Manchán Magan: 'Irish is not a dead language'

Gone are the days when Irish was considered a “dead language”, says Manchán Magan.

He says it’s now experiencing a revival, against all odds, after it was taken away from us during the Famine, politicised during The Troubles, and underfunded during decades of economic hardship leading into the 1980s.

The renowned documentary maker and writer, who lives in Collinstown, thinks the revival is thanks to the advent of TG4 in 1996.

“Kids then started to watch the likes of Scooby-Doo and SpongeBob SquarePants in Irish and that generation are coming of age now,” he told the Westmeath Examiner.

“You can see since then there has been a markedly different attitude to the Irish language.

“Young people in particular seem to have a greater appreciation for it, which is driving this revival.”

There have been other driving forces behind the revival in recent years too, says Manchán, such as Duolingo – a popular mobile phone app for learning languages.

“During Covid, things like Duolingo profited a huge amount as the Irish language was one of its bigger growers during that time,” he says.

“From a rational perspective, it doesn’t make sense, as why would anyone want to learn a dead language?

“But Covid wasn’t rational; during Covid people wanted meaning from life and when they realised there was an ancient language of their ancestors, they decided they wanted to learn it.”

What could be more important than that, asks Manchán?

“A lot of us have been here for two or three thousand years and this is the language all our myths, stories and dreams have been in,” he says.

“It’s the language our grandparents spoke, it’s the language of our people, our culture and the environment around us – we can’t turn our back on the past.”

Belfast-based hip-hop group Kneecap were hailed by Manchán as invaluable promoters of the Irish language in modern times. “I think they are amazing,” he says.

“The politics of Northern Ireland was such a sensitive issue for people of my generation and they’re the kids who have grown up in the middle of it.

“For them, this is something to play with, to mess with, and to use as a creative tool in their art and music.

“The Irish language, for them, is a mode of expression for them to communicate with their friends in Belfast and there is clearly nothing sectarian about it – they say they have more in common with loyalist kids than kids in Mullingar or Dublin.”

Kneecap are “what’s needed” in Ireland, he says.

“The Irish language will only survive if young people decide to use it and do creative things with it and use it in modern ways.

“It’s much better than government assistance. If we just teach it in school, it won’t survive and it can’t survive – it has to be a language that people want to use for their own expression.”

Manchán says he disagrees with controversial comments made by broadcaster Ivan Yates in recent weeks, who claimed promoting the Irish language is a waste of resources.

“The money we spend on the Irish language is a pittance to other things we spend money on,” he says.

“[Ivan] has been a popular controversialist and is playing into the symbol of being a grumpy old man by coming out against the Irish language.

“He is totally entitled to his beliefs, but it is just not logical to make that argument about the Irish language – it costs a meagre amount of money to promote.”

Manchán also disagrees with claims the Irish language has been held back by how it is taught in schools.

“The way it’s taught in schools has improved from being text-based and not a lot speaking to being much more oral now,” he says.

“What is happening, though, is there is still this psychological block in people’s minds they have inherited from their parents and grandparents that ‘Oh I shouldn’t learn Irish as it isn’t going to get me a role in the modern world’.

“That pressure is coming from parents; people weren’t born with a bias against Irish – they saw it as backward and not a language of opportunity.”

Manchán’s most recent book Wolf-Men and Water Hounds, which combines mythology and the Irish language, is on sale in bookstores and online now.