The Irish Language - Speaking the Inner World
Gaeilge (Irish) - A Brief History
Gaeilge (Gaelic/Irish) is Ireland's official language and has been the language of the people of Ireland for the past two thousand years. It was Ireland’s first language until the 19th Century, when, due to colonization, English gradually became the dominant language spoken on the island.
There are regions in Ireland called Gaeltachts, where the Irish Government recognises Gaeilge as the dominant vernacular or language spoken in people's homes. The Gaeltacht districts were first recognised officially in the 1920s by the Irish Free State when the government of Ireland was trying to restore the Irish language and culture.
Historically, Gaeilge belongs to the Celtic branch of the Indo-European family of languages, alongside Scottish Gaelic, Breton and Welsh. The Irish language has four stages of continuous historical development as far as the written form is concerned:
Old Irish (600-900 AD), Middle Irish (900-1650 AD), Early Modern (or Classical Irish 1200-1650 AD), and Modern Irish. Old Irish is the oldest form of the language for which records survive.
Ogham is the early medieval alphabet written on stone. It dates back to at least the 4th Century AD. When Christianity was brought to Ireland in the fifth century, Ogham was gradually replaced with Latin script. At that time, the art of writing and the Latin alphabet resulted in the development of a considerable body of literature that still survives today. What is beautiful is that Irish has the oldest vernacular literature in Europe, after Greek and Latin.
“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”
Irish Word Series and Depth Psychology
I wanted to share some Irish Words with you in my new “Irish Word” series. I want to connect the Irish words to Depth Psychology, aligning with my Deepening the Senses overarching work.
Language is a medium through which we convey meaning to our experiences and inner lives. It is how we can translate that inner world of the unconscious, the soul self. We also do this through dreams, symbols, art, and music.
The native language of any country is a vessel for translating the soul of that country and its people. If a country lost its native language, it would lose an entirely unique way of thinking and feeling about the world.
Indigenous languages, like Gaeilge, give us foundations, roots, and sources of ancient wisdom that reach back thousands of years. The language of a country connects us back to the past, to the history of a country and its entire way of being. The essence. In this series, I introduce a word in Gaeilge (Irish) and explore that word through a Depth Psychology lens. This is to support us in deepening our curiosity to explore our inner world, our psyche, and our place in the world through this Ancient language.
When we embrace our native language, we also embrace a sense of our own ground, having confidence in our sense of place, speech, imagination, psyche, and soul. One’s native language is the country's unique song, the song of the soul.
When a native language is missing from us, I believe a piece of us is missing. The inner realm, the emotional and psychic life. I believe this evokes a sense of yearning. This is not a uniquely Irish experience, but perhaps due to our history, where land and language were taken in colonization, and the country, north and south was so fractured, it is something that resonates close to the heart of the Irish people and generations of Irish across the world.
Thomas Davis, a 19th-century nationalist thinker, spoke about this as “A people without a language of its own is only half a nation.” Padraig Pearse, a Nationalist Revolutionary of the 1916 Rising, also spoke about this when he famously wrote “Tir gan tanga‘s tir gan anam,” meaning “A country without a language is a country without a soul.” So, to return to one's language is to return to a core aspect of the self.
Speaking the Inner World
I remember over ten years ago, I had a psychotherapy client whose first language was Gaeilge. I didn't know it then as we were speaking in English.
As the sessions progressed, it became clear that she, too, was from a Gaeltacht area similar to where I was born. She was surprised that I was a native Irish speaker.
One day, I asked her if she would prefer to speak in Irish rather than English when she struggled to articulate her experience. She said she would prefer it, so we began conducting the sessions in Irish. What was interesting was how very different the experience was for both of us. I noticed how, when one speaks their inner world from their native tongue, there is a particular fluidity. Some things that can be expressed in Irish are untranslatable in another language. We can go close to the meaning, close to the translation, but the translation often falls short. It simply does not capture the heart of the thing.
I remember asking her one day, “What does it feel like now that we are speaking Gaeilge?” What she said has stayed with me ever since. She began to cry, “It’s like I am finally wearing shoes that fit me better.”
Depth Psychology and Soul
Depth psychology explores the inner realms, the psyche, as a way to understand ourselves and the meaning of human existence. In Depth Psychology, we understand that the psyche is conscious and unconscious. It holds the view that the self we think we know is only a tiny portion of the self that exists. The Ego (the conscious aspect of us) is like an island on a vast ocean of unconsciousness. Carl Jung believed that disconnection from the deeper “Self” is the root cause of psychological distress. Dreams, stories, myths, symbols, culture, and history offer ways to connect to what Depth Psychology writer James Hillman described as the “seat of meaningful experience.” We all yearn to be and feel connected to something bigger than ourselves. Language informs many aspects of our personality and culture that are often outside our conscious awareness. One could say that language is part of a society's ecology. When we think about the ecology of a country, we think about the study of relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Language is an integral part of that.
Exploring these Irish words in this series supports our curiosity about what stirs us when we hear them, what awakens our curiosity, and what words speak to us more than others: the sound, the music of the word, the cadence, the resonance of it.
That is the Invitation: to awaken curiosity and wonder and to glimpse the depth of meaning and beauty in this ancient and beautiful language.
The Language of Exile
As I write this, I am reminded of Eavan Boland’s poem The Emigrant Irish, particularly the poem's last line.
It reminds me of my own ancestors arriving on distant shores with Gaeilge, their native language and the old songs in their mouths, trying to make their way in the world.
This beautiful language wasn't always something Irish emigrants were proud of. It reminded them of loss, the stumble over words and the pain in trying to be understood on new shores. It evoked shame and a sense of inferiority, a legacy of a colonized psyche where children in schools were often physically punished when they were caught speaking Gaeilge. Yet, these old songs were with them, the language of their heart and soul.
“All the old songs. And nothing to lose”.
This Irish Word series celebrates Gaeilge, the Irish language. It honours the depth of meaning the words hold, the depth that calls to our soul selves. It is also a celebration of our ancestors and their journey for meaning, survival, and truth.
The Emigrant Irish by Eavan Boland
Like oil lamps, we put them out the back —
of our houses, of our minds. We had lights
better than, newer than and then
a time came, this time and now
we need them. Their dread, makeshift example:
they would have thrived on our necessities.
What they survived we could not even live.
By their lights now it is time to
imagine how they stood there, what they stood with,
that their possessions may become our power:
Cardboard. Iron. Their hardships parceled in them.
Patience. Fortitude. Long-suffering
in the bruise-colored dusk of the New World.
And all the old songs. And nothing to lose.
Recent Focail Gaeilge | Irish Words
REFERENCES: Boland, Eavan. "The Emigrant Irish," from Outside History: Selected Poems 1980-1990. Norton and Company publishers.
Johnston, Elva (2013) Literacy and Identity in Early Medieval Ireland. The boydell Pres. Woodbridge.
De Freine, Sean (1978) The Great Silence: The study of a Relationship between language and Nationality. Irish books and media. 