Quote Originally Posted by ber View Post
Something struck me over the past week as being quite amusing, it has been our reaction
as a nation to the utterances of the visiting heads of state namely Queen Elizabeth ii and
President Barrack Obama in our native language. In the tradition of Sile Seoige we almost
had a National Orgasm when Obama uttered the words "Is feider linn ".Much the same
when the Queen said "A Uachtarain agus a Chairde". It was as if our language was the
most important thing in the world to us.
What i find so hypocritical about this is that if u had a poll of that huge crowd that cheered
to rafters when Obama used an Irish phrase, about the Irish language they i am certain by
a huge majority dismiss it as being a useless dead language that should not take a prominent
place in our education system. This is not about the Irish language in particular but it just
happened to stick out as a great example of our shallowness over the past week we will use
something to show ourselves as being patriotic when it suits us but as soon as it requires a
bit of effort we abandon ship
In general I find I agree with you, but its more than jus the language, its the cultural identity seperator, it is the one thing that sets us apart from other "english" speaking countries. The great irony is that Hiberno English is much more sophisticated and culturally unique than any other form of English, but we somehow need Irish as our clear identifier.

On a more positive note, I think there is more Irish around in the ether these days than say ten years ago, and I find that I am using Irish on a regular basis at least once a week in my work so that can't be bad.

Also I don't think I remember Queen Elizabeth II using another native language during state visits, I suspect her using it was to show she was here as an equal and not as a colonial conqueror! just a thought.

Beir Bua