It always felt very ancient when out and about in Conemara and the surrounding areas as a child in the 1980's. Like time stood still around those parts. Great memories.
I saw places from Malin& Derry to Kerry and Skibbereen as we moved south camping in the summer with farmer/cottager’s permission - five summers, July/Aug, between 1966 & 69. I was a primary school kid, but some images are burnt into my mind of haymaking, particularly, all without farm machinery. We passed through as tourists/ghost-like in a Comma Van. We offered lifts to individuals caught in the rain. I can now appreciate better what I was witnessing. ❤ wonderful video. Grmma.
FHESTY was a great lad for a bit of iomanaiocht.... mornin, noon n evening he'd be amacht fiddlin with his hurl. On leaving fair isles shores in 1987, he arrived in JFK hurl in hand. Time Sq saw him meet an irish lad with a hurl - turned out they were cousins ..... the two Hurley lads..... only man to bring a hurl into a U2 concert - FHESTY conquered America in his own way too but never made the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine.... not yet anyway !
*There's a very interesting documentary called "No Bearla" on UA-cam if anyone is interested* *It's where a native Irish speaker (Manchán Magan) travels around Ireland trying to only speak Irish*
I have heard that said many times, but I am not sure that is completely true, there were also a lot of sadness caused by members of families who had emigrated to far off lands and did not return back home many times during their lives
Does anyone care to put the words spoken into text? I can understand a bit of it but find the accents very difficult to understand. Trying to improve my gaeilge after not speaking it since leaving in ng school. GRMA
Let's face it, how many irish people profess how they'd like to learn and improve their irish, actually end up doing it? Theres far too many distractions for young people now. Try speaking irish in non gaeltacht areas in in shops or pubs and ive no doubt youll get a look as if youve two heads.
Fíor mo chara. Mé an my mother used to speak in Irish all the time, and when we were shopping you'd swear we were mutants the looks you'd get. People wouldn't bat an eye when they hear Polish or Romanian but when it's Irish tis a different story
@@deaganachomarunacathasaigh4344 when kids are growing up its not used outside of school anyway in non gaelteacht schools or areas day to day, so for a lot of irish kids too the last thing they want to do is spend their summers in a gaeltacht where they'll be reprimandedfor daring to speak english, god forbid in case they enjoy themselves that bit too much!
@@Novocainea07 Some households outside offcial Gaeltacht areas do. And in parts of Galway, Mayo Clare particularly there's 2hatd be called Breac Ghaeltachteanna, literally means speckled Irish speaking Areas. They'res a few of these throughout the West, but they're dying off as they're being replaced by Monolingual English speakers moving into them. The whole Muirisc region of Mayo used to speak Irish in the 1960s. Nowadays there's still houses that do but not everyone, but in Westport Town there is a Gaelscoil so alot of the Westport population can speak Irish. But you'd only hear Irish spoken in the town now on a market day when the Islanders would be in from the sea or the mountain people at the mart. So day to day its not really spoken outside school. Which is terribly sad
I started learning a few years ago (with several gaps) and I can now hold a conversation with native speakers, I guess I have attained some degree of "fluency" (although I have far more to learn and want to go further) People think it's a herculean task but it's pretty doable.
@The 90's The south did nothing to reverse the social and economic conditions that were driving language shift and causing native Irish speakers to emigrate from the Gaeltacht (to Dublin, around the country and abroad) in their thousands. Conditions which are still in place today. The seat of power remained the English city of Dublin, and as an astute German commentator predicted while visiting Ireland in 1913, in an independent Ireland the anglicisation of Ireland would be completed by Dublin - "Culturally speaking, Ireland is an Anglicised nation, but its Anglo-Saxon culture does not make it a nation of rulers. When Dublin becomes the capital of Ireland again, a unique variety of Englishmen and women will form a new, Anglo-Irish state. These people will be distinguished from Lomdoners the same way that Bavarians are from Eastern Prussians. Dublin will become a kind of British Munich. As soon as Home Rule is introduced, the assimilation of the Irish will reach completion." And "The English know very well why they now want to make Dublin into a proper capital city again, this time of an autonomous state within the British Empire. From Dublin, the complete Anglicisation of the island will be conducted once Ireland gains self-governance." And so it came to pass, though not in the exact way imagined by the writer (Free State instead of Home Rule). That book is called 'Ireland 1913'. It's a translation of a diary recorded by a well known Berlin journalist during his travels around Ireland, and it's a very insightful read.
@The 90's Misconceptions. Irish isn’t dead and Welsh is only spoken habitually by about 12% of the population in Wales - hardly an example of widespread usage. It’s more than the 1.5% in Ireland who speak Irish every day of their lives, but it’s not exactly thriving. Look to Lithuania, Estonia, Finland and Slovenia for examples of other small European nations that truly take pride in their indigenous languages.
@@DA-og4px Exactly my good person. Something like 20% of the population of Wales were still native Welsh speakers living in Welsh speaking areas in 1970, that is off the top of my head now so correct me if I'm wrong. Compare that to Ireland where 2% of the population were native Irish speakers in 1970 and you'll see why that's not a straight comparison. And that population of native Welsh speakers is still depleting with the ongoing anglicisation of Welsh speaking regions (though of course from an Irish perspective today these regions still look 'strong'). No amount of native English speakers in Swansea learning Welsh as a second language and ticking 'yes' to knowing Welsh on the censuse will ever make up for that loss.
@@CCc-sb9oj That’s right. If the Irish 2016 census data is largely accurate then around 73,000 people spoke Irish habitually, with another 6,000 in Northern Ireland claiming it is their ‘main language’ in the most recent UK census. Of these nearly 80,000 people in Ireland, how many are native speakers? Estimates are few and far between but I personally think it’s around 0.5-0.7% of the whole island’s population. Tomás Mac Síomóin estimated it was 0.23%, if I remember correctly! (‘The Gael Becomes Irish’, published 2020). There are of course some exceptional people who have acquired Irish as a second language and speak it at an advanced level but there is nothing like having native/L1 speakers for intergenerational language transmission, and all signs are pointing towards an ongoing decline in this small, core group.
It always felt very ancient when out and about in Conemara and the surrounding areas as a child in the 1980's. Like time stood still around those parts. Great memories.
And yet you never learned how to spell Connemara.
@@ArsonFire00 Conamara.
@@ArsonFire00 Maybe he's ancient
I saw places from Malin& Derry to Kerry and Skibbereen as we moved south camping in the summer with farmer/cottager’s permission - five summers, July/Aug, between 1966 & 69. I was a primary school kid, but some images are burnt into my mind of haymaking, particularly, all without farm machinery. We passed through as tourists/ghost-like in a Comma Van. We offered lifts to individuals caught in the rain. I can now appreciate better what I was witnessing. ❤ wonderful video. Grmma.
Wow! My hat goes off to anyone ag feirmeoireacht gan machinery, that’s next level obair decair.
A man that scythes his meadows for hay, needs no fitness gym subscription..
The fist house shown is my grandmas house,not there now and the other one by the lane has also gone,her name was Mary coffee Joyce rip.
We must be related
FHESTY was a great lad for a bit of iomanaiocht.... mornin, noon n evening he'd be amacht fiddlin with his hurl. On leaving fair isles shores in 1987, he arrived in JFK hurl in hand. Time Sq saw him meet an irish lad with a hurl - turned out they were cousins ..... the two Hurley lads..... only man to bring a hurl into a U2 concert - FHESTY conquered America in his own way too but never made the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine.... not yet anyway !
*There's a very interesting documentary called "No Bearla" on UA-cam if anyone is interested*
*It's where a native Irish speaker (Manchán Magan) travels around Ireland trying to only speak Irish*
Saw this, Manchàn was bound to be let down trying to speak as gaeilge in a shop in Dublin, made for better TV probably
i don't think Manchán is native
He’s not native. In fact he needs to improve his pronunciation.
Bluestone mixture applied for preventing potatoe blight at the end of video
You won’t find a more Gaelic, Irish-speaking region than Ceantar na nOileán! Especially Oileán Gharmna.
Ní raibh mórán againn ach bhí muid happy❤
'Bhfuil sibh happy go fóill?
The people were poor but they were happy. 😊
I have heard that said many times, but I am not sure that is completely true, there were also a lot of sadness caused by members of families who had emigrated to far off lands and did not return back home many times during their lives
they truly extolled the virtue of poverty
Does anyone care to put the words spoken into text? I can understand a bit of it but find the accents very difficult to understand. Trying to improve my gaeilge after not speaking it since leaving in ng school. GRMA
Beautiful scenery but it never put food on the table
part of what you said is true about ty he beautiful scenery, there was always food on the table but it was not plentiful
Let's face it, how many irish people profess how they'd like to learn and improve their irish, actually end up doing it? Theres far too many distractions for young people now. Try speaking irish in non gaeltacht areas in in shops or pubs and ive no doubt youll get a look as if youve two heads.
Fíor mo chara. Mé an my mother used to speak in Irish all the time, and when we were shopping you'd swear we were mutants the looks you'd get. People wouldn't bat an eye when they hear Polish or Romanian but when it's Irish tis a different story
@@deaganachomarunacathasaigh4344 when kids are growing up its not used outside of school anyway in non gaelteacht schools or areas day to day, so for a lot of irish kids too the last thing they want to do is spend their summers in a gaeltacht where they'll be reprimandedfor daring to speak english, god forbid in case they enjoy themselves that bit too much!
@@Novocainea07 Some households outside offcial Gaeltacht areas do. And in parts of Galway, Mayo Clare particularly there's 2hatd be called Breac Ghaeltachteanna, literally means speckled Irish speaking Areas. They'res a few of these throughout the West, but they're dying off as they're being replaced by Monolingual English speakers moving into them. The whole Muirisc region of Mayo used to speak Irish in the 1960s. Nowadays there's still houses that do but not everyone, but in Westport Town there is a Gaelscoil so alot of the Westport population can speak Irish. But you'd only hear Irish spoken in the town now on a market day when the Islanders would be in from the sea or the mountain people at the mart. So day to day its not really spoken outside school. Which is terribly sad
I started learning a few years ago (with several gaps) and I can now hold a conversation with native speakers, I guess I have attained some degree of "fluency" (although I have far more to learn and want to go further)
People think it's a herculean task but it's pretty doable.
Yes people would look at you and wished that to could speak some Irish
Tá sé an-brónach, mar sa lá atá inniu ann níl aon duine a'chonai ar Inis Treabhair
I'm ashamed to say that I know very little when it comes to speaking our native tongue. 😔
There is a lot of shame around this issue, but that shame can be transformed into pride if you pick up some Irish
@@aduantas Áiméan 💚🤍🧡🙏🏻
@@aduantaslet it go .
Biggest failure of our nation is how we let our language die.
@The 90's Tá sí fós beo agus beidh go deo.
@The 90's The south did nothing to reverse the social and economic conditions that were driving language shift and causing native Irish speakers to emigrate from the Gaeltacht (to Dublin, around the country and abroad) in their thousands. Conditions which are still in place today.
The seat of power remained the English city of Dublin, and as an astute German commentator predicted while visiting Ireland in 1913, in an independent Ireland the anglicisation of Ireland would be completed by Dublin -
"Culturally speaking, Ireland is an Anglicised nation, but its Anglo-Saxon culture does not make it a nation of rulers. When Dublin becomes the capital of Ireland again, a unique variety of Englishmen and women will form a new, Anglo-Irish state. These people will be distinguished from Lomdoners the same way that Bavarians are from Eastern Prussians. Dublin will become a kind of British Munich. As soon as Home Rule is introduced, the assimilation of the Irish will reach completion."
And
"The English know very well why they now want to make Dublin into a proper capital city again, this time of an autonomous state within the British Empire. From Dublin, the complete Anglicisation of the island will be conducted once Ireland gains self-governance."
And so it came to pass, though not in the exact way imagined by the writer (Free State instead of Home Rule).
That book is called 'Ireland 1913'. It's a translation of a diary recorded by a well known Berlin journalist during his travels around Ireland, and it's a very insightful read.
@The 90's Misconceptions. Irish isn’t dead and Welsh is only spoken habitually by about 12% of the population in Wales - hardly an example of widespread usage. It’s more than the 1.5% in Ireland who speak Irish every day of their lives, but it’s not exactly thriving. Look to Lithuania, Estonia, Finland and Slovenia for examples of other small European nations that truly take pride in their indigenous languages.
@@DA-og4px Exactly my good person. Something like 20% of the population of Wales were still native Welsh speakers living in Welsh speaking areas in 1970, that is off the top of my head now so correct me if I'm wrong.
Compare that to Ireland where 2% of the population were native Irish speakers in 1970 and you'll see why that's not a straight comparison.
And that population of native Welsh speakers is still depleting with the ongoing anglicisation of Welsh speaking regions (though of course from an Irish perspective today these regions still look 'strong'). No amount of native English speakers in Swansea learning Welsh as a second language and ticking 'yes' to knowing Welsh on the censuse will ever make up for that loss.
@@CCc-sb9oj That’s right. If the Irish 2016 census data is largely accurate then around 73,000 people spoke Irish habitually, with another 6,000 in Northern Ireland claiming it is their ‘main language’ in the most recent UK census. Of these nearly 80,000 people in Ireland, how many are native speakers? Estimates are few and far between but I personally think it’s around 0.5-0.7% of the whole island’s population. Tomás Mac Síomóin estimated it was 0.23%, if I remember correctly! (‘The Gael Becomes Irish’, published 2020). There are of course some exceptional people who have acquired Irish as a second language and speak it at an advanced level but there is nothing like having native/L1 speakers for intergenerational language transmission, and all signs are pointing towards an ongoing decline in this small, core group.