Tá mé cinnte gur léigh sibh an t-alt seo faoi seo. Céard a shíleann sibh uilig? An bhfuil an ceart aige?

"Their is no distinct Gaeltacht way of life by now."

Tá go leor gon fhírinne ansin cinnte. Tá an Ghaeilge tradisiúnta ag fáilt bháis. Ní amháin sin ach tá an cultúr freisin.

To me there's no Urban Gaeltacht. To me, a Gaeltacht is a place where Irish has been spoken and transmitted without interruption since there was Gaels in Ireland, until now. The Gaeltacht of Meath is also a Gaeltacht area since the native speakers who live there now come from Western Gaeltachtaí, so within these families there has been no interruption either, even though they moved to Meath.

But Irish ceased to be transmitted in Dublin, Belfast, Derry etc long ago, so to me the so-called Gaeltacht districts of these towns aren't Gaeltachtaí but simply districts where there are non-native Irish speakers (or sometimes, speakers who've been brought up by parents who aren't native speakers so transmission has been interrupted).

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

What ever about the distinction based an uninterrupted transmission of Irish, is there any urban area that has concentration of habitual speakers ?

Where one can use it in shops or pubs, or at least be understood or not stick out when they use Irish ?

In a lot of the weaker Gaeltacht areas ive been too, I find a lot of people have a sufficiently good understanding and will reply in English if they dont feel confident enough to use their Irish.

In most cases in an urban area the best you can hope for is a confused look.

Numerous times I've met people in the Gaeltacht who claim they have no Irish, and then happily respond in English to someone talking Irish or frequently reply quite fluently in Irish, particularly if they are talking to an elderly person.

In urban areas, and rural areas outside the Gaeltacht it seems to me that the reverse is true, a good few people claim to have Irish, but either cant or wont use it when spoken too.

Even though Irish in the Gaeltacht is greatly weakened, I have not seen any area without that has a comparable level of language usage and knowledge.

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Bíonn rudaí maithe mall

That is what the business scheme http://www.cilldaralegaeilge.ie is trying to establish. One of the difficulties is that two fluent speakers could meet and never realise that the other has Irish as English is generally the natural default between strangers outside and probably inside the Gaeltacht in Ireland. Cill Dara le Gaeilge is hoping to identify and publicise anyone who is willing to use their cúpla focal. There are some native, some non-native but reasonably fluent and some people with more limited Irish involved in the scheme. It is an inclusive scheme where everyone is encouraged to use whatever little bit they have. A number of businesses have already reported an increase in business as a direct of joining the scheme. It is very early days in the scheme, ach tús maith.... Most would agree that it's a very positive and innovative development.

Nobody is claiming that Cill Dara is about to take over from Conamara any time soon, but it's still lovely to hear more Irish around the place. And yes, of course, all that is being heard is not perfect. I think people with a positive attitude to a language are more likely to learn it better so gradually the quality may improve. People are being very patient and it's great.

I had to pay a little more attention the other day when the fiaclóir told me to 'druid' mo bhéal. I am used to 'dún' so the scheme is allowing me to hear a little more diversity in Irish which I am delighted with.

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This forum definitely needs a "like" (or "is maith liom!") button!

Redwolf

I agree with this. There needs to be a distinction made between these two 'Irishes' (if the 'urban' one can truly be called Irish), and the fact that people conflate them and, at times, hold the 'urban' one up as the example doesn't help the language.

That's a guaranteed death sentence for the language.

Redwolf

Part of the problem here comes from "language revitalisation" being seen as a single field. This means people conflate situations where there are still unbroken heritage speakers (like Irish and Scottish Gaelic) with situations where a language has been brought back from a few elders to children via playgroups and homes with adult-learner caregivers (eg Hawaiian and Maori) and even extreme cases where a completely dead language has been resurrected from old audio tapes and linguists notes (eg Manx and several Native American language.

In cases where heritage speech has been lost, it is inevitable that the language will rely on imported idioms and turns of phrase. But quoting the successes of "language nests" in Hawaii and suggesting we do the same in Ireland and Scotland... well, no. We have healthy, native speech -- let's not smother it by promoting half-learned stuff as progress.

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A language belongs to its native speakers, and when you speak it, you are a guest in their homes.
If you are not a good guest, you have no right to complain about receiving poor hospitality.

I am sad to say I don't have vocabulary and idiom of my parents and grandparents.
My brothers would be a bit better than I am as they are older, but not to a great extend.
My grandparent's generation would've done subsistence farming, a few cows, a pig, chickens, sow spuds for the year. They'd have fished and picked shellfish (faocháin, muiríní, sceana mara etc), and harvested seaweed. Apart from planting a few spuds (I do know what a sciollán is) my parents did none of that after they got married and had a place of their own. So I have lost a lot of that vocabulary that might be expected to be transmitted to my generation. The generations younger than I am are even worse, unless they make a effort themselves to learn it. There has been a big cultural shift in recent generations.