The Importance of Language Preservation

Being born and bred in Northern Ireland is a funny dichotomy depending on which Northern Irish person you ask – are you Irish or British? Are you Catholic or Protestant? Do you speak English or Gaeilge? For the most part, Gaeilge speakers are far and few between due to the Anglicisation that controls education, politics and even publishing.

The publishing world, mostly in the UK, is highly centralised to London and the surrounding South East areas – the Big 5 are based and operate out of London, for instance. This was very apparent at London Book Fair; of the multitude of stalls there, most were predominantly English-speaking and UK-based companies. This was why, upon noticing the Publishing Ireland stall, I felt a great sense of pride and even surprise that they were squeezed in among publishing giants like Penguin, Hachette and Simon and Shuster. Before delving into the importance of Publishing Ireland’s presence at the Book Fair, a bit of background is necessary.

Publishing Ireland were founded in 1970 and were originally called CLE – The Irish Book Publishers Association. They came about as a way to give Irish publishers the chance to share their knowledge and expertise and collaborate to solve problems of common concern. Their vision is to ‘promote an Ireland where Irish publishing thrives and creates books that showcase the diverse cultural experiences of Irish people all over the world.’ (Publishing Ireland) They publish books in both English and Irish Gaeilge and includes independent companies such as Banshee Press, Comhar Leabhair and Guildhall Press. Some smaller independent companies such as Cló Iar-Chonnacht publish exclusively Irish-language books and Irish traditional music – this is a great and important contribution to the book market as a way of preserving a language that the Irish government attempts to do away with. I was really happy to see Publishing Ireland handing out resources in both Gaeilge and English and even speaking in a mixture of the two languages when speaking to interested fair-goers.

Irish Gaeilge is the native language of Ireland, mostly spoken nowadays in the South due to English influence in the North. It is one of the oldest written and spoken languages in the world, dating back to around the fifth century. It is a Celtic language closely related to Scottish Gallic and both languages even have a slight overlap in words, one example being ‘agus’ meaning ‘and’. When the partition of Ireland happened in in 1921, the North became its own separate country but would be governed by the United Kingdom and the fight for independence is still ongoing. Northern Irish people want to speak, read and write in Irish just as much as in the Republic and this is being supported by various Irish language acts and maintaining Irish in the education systems.

Open speaking to a few exhibitors at London Book Fair such as Sinead Mac Aodha of Literature Ireland, I came away feeling very encouraged at the public’s desire to read books in a native language that has been the topic of debate in the homeland for quite some time. It was great to see a plethora of books including children’s literature written by Irish authors and even made me think that this might possibly be a direction I would like to take on in my publishing career, so I am glad that I showed up and demonstrated my interest.

Image Source: Shelf-Awareness, March 2021

https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=4193#m55635