This paper is about linguistic justice issues in the post-colonial context of an Irish-speaking region in the south-west of Ireland, drawing on a study of political mobilization around the Irish-medium education policy of the region’s secondary school. I explore how the incipient Irish state was involved in a nationalizing project of developing strategies to constitute the Irish polity into a particular nation bound by an language of ‘archaic belonging’. Ithen examine how this nationalizing project was disrupted by structural shifts in the economic and demographic basis for the Irish-speaking communities on the Irish western seaboard. It is in this historical context that the Irish language emerges as a necessary nodal point around which political identity is formed. Local linguistic struggles are conceived as attempts to impose particular kinds of order on a field of meaning.
BhabhaH (1994) The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
2.
BourdieuP (2007) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
3.
BrubakerR (1996) Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4.
BrubakerR (2004) Ethnicity Without Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
5.
CroninM (2006) Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin. Language from Below: The Irish Language, Ideology and Power in 20th-Century IrelandFrankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
6.
CrowleyE (2006) Land Matters: Power Struggles in Rural Ireland. Dublin: Lilliput Press.
7.
DelapBIrish and the mediaPháidínCNCearnaighSÓA New View of the Irish Language2008Dublin: Cois Life.
8.
EdwardsJ (1985) Language, Society and Identity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
9.
FishmanJA (1997) Reversing Language Shift. Cleveden, OH: Multilingual Matters.
10.
Government of Ireland/Rialtas na hÉireann (1998) Education Act Dublin Stationery Office.
11.
Government of Ireland/Rialtas na hÉireann (2003) Official Languages Act 2003/Acht na dTeangacha Oifigiúla 2003 Dublin: Stationery Office.
12.
Government of Ireland/Rialtas na hÉireann (2006) Ráiteas i leith na Gaeilge 2006/Statement on the Irish language 2006. Dublin: Stationery Office.
13.
GrilloR (1989) Dominant Languages: Language and Hierarchy in Britain and France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
14.
HowarthDNorvalAJStavrakakisY (2000) Discourse Theory and Political Analysis: Identities, Hegemonies and Social Change. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
15.
Irish Examiner (2007) Editorial, 17 October.
16.
JenkinsR (1997) Rethinking Ethnicity: Arguments and Explorations. London: Sage.
17.
JohnsonNCMaking space: Gaeltacht policy and the politics of identityGrahamBIn Search of Ireland: A Cultural Geography1998London: Routledge.
18.
KellyA (2002) Compulsory Irish: Language and Education in Ireland 1870s–1970s. Dublin: Irish Academic Press.
19.
LaclauEMouffeC (2001) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso.
20.
Mac Giolla ChríostD (2005) The Irish Language in Ireland: From Goídel to Globalisation. London: Routledge.
21.
MannR (2008) Negotiating the politics of language: Language learning and civic identity in Wales. EthnicitiesVol. 7(2): 208–224.
22.
MayS (2001) Language and Minority Rights: Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics of Language. Harlow: Longman.
23.
MouffeC (1993) The Return of the Political. London: Verso.
24.
MouffeC (2007) On the Political. London: Routledge.
25.
NettleDRomaineS (2000) Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World’s Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
26.
O’SullivanM (2000) Twenty Years A Growing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
27.
Ó CroidheáinC (2006) Language from Below: The Irish Language, Ideology and Power in 20th-Century Ireland. Oxford: Peter Lang.
28.
Ó DubhshláineM (2005) A Dark Day on the Blaskets. Dingle: Brandon.
29.
Ó GiollagáinCMac DonnachaSThe Gaeltacht todayNic PháidínCÓ CearnaighSA New View of the Irish Language2008Dublin: Cois Life.
30.
Ó GiollagáinCMac DonnachaSNí ChualáinFNí ShéaghdhaAO’BrienM (2007) Comprehensive Linguistic Study of the Use of Irish in the Gaeltacht: Principle findings and recommendations/Staidéar Cuimsitheach Teangeolaíoch ar Úsáid na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht: Príomhthátal agus moltaí. Dublin: Stationery Office.
31.
Ó RiagáinP (1992) Language Maintenance and Language Shift as Strategies of Social Reproduction: Irish in the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht 1926–1986. Dublin: ITE.
32.
Ó RiagáinP (1997) Language Policy and Social Reproduction. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
33.
PennycookA (1994) The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. Harlow: Longman.
34.
PriceG (1984) The Languages of Britain. London: Edward Arnold.
35.
Roinn Gnóthaí Pobail Tuaithe agus Gaeltachta/Department of Community Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (2009) Straitéis 20 Bliain Don Ghaeilge 2010–2030 (Dréacht)/ 20-Year Strategy For The Irish Language 2010–2030 (Draft). Dublin: Stationery Office.
36.
RyanABThe centralized government of liquidity – community, language and culture under the Celtic TigerCoulterCColemanSThe End of Irish History?: Critical Reflections on the Celtic Tiger2003Manchester: Manchester University Press.
37.
SaidE (1993) Culture and Imperialism. London: Chatto and Windus.
38.
The Dingle News Blog (2008) Parents to take legal action against Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne 8 January (accessed 20 September 2009).
39.
WarrenSAgainst Cosmopolitanism? A theoretical exploration of the tensions between Irish-speaking Ireland and post-nationalist multicultural IrelandSabine EggarPolish–Irish Encounters2011Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
