of the vernacular community in order to avert the current contradictory LPP trajectory of minority-language promotion being implicated in the erasure of the minority vernacular group.

Conchúr Ó Giollagáin is a Dubliner who lived for many years in various Irish-speaking Gaeltacht regions prior to coming to the University of the Highland and Islands in 2014. He now lives in Inverness. He is the UHI Gaelic Research Professor and the director of the UHI Language Sciences Institute. He is also the academic director of Soillse, a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional research project, based at Scotland’s national college for Gàidhlig, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, on the Isle of Skye. In 2015 he was appointed as an Adjunct Professor in the School of Political Science and Sociology, National University of Ireland, Galway. Ulster University in Belfast has recently appointed Conchúr as a Visiting Professor for 2022-2025.

Conchúr is a prominent scholar in language planning and minority language culture and sociology. He has written extensively on issues concerning the sustainability of minority cultures, especially the Gaeltacht communities in Ireland and Scotland.

Conchúr previously lectured in the School of Political Science and Sociology in the National University of Ireland Galway on the sociology of language. His teaching and research interests include language planning, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and Gaeltacht biography. Previously, he was the Head of the Language Planning Unit in Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge (Ireland’s Irish-medium college in NUI Galway), where he devised and led Ireland’s first MA programme in Language Planning. He also contributed to the development of the Acadamh’s MA in Language Sciences.

He published in 2020 with colleagues the most comprehensive sociolinguistic survey of the societal extent of Gaelic speakers’ use of the language in the remaining vernacular communities in Scotland: The Gaelic Crisis in the Vernacular Community: A Comprehensive Sociolinguistic Survey of Scottish Gaelic (Aberdeen University Press; Research Digest: https://www.uhi.ac.uk/en/t4-media/one-web/university/research/lsi/research-digest-gearr-iris-rannsachaidh-/Ge%C3%83%C2%A0rr-iris-Rannsachaidh_The-Gaelic-Crisis-in-the-Vernacular-Community.pdf). He co-authored the government-commissioned Gaeltacht survey Comprehensive Linguistic Study of the Use of Irish in the Gaeltacht (2007: https://www.cogg.ie/wp-content/uploads/Linguistic-Study-of-the-Use-of-Irish-in-the-Gaeltacht.pdf). The update of the study Nuashonrú ar an Staidéar Cuimsitheach Teangeolaíoch ar Úsáid na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht: 2006–2011 (An Update of the Comprehensive Linguistic Study of the Use of Irish in the Gaeltacht) was published in 2015 (https://www.udaras.ie/assets/uploads/2020/11/002910_Udaras_NuashonruI%C2%81_EXCERPT_report_A4_2.pdf).  Along with Tamás Péterváry, Brian Ó Curnáin and Jerome Sheahan he published the first major study of bilingual acquisition in Ireland, Iniúchadh ar an gCumas Dátheangach: An sealbhú teanga i measc ghlúin óg na Gaeltachta / Assessment of Bilingual Competence: Language acquisition among people in the Gaeltacht (https://www.cogg.ie/wp-content/uploads/iniuchadh-ar-an-gcumas-datheangach-1.pdf). He co-edited two ground-breaking books, Beartas Úr na nGael: Dálaí na Gaeilge san Iar-Nua-Aoiseachas [A New Deal for the Gaels: Irish in Postmodernity] (2016) and An Chonair Chaoch: an Mionteangachas sa Dátheangachas (2012) examining the minority language condition from the perspective of those whose primary identity is the minority culture. With Micil Chonraí, he published Stairsheanchas Mhicil Chonraí: Ón Máimín go Ráth Chairn. (Cló Iar-Chonnachta 1999), which was subsequently translated by the late Jean Le Dû, and published as Une Vie Irlandaise. Du Connemara à Ráth Chairn: Histoire de la Vie de Micil Chonraí (Terre de Brume 2010).