Experimenting with language.
Irish occupies an important but fraught place in the history of the island, inextricable from notions of nationhood and authenticity. As a result of colonial oppression, most Irish people no longer speak their native tongue. Indeed, since the founding of the state successive attempts to re-educate the populace have largely floundered.
As such, the language holds the potential to be viewed in purely symbolic rather than linguistic terms. Divorced, for many, from its utility as a communicative device it my be seen as representing a form of Irishness unattained by many. Such a reading speaks to post-colonial and continuing hang-ups around Irish identity and the countries place in the world. As the title of Fintan O’Toole’s excellent personal history of the state suggests, “We Don’t Know Ourselves”.