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Friday, January 05, 2007

# Posted 5:44 AM by Patrick Belton  

MANCHÁN MAGAN goes travelling in Ireland. Speaking gaeilge.
[O]n the staunchly loyalist Shankill Road in Belfast I was treated with civility, though warned that if I persisted in speaking the language I was liable to end up in hospital. In Galway, I went out busking on the streets, singing the filthiest, most debauched lyrics I could think of to see if anyone would understand. No one did - old women smiled, tapping their feet merrily, as I serenaded them with filth. In Killarney, I stood outside a bank promising passers-by huge sums of money if they helped me rob it, but again no one understood.
liosta cuidiúi anseo, faoi labhairt Gaeilge i lar na cathrach i mBaile Átha Cliath.
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Comments:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1983434,00.html
 
Here is a list of places for Gaelic speakers around the town of Dublin ;)
 
"We, in turn, soon realised that our only hope of advancement was through English, and we - or at least the half of the population that survived the Famine - jettisoned Irish in a matter of decades."
I guess this gets at the post above about how hard it is to measure deaths but half of Ireland didn't die in the famine. More like 12.5% (with another eighth emigrating).
 
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