102-528: Damer Hall , also known as Damer Theatre ( Irish : Amharclann an Damer ) and An Damer , is a former theatre and former school located in the basement of the Dublin Unitarian Church at 112 St Stephen's Green in Dublin , Ireland . From ca. 1718 (or possibly 1725), Damer Hall served as Damer School, a co-educational primary school for Unitarian and Jewish children. It was funded by
204-547: A unique dialect of Irish developed before falling out of use in the early 20th century. With a writing system , Ogham , dating back to at least the 4th century AD, which was gradually replaced by Latin script since the 5th century AD, Irish has one of the oldest vernacular literatures in Western Europe . On the island, the language has three major dialects: Connacht , Munster and Ulster Irish . All three have distinctions in their speech and orthography . There
306-418: A Gipsy Riding asks the question of "how do you survive the greatest loss, the loss of a child...", to conclude that "you don't recover, but you do learn to live with it". A critic summarised this "impressive drama" as "a concentrated piece that intricately dissects a middle-class family at war with itself following the suicide of one of their three children". The play The Hanging Gardens , premiered in 2007,
408-468: A Rúin had its first performance there on 15 September 1960. Séamus Ó Néill 's play Rún an Oileáin (The Secret of the Island) ran from 5 to 10 June 1961. In May 1962, the theatre held its first review, Damertásibh , featuring work by Micheál Mac Liammóir , Niall Tóibín , Eoghan O Tuairisc , Tómas Mac Anna and Sean O Riada , with performances by Áine Ní Mhuirí , among others. Dónall Farmer served as
510-717: A bargaining chip during government formation in Northern Ireland, prompting protests from organisations and groups such as An Dream Dearg . Irish became an official language of the EU on 1 January 2007, meaning that MEPs with Irish fluency can now speak the language in the European Parliament and at committees, although in the case of the latter they have to give prior notice to a simultaneous interpreter in order to ensure that what they say can be interpreted into other languages. While an official language of
612-575: A better future for Ireland and all her citizens." The Strategy was produced on 21 December 2010 and will stay in action until 2030; it aims to target language vitality and revitalization of the Irish language. The 30-page document published by the Government of Ireland details the objectives it plans to work towards in an attempt to preserve and promote both the Irish language and the Gaeltacht. It
714-490: A carved stone with a short poem written by Frank McGuinness for the site: "This silence is round / So is remembrance, / they say". Frank McGuinness' first novel, Arimathea , was published in 2013. It has been described as "[a] story of salvation". The book is set in a village in Donegal in 1950, registering the effect of the arrival of an Italian painter who "came from out foreign and … spoke wild funny". The story, told from
816-529: A coin" between a play and a novel, and decided to write a play. The Glass God , a one-act play written by McGuinness for the company Platform Group Theatre, was premiered at the Lourdes Hall Theatre in Dublin in 1982. It was one of three one-act plays presented under the collective title of Shrapnel . McGuinness' first full-length play, The Factory Girls , also premiered in 1982, and dealt with
918-478: A cultural and social force. Irish speakers often insisted on using the language in law courts (even when they knew English), and Irish was also common in commercial transactions. The language was heavily implicated in the "devotional revolution" which marked the standardisation of Catholic religious practice and was also widely used in a political context. Down to the time of the Great Famine and even afterwards,
1020-553: A degree course in the NUI federal system to pass the subject of Irish in the Leaving Certificate or GCE / GCSE examinations. Exemptions are made from this requirement for students who were born or completed primary education outside of Ireland, and students diagnosed with dyslexia . NUI Galway is required to appoint people who are competent in the Irish language, as long as they are also competent in all other aspects of
1122-681: A director for a time. Máiréad Ní Ghráda 's play An Triail (The Trial) made its debut at the theatre in 1964. Caitlín Maude was cast in the lead role of Máire in An Triail . She was followed in the role by Fionnula Flanagan in her acting debut. The first stage version of Flann O'Brien 's An Béal Bocht took place in the Damer on 31 January 1967, performed by the University College Dublin Cumann Gaelach . Seán Ó Tuama 's drama Gunna Cam agus Slabhra Óir
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#17327976769521224-502: A five-act Shakespearean play", and to use "narrative in a way that I hope no one had done before". He has described the play as "a big brute", adding that, among his works to date, "I suspect 'this play will last'". Someone Who'll Watch Over Me , first staged in 1992, is a play about the 1986 Lebanon hostage crisis . It is in effect a tragi-comedy which explores the relationship between three hostages, one American, one Irish and one English. Despite their contrasting backgrounds and beliefs
1326-460: A fully recognised EU language for the first time in the state's history. Before Irish became an official language it was afforded the status of treaty language and only the highest-level documents of the EU were made available in Irish. The Irish language was carried abroad in the modern period by a vast diaspora , chiefly to Great Britain and North America, but also to Australia , New Zealand and Argentina . The first large movements began in
1428-424: A group of female workers facing redundancy from a small town in Donegal. McGuinness explained that he was inspired by "the women in my family". A critic has highlighted its "Wednesday to Sunday time frame", in a link to Catholic imagery which, surprisingly given its theme, indicates that this is in fact "a passion play". "When I wrote 'The Factory Girls'," McGuiness has explained, "I desperately wanted to bring across
1530-485: A march against internment and killed 14 people. McGuinness has described Carthaginians as "My play on the Catholic imagination …", stating that "the keyword in [the play] is the word 'perhaps'". It has been claimed that Carthaginians should be placed primarily "within a body of translations and adaptations of ancient Greek tragedy in the Irish theatre of the 1980s and 1990s". A number of critics have suggested that Ibsen
1632-591: A method and silence as an idea. "[T]he final effect" of the novel, as one reviewer put it, "is to lead the reader to consider those voices not yet heard, and the private agonies that are never shared". Frank McGuinness' second novel, The Woodcutter and His Family , published in September 2017, deals with the last days of James Joyce in Zurich. The novel is made of four sections, monologues from James, his partner Nora, their daughter Lucia, and son Giorgio, who are given
1734-585: A paper suggested that within a generation, non-Gaeltacht habitual users of Irish might typically be members of an urban, middle class, and highly educated minority. Parliamentary legislation is supposed to be available in both Irish and English but is frequently only available in English. This is notwithstanding that Article 25.4 of the Constitution of Ireland requires that an "official translation" of any law in one official language be provided immediately in
1836-575: A pass in Leaving Certificate Irish or English, and receive lessons in Irish during their two years of training. Official documents of the Irish government must be published in both Irish and English or Irish alone (in accordance with the Official Languages Act 2003, enforced by An Coimisinéir Teanga , the Irish language ombudsman). The National University of Ireland requires all students wishing to embark on
1938-638: A play that was a great celebration of homosexual marriage, love, partnership". The playwright has a drawing of MacLiammoir, by Norah McGuinness, in his sitting room, a work "which I bought with the royalties of the Factory Girls ", so the actor is literally a constant presence in McGuinness' life. Gates of Gold looks at the dying days of MacLiammoir, because McGuinness wanted to write "something darker and stranger", and less predictable, about these two pioneers of theatre. Premiered in 2007, There Came
2040-625: A religious context. An Irish translation of the Old Testament by Leinsterman Muircheartach Ó Cíonga , commissioned by Bishop Bedell , was published after 1685 along with a translation of the New Testament. Otherwise, Anglicisation was seen as synonymous with 'civilising' the native Irish. Currently, modern day Irish speakers in the church are pushing for language revival. It has been estimated that there were around 800,000 monoglot Irish speakers in 1800, which dropped to 320,000 by
2142-547: A result of linguistic imperialism . Today, Irish is still commonly spoken as a first language in Ireland's Gaeltacht regions, in which 2% of Ireland's population lived in 2022. The total number of people (aged 3 and over) in Ireland who declared they could speak Irish in April 2022 was 1,873,997, representing 40% of respondents, but of these, 472,887 said they never spoke it and a further 551,993 said they only spoke it within
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#17327976769522244-405: A short story by James Joyce, and novels by Stoker and Du Maurier. His ability to distil the raw force from classic Greek drama, in particular, has been noted by critics. He sometimes takes noticeable liberties in his adaptations, in order to strengthen characterisation—for example by making the alienated protagonist of Rebecca into an Anglo-Irish woman from a once privileged family—or to underline
2346-447: A text as I can for the singers to sing. And that is what I think they are, these stories that have haunted us: they are something beautiful, something brutal, and the beauty and brutality confound each other." The original trilogy is "revered as a foundational document of western civilisation", and one of the main achievements of this "dazzling new opera", a reviewer pointed out, was that "it blows apart this crippling reverence and presents
2448-429: A two-page speech. "I can get this down to six lines," I told him – and then did just that." The Theban trilogy, comprising Oedipus Rex , Oedipus at Colonus , and Antigone , has been occasionally performed as a chronologically ordered, three-play show. For his version, McGuinness made the decision to change the traditional order in the story. He explained that "I've always thought that putting [the play Antigone] at
2550-545: A wider meaning, including the Gaelic of Scotland and the Isle of Man , as well as of Ireland. When required by the context, these are distinguished as Gaeilge na hAlban , Gaeilge Mhanann and Gaeilge na hÉireann respectively. In English (including Hiberno-English ), the language is usually referred to as Irish , as well as Gaelic and Irish Gaelic . The term Irish Gaelic may be seen when English speakers discuss
2652-411: Is "a distinctively Irish book, and one in which echoes of Joyce vie with those of Máirtín Ó Cadhain". Many commentators pointed out that this choral novel, told in a series of monologues, makes good use of Frank McGuinness' experience in the theatre, including his ability to render individualised voices. His background as a poet may also have been relevant to Arimathea ' s investment in suggestion as
2754-603: Is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family . It is a member of the Goidelic language group of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous to the island of Ireland . It was the majority of the population's first language until the 19th century, when English gradually became dominant, particularly in the last decades of the century, in what is sometimes characterised as
2856-452: Is also An Caighdeán Oifigiúil , a standardised written form devised by a parliamentary commission in the 1950s. The traditional Irish alphabet , a variant of the Latin alphabet with 18 letters , has been succeeded by the standard Latin alphabet (albeit with 7–8 letters used primarily in loanwords ). Irish has constitutional status as the national and first official language of
2958-573: Is an Irish writer. As well as his own plays, which include The Factory Girls , Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme , Someone Who'll Watch Over Me and Dolly West's Kitchen , he is recognised for a "strong record of adapting literary classics, having translated the plays of Racine , Sophocles , Ibsen , Garcia Lorca , and Strindberg to critical acclaim". He has also published six collections of poetry, and two novels. McGuinness
3060-581: Is concerned with Alzheimer's disease , and the devastating effect it has on its sufferers and the people around them. McGuinness explained that: "I hope the audience laughs. And that they're shocked. I try to give them something more than they expect." One reviewer declared that the play "holds us, moves us, alarms us." McGuinness is as well known for his play adaptations as for his original plays. He has adapted classics by Sophocles , Jean Racine , Henrik Ibsen , Molière , Valle-Inclan, Federico García Lorca , as well as short works by Strindberg and Pirandello,
3162-511: Is divided into four separate phases with the intention of improving 9 main areas of action including: The general goal for this strategy was to increase the number of daily speakers from 83,000 to 250,000 by the end of its run. By 2022, the number of such speakers had fallen to 71,968. Before the partition of Ireland in 1921, Irish was recognised as a school subject and as "Celtic" in some third level institutions. Between 1921 and 1972, Northern Ireland had devolved government. During those years
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3264-587: Is only in Gaeltacht areas that Irish continues to be spoken as a community vernacular to some extent. According to data compiled by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht , Sport and Media , only 1/4 of households in Gaeltacht areas are fluent in Irish. The author of a detailed analysis of the survey, Donncha Ó hÉallaithe of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology , described
3366-517: Is rooted in the town of the same name; 'The Stone Jug' (2003) is a sequence of sixty sonnets; 'Dulse' (2008), takes its name from a Latin word meaning 'sweet', which is also the name of an edible seaweed used in Ireland. Broadly, McGuinness poetic style is characterised by the use of clear solid unrhymed lines designed to echo in the mind of the listener or reader. The poems often seek to organise emotion, and sometimes represent probing psychological sketches. They are concerned with relationships, events, and
3468-412: Is still spoken daily to some extent as a first language . These regions are known individually and collectively as the Gaeltacht (plural Gaeltachtaí ). While the fluent Irish speakers of these areas, whose numbers have been estimated at 20–30,000, are a minority of the total number of fluent Irish speakers, they represent a higher concentration of Irish speakers than other parts of the country and it
3570-487: Is the main influence in the plays of McGuinness, something corroborated by the writer himself, who has also explained that "... there is of course another influence, that of Shakespeare...". It was this influence that triggered the composition of Carthaginians and "Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching towards the Somme". In the author's own words: "I decided, right, let's grab the unicorn by the horn, and see what happens". McGuinness has declared that he had "wanted to construct
3672-499: Is the shifting of a defining dancing scene from the end of the first Act to the end of the story, which "reveals the defining principle of the film: it turns memory into ritual". McGuinness was also the author of the original script for "Talk of Angels", the cinema adaptation of Kate O'Brien 's banned novel Mary Lavelle , although the script was considerably modified in the final production. Discussing his childhood, McGuinness has explained that, while there were no books around when he
3774-432: Is told through "the pompous voice" of the protagonist, "who veers between grandiosity and despair". Structured as a fluid but self-conscious monologue, the piece has various levels of association, including a subversion ─or an update─ of the plot of Shakespeare's play Othello , an investigation on the performance of identity, and a dissection of the 'logic' of inequality, and employing "[t]he shards of childhood", to "pierce
3876-666: The Fíor-Ghaeltacht (true Gaeltacht ), a term originally officially applied to areas where over 50% of the population spoke Irish. There are Gaeltacht regions in the following counties: Gweedore ( Gaoth Dobhair ), County Donegal, is the largest Gaeltacht parish in Ireland. Irish language summer colleges in the Gaeltacht are attended by tens of thousands of teenagers annually. Students live with Gaeltacht families, attend classes, participate in sports, go to céilithe and are obliged to speak Irish. All aspects of Irish culture and tradition are encouraged. The Act
3978-659: The Dublin Theatre Festival . It is in regular use by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Brendan Behan 's play An Giall (The Hostage) premiered at the Damer in 1958. An Geocach Duine Uasail , Máire Ní Shíthe 's translation of Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme , was also performed in Damer Hall in 1958 following its premiere at the Gate Theatre . Seán Ó Riada 's opera Spailpín
4080-631: The Republic of Ireland , and is also an official language of Northern Ireland and among the official languages of the European Union . The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island. Irish has no regulatory body but An Caighdeán Oifigiúil , the standard written form, is guided by a parliamentary service and new vocabulary by a voluntary committee with university input. In An Caighdeán Oifigiúil ("The Official [Written] Standard ")
4182-701: The University of Ulster , Medieval Studies at University College, Dublin and English at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth . Then he was a writer-in-residence lecturing at University College Dublin before being appointed Professor of Creative Writing in the School of English, Drama and Film there. Frank McGuinness has explained, "My earliest writing was … song lyrics. I would have loved to have been … Paul McCartney … Joni Mitchell". Desiring to write something "substantial", however, he "tossed
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4284-634: The 17th century, largely as a result of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland , which saw many Irish sent to the West Indies . Irish emigration to the United States was well established by the 18th century, and was reinforced in the 1840s by thousands fleeing from the Famine . This flight also affected Britain. Up until that time most emigrants spoke Irish as their first language, though English
4386-789: The 1998 Good Friday Agreement , the language gradually received a degree of formal recognition in Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, and then, in 2003, by the British government's ratification in respect of the language of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . In the 2006 St Andrews Agreement the British government promised to enact legislation to promote the language and in 2022 it approved legislation to recognise Irish as an official language alongside English. The bill received royal assent on 6 December 2022. The Irish language has often been used as
4488-403: The 6th century, used the Latin alphabet and is attested primarily in marginalia to Latin manuscripts. During this time, the Irish language absorbed some Latin words, some via Old Welsh , including ecclesiastical terms : examples are easpag (bishop) from episcopus , and Domhnach (Sunday, from dominica ). By the 10th century, Old Irish had evolved into Middle Irish , which
4590-571: The Act all detailing different aspects of the use of Irish in official documentation and communication. Included in these sections are subjects such as Irish language use in official courts, official publications, and placenames. The Act was recently amended in December 2019 in order to strengthen the already preexisting legislation. All changes made took into account data collected from online surveys and written submissions. The Official Languages Scheme
4692-532: The Damer Endowment, a trust bequeathed by wealthy landowner and banker Joseph Damer (1630-1720), great-uncle to Joseph Damer, 1st Earl of Dorchester . His bequests also helped to establish the Damer Institute for destitute widows of St Mary's parish at 27 Parnell Street in 1724. The school had 3 classrooms and up to 150 pupils. The current building dates from 1863. In a 1905 report, the school
4794-542: The Damer had joined with the Abbey Theatre to form An Club Drámaíochta (Drama Club) to produce and promote plays in Irish. Gael Linn withdrew from the project in 1976 but in 1978 it was re-formed as a professional theatre company. The theatre's closure in 1981 was described as the end of the Golden Age of Irish-language theatre. The space continued to be used sporadically for short productions and events such as
4896-471: The European Union , only co-decision regulations were available until 2022, due to a five-year derogation, requested by the Irish Government when negotiating the language's new official status. The Irish government had committed itself to train the necessary number of translators and interpreters and to bear the related costs. This derogation ultimately came to an end on 1 January 2022, making Irish
4998-549: The Irish language policy followed by Irish governments as a "complete and absolute disaster". The Irish Times , referring to his analysis published in the Irish language newspaper Foinse , quoted him as follows: "It is an absolute indictment of successive Irish Governments that at the foundation of the Irish State there were 250,000 fluent Irish speakers living in Irish-speaking or semi Irish-speaking areas, but
5100-401: The Irish writer. Major recurring features of McGuinness's playwriting include the treatment of historical events and the prominent inclusion of gay or bisexual characters. A writer's task, McGuiness declared in 2015, is "to do something that no one has done before, to discover". In the same interview, he added that: "The enquiring mind, the radical mind, will always be ill at ease about what
5202-556: The Joyce family, the book also includes a portrait of the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, a friend of the Joyces. McGuinness has published a number of short stories. The short story "Paprika", from 2014, appeared in a collection of new stories by Irish writers. "Paprika" is a tale of murder, centered on a disgruntled, mentally unstable operatic white tenor, who is currently playing the role of Othello in an opera, wearing blackface. The story
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#17327976769525304-620: The Republic of Ireland ), new appointees to the Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland , including postal workers , tax collectors , agricultural inspectors, Garda Síochána (police), etc., were required to have some proficiency in Irish. By law, a Garda who was addressed in Irish had to respond in Irish as well. In 1974, in part through the actions of protest organisations like the Language Freedom Movement ,
5406-727: The Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme , which was staged in Dublin's Abbey Theatre and internationally. The play made a name for him when it was performed at Hampstead Theatre, drawing comments about McGuinness's Irish Catholic background. It won numerous awards including the London Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright for McGuinness and the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize . He has also written new versions of classic dramas, including works by Henrik Ibsen , Anton Chekhov , and Euripides , adapting
5508-578: The aftermath of the 2005 Islamist terrorist bombings in London. McGuinness was also the scriptwriter for the ground-breaking television film "A Short Stay in Switzerland" (BBC 2009), dealing with euthanasia. In addition, McGuinness has scripted a number of documentaries for television, including The Messiah XXI (RTÉ, 2000), commemorating the premiere of Handel's oratorio Messiah in Dublin in 1791, and Happy Birthday Oscar Wilde (RTÉ, 2004), celebrating
5610-471: The audience a sense that I came from a sophisticated background, [because] I come from a background where language is very dangerous, where language is very layered." McGuinness' second play, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching towards the Somme , was first staged in 1985. The play, about a group of Protestant soldiers in the First World War, was not primarily political in intent, but, according to
5712-641: The beginning of the following academic year. For a number of years there has been vigorous debate in political, academic and other circles about the failure of most students in English-medium schools to achieve competence in Irish, even after fourteen years of teaching as one of the three main subjects. The concomitant decline in the number of traditional native speakers has also been a cause of great concern. In 2007, filmmaker Manchán Magan found few Irish speakers in Dublin , and faced incredulity when trying to get by speaking only Irish in Dublin. He
5814-453: The character better, McGuinness decided to try to write a novel that that man could have written, and the result was Arimathea . In addition to this piece of work, McGuinness also conducted other research for the play, by interviewing people with experience of elderly parents being affected by Alzheimer's disease. While one reviewer claimed that "there is nothing like [this novel] in the history of Irish fiction", another stated that Arimathea
5916-502: The drama afresh" One reviewer underlined the fact that "McGuinness has whittled Sophocles's plays down to a succession of very short, simple lines that can be easily heard when sung across an auditorium", and that "Anderson's music fills the emotional space around these lines", to conclude that "[f]or all the antiquity of its roots, Thebans may point to the future of opera". Another reviewer declared that Frank McGuinness "has supplied what seems an eminently settable, elegant condensation of
6018-424: The drama", and that the opera as a whole offers "[t]he superb assurance of the writing metallically intent but underpinned by a novel harmonic richness". McGuinness has written a number of film scripts. His script for Dancing at Lughnasa (Dir. Pat O'Connor, 2005) was an adaptation of the play of the same title by Brian Friel . This film's "most significant transformation of the play", one critic has pointed out,
6120-718: The education system. Linguistic analyses of Irish speakers are therefore based primarily on the number of daily users in Ireland outside the education system, which in 2022 was 20,261 in the Gaeltacht and 51,707 outside it, totalling 71,968. In response to the 2021 census of Northern Ireland , 43,557 individuals stated they spoke Irish on a daily basis, 26,286 spoke it on a weekly basis, 47,153 spoke it less often than weekly, and 9,758 said they could speak Irish, but never spoke it. From 2006 to 2008, over 22,000 Irish Americans reported speaking Irish as their first language at home, with several times that number claiming "some knowledge" of
6222-503: The end of the evening short-changes it remarkably. Although it's the final part of the trilogy, it never feels like the end; in fact, it almost feels as if it were by a different writer." While some critics did not approve of the switch, they still described the opera as "distinctly impressive". McGuinness' priority in producing the libretto was to make the original text accessible to a contemporary audience. "I'm trying to make this accessible", McGuinness declared, "and to write as beautiful
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#17327976769526324-474: The end of the famine, and under 17,000 by 1911. Irish is recognised by the Constitution of Ireland as the national and first official language of Republic of Ireland (English being the other official language). Despite this, almost all government business and legislative debate is conducted in English. In 1938, the founder of Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League), Douglas Hyde , was inaugurated as
6426-560: The first President of Ireland . The record of his delivering his inaugural Declaration of Office in Roscommon Irish is one of only a few recordings of that dialect. In the 2016 census, 10.5% of respondents stated that they spoke Irish, either daily or weekly, while over 70,000 people (4.2%) speak it as a habitual daily means of communication. From the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 (see History of
6528-716: The language family, is derived from the Old Irish term. Endonyms of the language in the various modern Irish dialects include: Gaeilge [ˈɡeːlʲɟə] in Galway, Gaeilg / Gaeilic / Gaeilig [ˈɡeːlʲəc] in Mayo and Ulster , Gaelainn / Gaoluinn [ˈɡeːl̪ˠən̠ʲ] in West/Cork, Kerry Munster , as well as Gaedhealaing in mid and East Kerry/Cork and Waterford Munster to reflect local pronunciation. Gaeilge also has
6630-410: The language was in use by all classes, Irish being an urban as well as a rural language. This linguistic dynamism was reflected in the efforts of certain public intellectuals to counter the decline of the language. At the end of the 19th century, they launched the Gaelic revival in an attempt to encourage the learning and use of Irish, although few adult learners mastered the language. The vehicle of
6732-476: The language. For most of recorded Irish history , Irish was the dominant language of the Irish people , who took it with them to other regions , such as Scotland and the Isle of Man , where Middle Irish gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx . It was also, for a period, spoken widely across Canada , with an estimated 200,000–250,000 daily Canadian speakers of Irish in 1890. On the island of Newfoundland ,
6834-554: The literal translations of others. In addition, he wrote the screenplay for the film Dancing at Lughnasa , adapting the stage play by fellow Ulsterman Brian Friel . McGuinness's first poetry anthology, Booterstown , was published in 1994. Several of his poems have been recorded by Marianne Faithfull , including Electra , After the Ceasefire and The Wedding . McGuinness previously lectured in Linguistics and Drama at
6936-526: The mid-18th century, English was becoming a language of the Catholic middle class, the Catholic Church and public intellectuals, especially in the east of the country. Increasingly, as the value of English became apparent, parents sanctioned the prohibition of Irish in schools. Increasing interest in emigrating to the United States and Canada was also a driver, as fluency in English allowed
7038-804: The name of the language is Gaeilge , from the South Connacht form, spelled Gaedhilge prior the spelling reform of 1948, which was originally the genitive of Gaedhealg , the form used in Classical Gaelic . The modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent ⟨dh⟩ in Gaedhilge . Older spellings include Gaoidhealg [ˈɡeːʝəlˠəɡ] in Classical Gaelic and Goídelc [ˈɡoiðʲelɡ] in Old Irish . Goidelic , used to refer to
7140-444: The names of characters from Joyce's play Exiles . At the book launch, Joycean scholar professor Anne Fogarty spoke of her surprise at opening the book to meet the voice of Giorgio Joyce, a figure neglected by Joycean scholars. Fogarty said that McGuinness' novel has "liberated" the Joyce family from historiographers and biographers, and described the book as "wise and witty". At the launch, Frank McGuinness explained that he fell under
7242-484: The narrative in an unusual and thought-provoking [way]." In 2018, McGuinness published his first collection of short fiction, Paprika , consisting of twelve stories. It is published by Brandon, an imprint of The O'Brien Press in Dublin. The stories have been described as "uproarious and outrageous, [tending] to depict insecure, unhinged individuals who find themselves on the wrong side of a comfortable life. A startling collection" Frank McGuinness's first opera libretto
7344-535: The need to disrupt ritual. […] In their tee-total captivity, Edward, Michael and Adam throw a wild party, somehow knowing that it's a wake. After these engagements, nothing will be the same. Comedy thrives on change. I suppose these plays are about change. Are they comedies? When they want to be." The play Dolly West's Kitchen , premiered in 1999, is set during the Second World War in Buncrana . This time
7446-469: The new immigrants to get jobs in areas other than farming. An estimated one quarter to one third of US immigrants during the Great Famine were Irish speakers. Irish was not marginal to Ireland's modernisation in the 19th century, as is often assumed. In the first half of the century there were still around three million people for whom Irish was the primary language, and their numbers alone made them
7548-655: The number now is between 20,000 and 30,000." In the 1920s, when the Irish Free State was founded, Irish was still a vernacular in some western coastal areas. In the 1930s, areas where more than 25% of the population spoke Irish were classified as Gaeltacht . Today, the strongest Gaeltacht areas, numerically and socially, are those of South Connemara , the west of the Dingle Peninsula , and northwest Donegal, where many residents still use Irish as their primary language. These areas are often referred to as
7650-449: The originals. Frank McGuinness began his writing career as a poet. As a university student, he has explained, "I sent some poems to the 'Irish Press' and the wonderful [general editor] David Marcus wrote back to me saying [']I'm going to publish them['], and 'You are a writer'. He didn't know what he was unleashing but that was the beginning really. A terrific thing to say when you're 20 or 21. And I went from there". 'Booterstown' (1994),
7752-503: The other official language, if not already passed in both official languages. In November 2016, RTÉ reported that over 2.3 million people worldwide were learning Irish through the Duolingo app. Irish president Michael D. Higgins officially honoured several volunteer translators for developing the Irish edition, and said the push for Irish language rights remains an "unfinished project". There are rural areas of Ireland where Irish
7854-637: The painting, a sheep watches the sacrifice about to take place and looks appalled at human cruelty, its innocence shattered. McGuinness was inspired by "this innocent sheep" who, at the end of the story, will be sacrificed instead of the child. "Only Caravaggio would remember the sheep" in the story, McGuinness says. His next play, Carthaginians , premiered in 1989, was concerned with the Bloody Sunday events in Northern Ireland . In 1972, in Derry, British soldiers shot unarmed civilians who were taking part in
7956-449: The play soon erodes away their differences and brings to the fore the shared humanity that they rely on in order to cope with the horrors and uncertainties of their incarceration. In his introduction to Frank McGuinness: Plays 2 (a collection of plays which included Mary and Lizzie , Someone Who'll Watch Over Me , Dolly West's Kitchen and The Bird Sanctuary ) McGuinness explains, "At their hearts' core these plays centre around rituals and
8058-492: The playwright, was originally inspired by "a great story". Observe the Sons of Ulster has been described as "a theater of ghosts", a play where "a community is figured as spectral". The play which followed, Innocence , dealt with the painter Caravaggio . It took its name from one of his paintings, The Sacrifice of Isaak , about the Biblical story of the father whose faith is tested by God's request that he kill his son. In
8160-565: The point of view of various characters, is inspired by a historic Italian artist who was commissioned to paint the Stations of the Cross in the catholic church of Buncrana in the 1900s. McGuinness wrote the book as research for his play The Hanging Gardens, but never thought it would be published as a novel. The story of the play deals with a novelist who contracts Alzheimer's disease, and progressively loses control of his mind; in order to understand
8262-557: The political party holding power in the Stormont Parliament , the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), was hostile to the language. The context of this hostility was the use of the language by nationalists. In broadcasting, there was an exclusion on the reporting of minority cultural issues, and Irish was excluded from radio and television for almost the first fifty years of the previous devolved government. After
8364-492: The relationship between the three Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx). Gaelic is a collective term for the Goidelic languages, and when the context is clear it may be used without qualification to refer to each language individually. When the context is specific but unclear, the term may be qualified, as Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic or Manx Gaelic. Historically the name "Erse" ( / ɜːr s / URS )
8466-432: The requirement for entrance to the public service was changed to proficiency in just one official language. Nevertheless, Irish remains a required subject of study in all schools in the Republic of Ireland that receive public money (see Education in the Republic of Ireland ). Teachers in primary schools must also pass a compulsory examination called Scrúdú Cáilíochta sa Ghaeilge . As of 2005, Garda Síochána recruits need
8568-647: The revival was the Gaelic League ( Conradh na Gaeilge ), and particular emphasis was placed on the folk tradition, which in Irish is particularly rich. Efforts were also made to develop journalism and a modern literature. Although it has been noted that the Catholic Church played a role in the decline of the Irish language before the Gaelic Revival, the Protestant Church of Ireland also made only minor efforts to encourage use of Irish in
8670-421: The significance of the everyday. The poems are snapshots, often inspired by personal experience, but sometimes created to supplement or assist in delineating fictional characters for his plays. One critic has claimed that McGuinness's poetic work is characterised by its "reliance on dramatic monologue and on intense lyricism". The Memorial Garden at University College Dublin, designed in a circular shape, features
8772-507: The spell of Joyce as a young man, when he heard Joni Mitchel read out the opening one and a half pages from the novel 'Portrait of the Artist'. McGuinness also said that he was aware, in taking on the project of a novel about the Joyces, that he was "putting my head into a zoo-worth of lions' mouths", but that this would not stop him. The Woodcutter and His Family is notable also because it deliberately changes historical facts. While focusing on
8874-530: The theme of the play—for example in Rebecca "I've invented a scene in which Mrs Danvers confronts Max and says, 'You loved her, but she didn't love you'", or in Barbaric Comedies , a play about a world of amoral grotesquerie, he added a sexual assault scene. Some of these liberties have been controversial. By and large, McGuinness' adaptations have been hailed as reworkings that "breath[e] life" into
8976-726: The vacancy to which they are appointed. This requirement is laid down by the University College Galway Act, 1929 (Section 3). In 2016, the university faced controversy when it announced the planned appointment of a president who did not speak Irish. Misneach staged protests against this decision. The following year the university announced that Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh , a fluent Irish speaker, would be its 13th president. He assumed office in January 2018; in June 2024, he announced he would be stepping down as president at
9078-594: The work of such writers as Geoffrey Keating , is said to date from the 17th century, and was the medium of popular literature from that time on. From the 18th century on, the language lost ground in the east of the country. The reasons behind this shift were complex but came down to a number of factors: The change was characterised by diglossia (two languages being used by the same community in different social and economic situations) and transitional bilingualism (monoglot Irish-speaking grandparents with bilingual children and monoglot English-speaking grandchildren). By
9180-547: Was Thebans , produced in 2014 at the English National Opera in London. The opera is a version of the trilogy of plays by Sophocles. He was invited to write the libretto by composer Julian Anderson . Adapting this substantial body of work onto a single story 100 minutes long was a considerable challenge. Recalling his initial conversations with the composer, McGuinness explained: "The first thing I said was: I know it will have to be much, much shorter. We looked at
9282-549: Was Professor of Creative Writing at University College Dublin (UCD) from 2007 to 2018. McGuinness was born in Buncrana , a town located on the Inishowen Peninsula of County Donegal , Ireland. He was educated locally and at University College Dublin , where he studied Pure English and medieval studies to postgraduate level. He first came to prominence with his play The Factory Girls , but established his reputation with his play about World War I, Observe
9384-531: Was also sometimes used in Scots and then in English to refer to Irish; as well as Scottish Gaelic. Written Irish is first attested in Ogham inscriptions from the 4th century AD, a stage of the language known as Primitive Irish . These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain. Primitive Irish underwent a change into Old Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from
9486-620: Was assessed by Sir Charles Alexander Cameron , Professor of Hygiene at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland , and rated positively. The school closed in June 1954. In 1955, the space was leased to Gael Linn who founded the Irish-language Damer Theatre , staging amateur productions. The theatre was described as small, cold and poorly lit but praised for its unique atmosphere. In 1969, Breandán Ó hEithir reported for Raidió Teilifís Éireann 's Féach that
9588-668: Was enacted 1 July 2019 and is an 18-page document that adheres to the guidelines of the Official Languages Act 2003 . The purpose of the Scheme is to provide services through the mediums of Irish and/or English. According to the Department of the Taoiseach, it is meant to "develop a sustainable economy and a successful society, to pursue Ireland's interests abroad, to implement the Government's Programme and to build
9690-533: Was establishing itself as the primary language. Irish speakers had first arrived in Australia in the late 18th century as convicts and soldiers, and many Irish-speaking settlers followed, particularly in the 1860s. New Zealand also received some of this influx. Argentina was the only non-English-speaking country to receive large numbers of Irish emigrants, and there were few Irish speakers among them. Frank McGuinness Professor Frank McGuinness (born 1953)
9792-427: Was euphemistically referred to in the Republic of Ireland as " The Emergency ". McGuinness has explained that the arrival of US troops into the town of Buncrana was not only an invasion in terms of the military presence, but also an "invasion of sexuality", as the soldiers made quite an impression in the town. But the main theme in the play "… was to do with a gigantic sorrow in my life, which is that my mother died". This
9894-415: Was growing up, in addition to newspapers, they had "television, which is the great subverter, a wonderful wonderful (sic) source of entertainment at the time". His television films include Scout (BBC 1987), directed by Danny Boyle, about the talent scout for the football team Manchester United in Northern Ireland, and A Song for Jenny (BBC 2015), adapted from Julie Nicholson's book of the same title, about
9996-474: Was passed 14 July 2003 with the main purpose of improving the number and quality of public services delivered in Irish by the government and other public bodies. Compliance with the Act is monitored by the An Coimisinéir Teanga (Irish Language Commissioner) which was established in 2004 and any complaints or concerns pertaining to the Act are brought to them. There are 35 sections included in
10098-670: Was performed at the Damer for the 1968 Dublin Theatre Festival . In 1982, Anne Le Marquand Hartigan 's play Beds premiered at the theatre. The Frank McGuinness two-hander play Ladybag , starring Maureen Toal , was performed in the Damer for the 1985 Dublin Theatre Festival. In 1986, Olwen Fouéré starred in Sebastian Barry 's debut play, The Pentagonal Dream . Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish : Gaeilge ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( / ˈ ɡ eɪ l ɪ k / GAY -lik ),
10200-693: Was spoken throughout Ireland, Isle of Man and parts of Scotland . It is the language of a large corpus of literature, including the Ulster Cycle . From the 12th century, Middle Irish began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland, into Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and into the Manx language in the Isle of Man . Early Modern Irish , dating from the 13th century, was the basis of the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland. Modern Irish, sometimes called Late Modern Irish, as attested in
10302-575: Was the heart of the story, because, McGuinness explained, when the mother dies, "the children have to grow up". The play Gates of Gold , premiered in 2002, was commissioned by The Gate Theatre in Dublin to celebrate its anniversary. The theatre was founded by Micheál Mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards , who were lifelong partners in life and work, and the play is about them. McGuinness, who is himself gay and whose plays often contain gay relationships or explore more traditional family drama from an outsider's perspective, has explained that he "wanted to write
10404-442: Was unable to accomplish some everyday tasks, as portrayed in his documentary No Béarla . There is, however, a growing body of Irish speakers in urban areas, particularly in Dublin. Many have been educated in schools in which Irish is the language of instruction. Such schools are known as Gaelscoileanna at primary level. These Irish-medium schools report some better outcomes for students than English-medium schools. In 2009,
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