This book tells the dramatic and often surprising story of the learning of the Irish language by Irish Republican prisoners held in the infamous H-block cells during the bloody political conflict in Northern Ireland. Using research methods and techniques, the author closely analyses the emergence of the Irish language amongst republican prisoners and ex prisoners in Northern Ireland from the 1970s up until the present. This pioneering study shows how the language was used exclusively in parts of the prison, despite the efforts of the prison authorities to suppress the language, and the dramatic impact this had on Irish society. Drawing on interviews with the prisoners, and various other materials, Mac Giolla Chriost shows how these developments gave rise to the popular coinage of the term ‘Jailtacht’, a deformation of ‘Gaeltacht’ – the official Irish-speaking districts of the Republic of Ireland, to describe this unique linguistic phenomenon.
قائمة المحتويات
1 Introduction Context Methods Structure Ethics Subjectivity 2 Chronology 1972-1976, Internment 1976-1981, Protest 1981-1998, Strategic Engagement 3 Style Texts up to 1976 Texts, 1976-1981 Texts, 1981-1994 Texts, 1994-2008 4 Performance Stages Characters Silences 5 Visual Grammar Resources, 1981-1986 Resources, 1987-1992 Resources, 1993-2008 6 Ideology Fianna Fail Gaelic and Sinn Fein Irish An invented tradition Medievalism ‘my own native tongue’ Jailtacht, Gaoltacht and Ceathru na Gaeltachta 7 Conclusions Language and the Symbolic Terrain in Terrorism