Notes on Gender and the Politics of the Irish Language in Northern Ireland

Notes on Gender and the Politics of the Irish Language in Northern Ireland andat Irish language events andgath- In Belfast gender roles are not so erings, I carried out 82 in-depth in- clear cut, and it has thus been more C'est h question Asgenres h I 'intprieur terviews with people involved with difficult to assess the impact of my du mouvement du renouveau A & the movement in avariety ofdifferent own gender on access to certain cir- &ngueen Zrlandcdu Nordquia inspirC capacities. I talked to activists, teach- cles and on other aspects of my re- cet amrtrcIc.L Luteure met m contraste ers, Irish language learners, and the search. The only domain to which I les observations parents ofchildren in the Irish schools, could not gain access was all-male faites par d'autres and took an oral history of each per- socializing, for example, in the pub. Gender patterns in the d~ffcheur~q~i$nt son's involvement with the language. But most Irish language social occa- revival movement were un travail ana- It came as no surprise, though, that sions involve both sexes, so this never logueaknsdkutres gender became an important consid- really became an issue. While there of interest because they eration during my field research. are certain organizations or groups both reinforced and While, as has been observed by so which tend to be male-dominated, broke stereotypes. Over the past dec- many female anthropologists before none are openly exclusive. ade or two inter- (Golde; Bell, Caplan, and Karim), My position in the community of est in the Irish lan- my gender was important to my ex- Gaeifgeoiri (Irish language enthusi- guage in Northern Ireland has in- perience as a researcher, I also noticed asts) and in West Belfast in general creased, particularly amongst the gender patterns in the revival move- changed part way through my field- nationalist1 community. The 1991 ment that were of interest not only work when I married my partner. census included a question about the because they contrasted with obser- While people already knew me as a Irish language for the first time since vations made by other researchers researcher and an Irish language Ireland was partitioned in 1921, with doing similar work in other locations learner, this was a new role which 37,253 people claiming to havesome (especially McDonald 1986, 1989), subtly (and not so subtly) altered my knowledge of the language in the but because they both reinforced and status. Irritating as it was at times to Belfast Urban Area alone (West Bel- broke certain western gender stereo- be referred to as someone's wife, in- fast Economic Forum). Irish medium types. stead ofbeing identified as aperson in preschool playgroups, elementary my own right, it had certain advan- schools, and secondary schools have A woman in the field tages. I seemed to become more invis- mushroomed all over the North, es- ible in my role as researcher, and I pecially in West Belfast, and the The gender of the ethnographer is seemed to stand out less as a stranger number of Irish classes for adults has one aspect ofidentitywhich has come (on a number of occasions, it was also grown. There is an Irish lan- under increasing scrutiny (see Okely; guage bookstore and a bilingual cafe Ardener 1975, 1984; Callaway). housed in the Cultlirlann, an Irish Hastrup (1987) discusses the signifi- It has been dzpcult to language cultural centre in West Bel- cance of the sex of the fieldworker assess the impact of my fast. A week hardly passes without with reference to her own experiences own gender on access to Irish language activities being held in during research in Iceland. She points. certain circles and on the city, including music events, so- out that when conducting fieldwork cial evenings, lectures, and plays. "at home," gender-markers tend to aspects of my research. I have been involved in fieldwork be the same for both the ethnogra- with the Irish language movement in pher and the group being studied. West Belfast since April 1992. My Whereas in "exotic" tribes the female apparent by what people said that primary interest has been the social ethnographer may lack such markers they had momentarily "forgotten" construction of the Irish language and therefore be treatedasan "honor- that I was a foreigner). Marrying an and its importance in the politics of ary male," at home she is more likely Irishman legally changed my foreign identity in the north of Ireland. The to be classified according- to her femi- status, and eventually I was able to most intensive period ofresearch was nine gender. For Hastrup, this meant obtain Irish citizenship. The fact that from June l993 to Januaryl995, but taking part in the world of women, I married a Gaeilgeoir, however, was my involvement in Irish language and encountering difficulties when more significant in terms of my posi- circles has been ongoing. In addition she attempted to take part in tradi- tion as a stranger. In my encounters to observations made in Irish classes tionally male activities. with some people, my status became VOLUME 17, NUMBER 3 43 more ambiguous. In some ways and ers" (1986, 178). According to through the use of simple order form under some circumstances I was still McDonald, a primary goal of the sentences commonly used with small foreign, but in other ways and under independent Brehon language nurs- children (for example, Ithdo dhznnear ' other circumstancesI was considered ery schools, set up by the organiza- and Druid an doras-"Eat your din- Irish. Within my closest circle of tion Diwan (Seed), is "to realize the ner" and "Close the door"). In the friends I had crossed over an invisible image of a rightfully Brehon-speak- north of Ireland, the majority of par- line. The fact that I could speak Irish ing childhood anda properly Brehon- ents sending their children to Irish with relative fluency and had married speaking motherhoodn (1986, 185). medium schools have little or no Irish, an Irishman made me more Irish In 1980, a congress of all Diwan so the final case is the most common. than foreign, especially in terms of members urgently discussed theques- At the time that the first Irish me- the behaviour and beliefs that were tion of how to get more mothers to dium school was set up, however, this now expected ofme. Being connected learn Brehon and speak it to their was not the case. The school was part to the community children in the home. Not surpris- of an ambitious attempt to establish through- marriage- ingly, mothers present at the congress an urban Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking mjb jt W& rnen~gymade me feel more protested, saying that they had jobs area) in the late 1960s on the Shaws agreed thatfithers CO& accepted2 but my and no time to learn Brehon, and that Road in what was then the outskirts ability to speak in any case it was chauvinistic to of West Belfast. The Gaeltacht was out^ the 'f Irish and my leng- expect mothers to bear the burden organized to bring together Irish- aYathertonguc"W& thystay in the alone. While it was eventually agreed speaking families into one area to met with some mirth. "field" were impor- that fathers could help out, the no- provide mutual support. In the previ- tant factors as well. tion of a "father tongue" rather than ous generation, there had been four a "mother tongue" was met with some or five families in Belfast who at- Women in the revival movement mirth (McDonald 1986,186). tempted to use Irish as the language In contrast, the Irish language re- of the home, but most failed to reach It is interesting to note the sym- vival movement in Northern Ireland this goal due in large part to isolation. bolic importance of the metaphor tends to emphasize the promotion of By bringing this new set of families "mother tongue" in the Brehon move- Irish as the primary language of the together into one neighbourhood on ment in relation to the emphasis home. Since confining the language the outskirts of the city, Gaeilgeoiri placed on the role of women and to the classroom is seen as one of the succeeded for the first time in creat- mothers in the Irish revival move- failings of past policies to promote ingan environment where Irish could ment. McDonald suggests that this Irish, great emphasis is placed on the be used not only as the language of metaphor evokes an "image of primi- language being used in as many the home, but as the language ofdaily tive primacy and primordial cultural spheres of life as possible. Many con- communication between neighbours attachment, and the notion has gath- sider the home to be the most crucial and friends as well. As the children ered an increasing moral imperative- sphere for the survival of Irish as a grew up, the parents started their ness associated with the relationship living language. It could be argued own primary school so that the chil- ofmother to child" (1986,184). The that the private sphere of the home is dren could continue to speak Irish in equivalent term in the Irish language strongly associated with women and as many domains as possible. revival movement is generally "native the family, and therefore an emphasis The success of this is reflected in tongue" (teanga dhuchais). In all my on the home is &farto an emphasis the comment ofone of my interview- years of fieldwork, I cannot recall the on the role ofwomen in propagating ees who grew up on the Shaws Road term "mother tongue" being used in the language.

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