CULTURE AND LITERATUREBŐDY EDIT2014 /2015

Language and Identity – Ireland and Northern-

Ireland

Preliminary information – historical bg.

1800: Act of Union (Union of Great Britain and the Irish Kingdom) and its consequences

1845-1848: potato blight, starvation, emigration

→ drastic decrease in population

Late 19th century: fight for Home Rule (Charles Stuart Parnell)

1916: Easter: Easter Rising

Historical bg.

1919-1921: Civil War, Irish Free State in 1922 (1937: renamed itself as Ireland and declared itself republic in

1949)Northern-Ireland: 1922-1972:

- limited independence, - Protestant, Unionist government in Belfast. - The Troubles- 1972: direct British rule.

1985: Anglo-Irish (or Hillsborough) Agreement- the Irish Gov. has an advisory role- about the parades

Recent events

1998: Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement: more freedom, cooperation bw. London and

Belfast.Everybody can be a citizen of the Republic

of IrelandNI will remain in the UK as long as the

majority of its people want it that wayNew institutions, eg. NI Assembly2007: internal self-government with a First Minister

In Ireland…

“Celtic Tiger Years”: 1990 – 2008Critical and literary re-examination:Abandoning romantic (false) patriotismFeminism, female writersGlobalizationIrish abroad, diaspora (cca. 70 million people) –

racial issues

Relevant issues concerning culture

Language: as a consequence of British colonization the Irish (Gaelic) language virtually disappears in the 18-19th centuries

Efforts to revive Gaelic Irish Literature: revival in the 18-19th c.: romantic

tendencies →Claim for a national culture including

literature.

Language and identity in the 20th century and contemporary dramas

Late 19th century: independence movements and cultural ones are intertwined.

Cultural renaissance In play-writing: to write

Irish national plays Mostly in English,

sometimes in Irish.Organising figures: W. B.

Yeats and his circle, esp. Lady Augusta Gregory.

1904: the Abbey Theatre

Language

The dilemma whether to write in English or Irish In most cases: compromises Common aim: an understandable language evoking

the impression of hearing or reading the plays in Gaelic Irish.

Earlier solutions (Abbey-writers):- Lady Gregory: English + Kiltartan dialect- John Millington Synge: a very complex dialect - English and dialects from Wicklow, Kerry and Galway.- John O’Casey: Dublin dialect of poor classes + Gaelic words

Language

Contemporary literature: in general the same method: to mix English with a Gaelic dialect.

- Brendan Behan and Hugh Leonard: Dublin dialect (like O’Casey)

- George Fitzmaurice and John B. Keane: Kerry dialect

- Brian Friel: Derry dialect

Irish English (Hiberno-English) language today

Is gradually losing its Gaelic heritage and is becoming similar to standard English →

Bigger challenge for the authors Strange phenomena: eg. the work of Eugene

Watters / Eoghan O’Tuairisc as a symbol of the language dilemma.

Linguistic hybridizationMulticulturalism