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Mac Giolla Chríost, Diarmait. The Irish Language in Ireland: From Goídel to Globalisation. London & New York: Routledge, 2005. xlvii + 259 pp. £80. ISBN 0–415–32046–1, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 43, Issue 1, JANUARY 2007, Pages 103–104, https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cql153
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This is an intensely sociolinguistic book, exploring the centrality of language to any study of identity, an exploration which is particularly well-served by the choice of Irish. Ireland and the Irish language are locked together, but this can become overheated, excessively tied up with questions of “fate” (of the state, Irish society and the language) and of “language death”. There is so much more to all of this, and what is needed, and what this book largely provides, is a real study of the language on its own terms. We have here a critical analysis of linguistic relativism, habitus and discourse, ethnicity, power, globalisation and polity, ecology, and critical ecolinguistics. The historical background is given, after which Irish in “The Republic of Ireland” and “Northern Ireland” is explored and, before the Conclusion, new directions and “Irish in a Global Age' are discussed. We need to know who or what the Irish community is; once achieved, we need to know how to engage with it; then one needs to know if the language is sufficiently dynamic or elastic, and what the role of cities is in, for example, language shift. Assuring a viable future for Irish involves a numbers of risks, but they have to be taken. This invaluable volume has numerous figures and tables, nine very accessible chapters in three parts after an Introduction. There is also detailed discussion of “Contexts”, a Bibliography (pp. 237–50) and an Index (pp. 251–9). It is indispensable reading for anyone concerned about language identity and language shift.
