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British Imperialism and the Gaelic Revival
Molly Ivors accuses Gabriel of neglecting his Irish identity during their dance at the Morkans’ party. She is offended by his apparent disinterest in Irish culture and tries to persuade him to go on a retreat to the Aran Isles over the summer so that he can connect with his Gaelic roots. When Gabriel expresses his disinterest, Molly calls him a West Briton. West Briton is a term that emerged in the 19th century for an Irish citizen who sympathizes with Britain and is complicit in British imperialism.
The history of English imperialism in Ireland is long and complex and many of the issues that continue to affect Irish politics and culture to this day began as early as the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries when the Tudors ruled England. For example, the dominance of the English language in Ireland is another fraught legacy that dates back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The year 1600 marked a turning point for the English in Ireland. In response to the Nine Years’ War, Elizabeth outlawed Ireland’s Brehon laws and forced the Irish to adopt English Common Law. This moment represented a change for those in the Irish aristocracy and middle class who dealt with contracts, land grants, and title deeds. After 1600, all of these documents would be in English. This meant that the Irish elite needed to master English, and Trinity College, which Elizabeth established in Dublin in 1592, would serve this purpose. Over time, as English became dominant among the elite classes, the need to learn the language became increasingly important for individuals from less privileged backgrounds. In order to secure good jobs or interact with government institutions, a command of English became mandatory, thereby sealing the fate of Irish Gaelic.
As Irish nationalism increasingly took hold in the 19th and 20th centuries, a cultural resistance movement known as the Gaelic Revival emerged. The Gaelic Revival focused on reclaiming the Irish language in the face of English linguistic imperialism. By the 19th century, Irish (then known as Gaelic) had declined as a result of the dominance of English. Concern about this fact gathered energy in the middle of the century, and in the last quarter of the century numerous societies and associations came into being, most notably the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language in 1877, the Gaelic Union in 1880, and the Gaelic League in 1893. All of these organizations shared the same goal: restore the status of Irish in Ireland. As a movement that worked against the anglicization of Ireland, the Gaelic Revival was undoubtedly political. Indeed, the growing preference for “Irish” over “Gaelic” as the name for the national language signaled a rejection of English cultural imperialism. Just as English is for the English, Irish should be for the Irish. With respect to these cultural movements, Joyce was characteristically ambivalent. For instance, Joyce suggests his ambivalence toward the Gaelic Revival in “The Dead” when Gabriel and Molly Ivors argue about Irish revivalism. Whereas Molly insists on the importance of keeping in touch with Irish, Gabriel resists: “Irish is not my language.” Simply by acknowledging that English, not Irish, is his true native language, Gabriel draws attention to the difficulty of undoing centuries of linguistic imperialism.
