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Irish Studies, Syracuse University Press
Grand Opportunity: The Gaelic Revival and Irish Society, 1893-1910
In this groundbreaking work, Timothy McMahon reexamines the significance of the Gaelic revival in forming Ireland’s national identity. In their determination to preserve and extend the use of Irish as a spoken language and artistic medium, members of the Gaelic League profoundly influenced Irish culture and literature in the twentieth century. McMahon explores that influence by scrutinizing the ways in which society absorbed their messages, tracing the interaction between the ideas propagated by the League and the variety of meanings ordinary people attached to Ireland and to being Irish. Comparing press and police reports with census data and local directories, the author establishes the first comprehensive profile of League membership. McMahon’s ability to access both English- and Irish-language sources offers readers a rare and richly detailed analysis of primary materials. Grand Opportunity addresses questions that are central to understanding modern Irish identity and makes an indispensable contribution to the wider study of national identity formation.
- GenresIrelandNonfiction
342 pages, Paperback
First published March 31, 2008
22 people want to read
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January 29, 2015
In 1892 Douglas Hyde gave an influential speech at the Irish National Literary Society in Dublin exhorting the Irish people to fight against the Anglicization of the country. According to him, it was imperative to promote the Irish language in order to strengthen the Irish national identity. Consequently, the Gaelic League was funded with an aim to stimulate spoken Irish and Irish traditional culture. It was the belief of their leaders that the language would help to unify the Irish citizenship in spite of their different religious denominations, as well as set them apart from Great Britain. Hence, the Gaelic League was a logical product of a historical time when Ireland was striving for some form of independence from the United Kingdom, through Home Rule or Republican movements.
Timothy G. McMahon intends to dispel some myths or misconceptions that appear to have surrounded the study of the Gaelic Revival. Most importantly, the author establishes through the quantitative analysis of its membership that it was composed from the very start of, in a large part, lower middle class citizens; it was not an elitist movement. It had been argued that these aspirational, discontented members of society joined the League in bigger numbers at a later stage, hence accelerating the politicization of the League. This theory proved to be rather convenient, as it would mean that the Irish case developed along the same lines as other European nationalistic movements. For scholars of nationalism, this amounts to more evidence for their paradigms.
However, Timothy G. McMahon settles that all sectors of Irish society joined the League, paying the small fee required or making bigger donations: clerics of all religious denominations (largely Catholic, though), Protestant “persons of importance” who in some cases even opened their Big Houses for events, women who were entrusted to use Irish in the home and bring up their children with Irish values, business men, artisans, clerks and working-men… Even more, the population in general benefited from the social activities organized by the Gaelic League, and McMahon argues that, if unsuccessful in producing a massive population of fluent Irish speakers, the organization did contribute to the creation of an Irish national identity.
The author paints a delightful picture of the activities of the Gaelic League. This was an organization of volunteers mostly, with a few full-time paid organizers, but it comes across as a hub of energy; one of their objectives was to break social stagnation, in particular in the countryside, where there were fewer opportunities for entertainment and self-improvement. The Gaelic League fought to introduce Irish as a subject in schools, and they also offered evening classes. There is an inspiring image of children and older people working together in the classroom; in some cases the younger pupils were the more competent, in others the senior native speakers helped others with pronunciation and taught them old songs and poems. Nevertheless, Mc Mahon reminds us that most people joined the League for just some time and persevered in their studies only to a small degree; there was more demand for learning materials for beginners than for advanced learners. Still, the League also ran Irish summer colleges where more competent and devoted students trained to qualify as Irish teachers, and this was crucial subsequently in the Irish Free State.
The social activities of the Irish League included “feiseanna”, festivals consisting of competitions (essays, recitation, song and story writing, dancing) and evening concerts. Their fund-raising week was set off with an impressive parade in Dublin, in which many businesses and associations took part. They had close connections with temperance movements and local industrialists. The leaders of the League and some clerics of importance addressed the crowds with speeches about the importance of Irish values and traditions. To the reader all this feels arresting and vivifying, and it comes across as nice experiences for the Irish people at the time.
McMahon makes a good job of explaining the reasons why the League was least successful precisely in the Irish-speaking areas, the Gaeltacht. Due to their history, these regions were more economically deprived, and Irish-speaking families living in poverty in the remote countryside relied on their children to emigrate and send them money in order to survive. English was then “linguistic capital”, and the Irish language was undervalued. Besides, the League established itself in small towns and often appealed to notables for help to set up branches. In some cases, there were tensions between the peasants and money lenders who used exploitative practices. Paradoxically, by associating themselves with “town”, the Irish League came to be viewed by Irish monoglots and native-speakers in the Gaeltacht as an alien institution.
Grand Opportunity is a broad, scholarly introduction to the activities and influence of the Gaelic League in Irish society between 1893 and 1910. McMahon has researched a very wide range of primary sources, written in English and in Irish. Each chapter focuses on a specific area (clerics, social origins of the members, “feiseanna”, the Language Week processions…), but the book lacks a historical introduction to the birth of the institution and an initial outline of its activities. Grand Opportunity includes lots of anecdotes (the League’s protest about the difficulties posed by the GPO to deliver letters addressed in Irish comes to mind) and personal stories that make the reader eager to learn more about some of the individuals mentioned, in particular, women. Maybe in the future McMahon will extend his research in this direction, providing us with more biographical studies of key leaders and organizers of the Gaelic League.
Timothy G. McMahon intends to dispel some myths or misconceptions that appear to have surrounded the study of the Gaelic Revival. Most importantly, the author establishes through the quantitative analysis of its membership that it was composed from the very start of, in a large part, lower middle class citizens; it was not an elitist movement. It had been argued that these aspirational, discontented members of society joined the League in bigger numbers at a later stage, hence accelerating the politicization of the League. This theory proved to be rather convenient, as it would mean that the Irish case developed along the same lines as other European nationalistic movements. For scholars of nationalism, this amounts to more evidence for their paradigms.
However, Timothy G. McMahon settles that all sectors of Irish society joined the League, paying the small fee required or making bigger donations: clerics of all religious denominations (largely Catholic, though), Protestant “persons of importance” who in some cases even opened their Big Houses for events, women who were entrusted to use Irish in the home and bring up their children with Irish values, business men, artisans, clerks and working-men… Even more, the population in general benefited from the social activities organized by the Gaelic League, and McMahon argues that, if unsuccessful in producing a massive population of fluent Irish speakers, the organization did contribute to the creation of an Irish national identity.
The author paints a delightful picture of the activities of the Gaelic League. This was an organization of volunteers mostly, with a few full-time paid organizers, but it comes across as a hub of energy; one of their objectives was to break social stagnation, in particular in the countryside, where there were fewer opportunities for entertainment and self-improvement. The Gaelic League fought to introduce Irish as a subject in schools, and they also offered evening classes. There is an inspiring image of children and older people working together in the classroom; in some cases the younger pupils were the more competent, in others the senior native speakers helped others with pronunciation and taught them old songs and poems. Nevertheless, Mc Mahon reminds us that most people joined the League for just some time and persevered in their studies only to a small degree; there was more demand for learning materials for beginners than for advanced learners. Still, the League also ran Irish summer colleges where more competent and devoted students trained to qualify as Irish teachers, and this was crucial subsequently in the Irish Free State.
The social activities of the Irish League included “feiseanna”, festivals consisting of competitions (essays, recitation, song and story writing, dancing) and evening concerts. Their fund-raising week was set off with an impressive parade in Dublin, in which many businesses and associations took part. They had close connections with temperance movements and local industrialists. The leaders of the League and some clerics of importance addressed the crowds with speeches about the importance of Irish values and traditions. To the reader all this feels arresting and vivifying, and it comes across as nice experiences for the Irish people at the time.
McMahon makes a good job of explaining the reasons why the League was least successful precisely in the Irish-speaking areas, the Gaeltacht. Due to their history, these regions were more economically deprived, and Irish-speaking families living in poverty in the remote countryside relied on their children to emigrate and send them money in order to survive. English was then “linguistic capital”, and the Irish language was undervalued. Besides, the League established itself in small towns and often appealed to notables for help to set up branches. In some cases, there were tensions between the peasants and money lenders who used exploitative practices. Paradoxically, by associating themselves with “town”, the Irish League came to be viewed by Irish monoglots and native-speakers in the Gaeltacht as an alien institution.
Grand Opportunity is a broad, scholarly introduction to the activities and influence of the Gaelic League in Irish society between 1893 and 1910. McMahon has researched a very wide range of primary sources, written in English and in Irish. Each chapter focuses on a specific area (clerics, social origins of the members, “feiseanna”, the Language Week processions…), but the book lacks a historical introduction to the birth of the institution and an initial outline of its activities. Grand Opportunity includes lots of anecdotes (the League’s protest about the difficulties posed by the GPO to deliver letters addressed in Irish comes to mind) and personal stories that make the reader eager to learn more about some of the individuals mentioned, in particular, women. Maybe in the future McMahon will extend his research in this direction, providing us with more biographical studies of key leaders and organizers of the Gaelic League.
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