Richard Waghorne has recently laid out his stall on the future of the Irish, claiming that the language is best remembered and preserved but only amongst academic experts and not the wider population.

In his argument he says that the language is like the Irish famine and in doing so he is either showing ignorance to the actual events or simply getting his comparisons confused. The Irish famine was a blight on crops; it was forced upon the Irish people against their wishes and they had little defence against it, it is widely known that the British government, the rulers of Ireland at that time did little to help the people of Ireland in their struggle and some would even say they encouraged it. To me that sounds more like the English language than the Irish one; an incident forced upon the people against their will when they had no real chance of fighting back from it. Lucky for us the country overcame the famine and has rebuilt itself so that its effects aren’t as widely felt anymore, the same cannot be said for our recovery from the systematic attempt to destroy an important part of our culture, which has only grown.

Waghorne goes on to say that Irish is useless because our history is in English and that the works of our greater scholars is too; he also encourages the old belief that Irish is a commoners language by saying that Irish culture, it’s music and art has always been in opposition to Western artisitic achievements, calling it primative; the music of Indian peasants. In reality Irish music and art is a part of wider western achievements, not in opposition to it; it may not have as wide an appeal as Mosart or Bach but it is a representation of its people and culture just like all traditional music.

The problem with Waghorne’s argument is that he is using history to prop his point up; just because Joyce didn’t write in Irish doesn’t mean that it is impossible to do so. It is complete ignorance to assume that the Irish language has no place in the modern world or in the art of today when it is just as valid as French, German or English.

The Irish language is a part of our history and has been shaped over centuries to best describe the country that we are from, it was formed with our culture and is an undeniable aspect of it; it is true that at present its practicalities are somewhat limited but you cannot use a failure of Government policy as an excuse to take the easy option. Ireland, once the island of Saints and Scholars is now the island of big business; does that mean we should stop encouraging artists to produce important pieces that are relevant and inspired by the country?

I can’t explain why but I get a feeling that now is the time to save Irish; not that a failure to do so now will destroy it but that at this point in time the struggle will be slightly easier than ever before or ever again. It has to start from Government and work all the way down to the people but the fact is there is an appatite to learn amongst the public but no outlet for them to practice; if the Government provide a situation that encourages the use of Irish then people who know it will use it and people who don’t will be more inclined to learn. Frankly I think that Richard Waghorne is taking the easy way out and being far too dismissive as a result.

Update: Donal gives his two cents on Waghorne’s rant and Pretty Cunning points out the stupidity of the 100% definitive claim that all Irish language literature isn’t worth reading.

(Another) Update: Keith has a superb fisk of Waghorne’s article that simply has to be read by everyone; it’s quite a lot of text I warn you, but each word is as vital as the next and hearing a rebutal from someone with such extensive knowledge of Irish culture (that I am simply in awe of) is well worth your time.

Slugger has been keeping us up to date on Prescott and the Bloggers but a long-running blog saga is heating up over on Craig Murray’s site too.

Murray is a former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan who has since claimed that the British Government were aware of abuses carried out by the US-funded government there as well as its involvement in “extraordinary rendition” flights to the country.

As part of my recent thesis on blogging I used Craig Murray’s site as an example of the benefits of online publishing; he was able to circumvent the UK Officials Secrets Act for what he felt was a just cause and by doing so gained the support of thousands of other bloggers; the fact that countless sites published the ‘Tashkent Telegrams‘ made any court action pointless.

Now that his book on the issue has been published Murray has attempted to substanciate the claims he has made with further documentation on his website; these documents were largely sourced from Freedom of Information requests. What is interesting is the fact that The British Government is still threatening to sue if these documents are published, saying they have ‘Crown Copyright’. This would suggest that information that is freely available to the public on request cannot be published for the public to read; this notion subverts the whole idea of a FoI act and suggests that only the applicants have the right to view the information found.

Blairwatch is keeping close tabs on the whole thing, so head over there if you’re interested.

It does seem that many of the central tenants of Government secrecy are under threat from blogs; most bloggers would never be able to get their hands on this kind of information but when the odd Ambassador or Minister dissents all hell could break loose.

After watching the second episode of RTÉ’s Haughey documentary today you have to wonder, if blogging was around back in 1970 would one of the cabinet ministers of the day broken rank and told us what really happened in the lead-up to the Arms Crisis? Perhaps the same could be said for many incidents in Irish, British and International history.

One of those tiny but funny little typo’s that occour on the interweb from time to time, media related this time around:

Taken from The Guardian’s job pages, an ad for a Display & Retail Advertising Manager at The Irish Examiner in Cork, politely signed off by one Trish Examiner… what a coincidental name don’t you agree?

So anyone looking for a different view and a new job please contact Mrs. Examiner for an application form.

In the classic novel 1984 Orwell warned of newspeak; a muddled and twisted version of the English language manufactured to make dissent impossible. Here in the 21^st century newspeak is a reality but rather than being the tool of oppressive governments it has become a weapon for the public at large. Using this new language a newsagents sales assistant becomes a ‘till manager and consumer consultant’ while a road sweeper becomes a ‘public area environmental maintenance officer’; and so rather than limit people into monotonous and unchallenging though, this manipulation of terminology has allowed its users to elaborate in the name of self promotion, largely in order to convince themselves of the validity of what they do. One fine example of the phenomenon which has managed to become a regular fixture in Ireland is ‘disposable income’, a more reasonable way of saying ‘money to burn’. The use of the term is itself a sign of a more successful Ireland; however its acceptance has highlighted one of the less responsible aspects of our country when it comes to wealth.

There is something worrying about the idea of having so much money that actually disposing of it is an option; so in a country where personal debt has hit 130% of income it can be assumed that much like ‘money to burn’ the term ‘disposable income’ was not intended in the literal sense. Whatever the original meaning was, however, it seems that this phrase has lost all trace of its embellishments and become a reality.

A scam that has recently been doing the rounds in William Street and Cruises Street of Limerick shows this; a member of the public is approached on the street and duped into buying a box full of phone books under the pretext of it being a laptop. While you can just about forgive the naivety of someone who buys computer goods from a complete stranger on the street without even opening the box, it is the bemusing fact that these “victims” were willing to hand over as much as €650 on the spot that demands attention. It must take some level of ‘disposable’ income to allow a person to hand over more than the average weekly wage packet on something they have never seen, given to them by someone they do not know but this is the state of mind that our new found wealth has put us in.

A natural fact of Irish life that the money a child makes from their communion today seems far greater than the amount in previous generations; things like the euro changeover and inflation are just two much-stated factors that go towards explaining this. Of course when these children’s parents are hiring limousines and even stretch hummers for them to travel in while they harvest this cash, the state of the nation begins to look more than a little bit distressing.

Perhaps flamboyant expenses like these are made with the best intentions at heart; most Irish parents remember the harder times and everything that came with them, they may also remember all the advantages and comforts they missed out on as a result of them. They may thus be forgiven for wanting to ensure their children do not endure the same sense of exclusion.

The problem is, however, that giving a child more than they would even ask for only ensures that they begin to consider such an attitude normal; that may lead to them demanding more of it or even worse passing the same disrespect for money onto their offspring.

The way some people seem to be spending their money would make you think we had been guaranteed a millennia of good fortune; spend now and worry about it later. On the other hand it would be prudish to suggest that those making big money should not spend it, but when the term disposable income is no longer a figure of speech the warning signs become unbearably bright. We as a country are suffering from a growing lack of prudence and financial responsibility and the SSIA’s that tried to halt that spread have now become a driving force for it.

Perhaps the prediction of a bursting bubble in the Irish economy is not to be taken as negatively as some would suggest after all. While no one would like to see a return to the 1980’s, no one is predicting it will be that way. Maybe a sudden bolt from the blue will shock people into a better degree of financial planning and open the countries eyes to the fact that Ireland is not a likely contender for consistent financial greatness if its advancements are squandered. ‘The Celtic Tiger’, another product of newspeak, is being smothered; perhaps when it is dead the public will realise the days of a ‘disposable’ lifestyle has died with it.

For decades the IRA has existed as a faux police-force in Northern Ireland, and to some extent in the Republic too. The orgainsation claims that it is the legitimate army/law enforcer of the island or Ireland and has been championed by its supporters for the protection it gave to nationalists in the North.

Following a statement by the NI police ombudsman which said that no evidence existed to suggest that Jean McConville was a British informer the IRA replied with a rejection. In today’s Sunday Life in the North, Helen McKendry, daughter of Mrs. McConville has demanded that the IRA justify its continued stance on the murder.

It’s only fair; if the IRA insists on acting as a lawless police force under the guise of protecting the people then it should be answerable to them too; you cannot claim you are there to help your people and then refuse to justify your actions when they are questioned by them.

In light of the Dáil break and the fact that we are within a year of the next General Election, I revisit the superb Irishelection.com in today’s Sunday Business Post:

With the next general election less than a year away, the main political parties have already begun to stake their claim to seats and votes. However – while candidates will face the traditional scrutiny from newspapers, television and radio – wannabe TDs will have to contend with a new medium: the blog.

Irishelection.com is an Irish political blog created to give coverage to election issues.

Created by UCD student Cian O’Flaherty, the site is becoming an increasingly popular source of comment and analysis as talk of the impending election grows.

(more…)

I’m regularly tweaking, adding and removing parts of the site since its grand update last month; the latest include:

Adding to the right sidebar (again; feel free to email me or leave a comment with your blog, or any link you think would fit in there – even those that don’t are welcome!)
Changing the main RSS feed to feedburner (the old one still exists, this just allows me to see if anyone is subscribing to the site and if so how many)

I’ll also be adding individual category feeds soon as well as an aggregation of my Irishelection.com posts once I get the right PHP code in order so I can add the plug-in.
Daryl at tinpot.net was in touch with me yesterday to ask if could he aggregate the feed from my ‘Irish Media‘ category as part of his sites re-design; something I was more than happy to agree to (and I was even more happy to find out that the individual feeds were there already, just had to be told where to look for them!).

After a year of using WordPress’ built-in comments moderator I’ve finally switched to Spam Karma 2. I didn’t mind getting the odd spam comment a week; they all got put to me for moderation at which point I could delete them but over the last 2 or so weeks I’ve been dealing with 10-20 a day and it’s quite an annoyance. So far SK2 has worked a treat, unclogging my inbox and saving my eyes from bizarre links and so on.

On the back of that successful switch-over I’ll be keeping an eye out for more plug-in’s for the site, God knows where it will all end!

So keep your eyes peeled for more changes and if there’s anything you like/hate let me know in the comments below (which I no longer have to moderate!)

The news is just doing the rounds now; Eamon Dunphy will take up residence in the studios of RTÉ Radio 1 once his current tenure at Newstalk 106 runs out. The show will be weekly, however all other details (such as content, time slot and day) are currently unknown.

The national radio market; specifically in relation to current affairs and speech-based programming is certain to undergo some interesting changes over the coming months. Newstalk 106 are preparing to launch across the country and RTÉ Radio 1 has been assuming battle-positions in response.

Various newspapers have hinted at a possible defection from RTÉ to Newstalk to fill the gap Dunphy will leave and perhaps this is first blood for the PSB in what could be an ugly media war.
With DAB radio moving from trial to reality there is every possibility that the roles of Radio 1 and 2FM will become more defined and focused, with more general programming from both being shipped into additional digital stations that RTÉ are due to establish, in this case Radio 1 would become a factual and current affairs programme, which is interesting as Newstalk begins to move more into the Arts than ever before.

The next year should prove quite interesting for both RTÉ and Newstalk, let’s hope it’s to the benefit of the listeners too.

Following the goings on on Irishgamer.ie earlier I couldn’t help but think of that old cliché ‘All publicity is good publicity’.

In the event of Irishgamer.ie the chestnut proved to be true; the editor of the site dealt with the problem swiftly, recieved kudos all around and for the price of a game (which they probably got for free!) pulled off a PR coup that all the Google Ad’s and billboards in the world couldn’t do; they showed that they take their credibility seriously, are willing to respond to viewers input, criticism and opinions and above all showed a level of maturity in the way they deal with their problems. The site is in its early stages but with this kind of handling and the right content it could become a big force in the Irish game scene.

As I said before, hardcore gamers are a tough crowd and by publically showing their true and pleasant nature on one of the busier games forums in Ireland they managed to turn a potentially lethal event into a completely positive one.

Saying that I don’t believe the previously mentioned cliché is true for one minute; while larger examples of bad publicity leading to positive results are all around us (Pirate Bay’s shutdown, for example) there are rules to the concept of bad being good. Pirate Bay grew in popularity after the news of its temporary shut-down because many people in the world like what they do but may not have known they existed; while some read about the police raid and thought “good”, others read it and though “damn” or “I must check that out”.

If a politician comes out with a hugely controversial policy initiative some people would be disgusted but there’s almost certainly a portion of voters who will get turned on by the initiative.

Irishgamer.ie turned bad to good by responding properly and fixing the problem quickly, something that Sony didn’t do with their Rootkit crisis a while ago.

The rules of good being bad are simple and can only apply when the publicised wrong is righted quickly and properly or the wrong can be considered a right by some.

If it is found that a software company is using spyware to gather information on its users, and on publication of that fact they refuse to apologise or remove the malicious code how can that ever be considered good publicity?

What is interesting is that for the most part any company can refresh its image through quick action; Google is doing it on China. Consumers are very willing to forgive but if you act poorly and don’t deal with an issue don’t expect them to forget.

Slugger points out that Daily Ireland editor, Máirtin Ó Muilleoir’s blog has been quietly blogging away as of the 23rd of June.

The blog is the first such move by an Irish publisher into the world of social media and let us hope will not be the last. The UK’s Guardian newspaper has blazed a trail with its superb Comment Is Free section while the BBC’s Editors Blog and its approach to blogs in general has been equally impressive.

‘From The Balcony’ is hardly an ideal example of what a newspaper publisher or editor can do through blogging but it is a positive start; we can only hope that Ireland’s big media players will make serious and positive moves into blogging in the very near future, as I commented on before.

Máirtin, tá fáilte romhat ar an Blagisféar na hÉireann. (that’s the best my Irish can muster at present, I’m afraid)