Declan Kiberd had an article* in The Irish Times today concerning the Irish language. He points out that even with the most enthusiastic policies for promoting the language, it still has come nowhere near where we would like it to be in terms of daily usage.

This is something that I have often thought I should write about. Like many others, my standard of Irish is abysmal, even though I studied it for 13 years in school and even did Higher Level in the Leaving (OK, it was over 23 years ago since I last studied Irish.)

Ever since Independence, successive governments have done all they can to try to promote the use of Irish. Compulsion in education, grants, incentives have all been used, yet the prevailing opinion is that Irish is in decline, possibly even terminal decline.

So what can be done to save the language? Surely, if we force schoolchildren to learn it from Day 1 of primary school, they should be fluent by the time they come out the other end at Leaving Certificate? Well no, they're usually not.

Anyone who is involved in marketing will tell you that the most effective way to make something more desirable is to tell people they can't have any. Any parent will testify that if you tell a child they can't have something, chances are they will want it above everything else. So could we take this approach to Irish in order to save the language from terminal decline?

What if the government was to suppress it, abolish the Gaeltacht and paint over the Irish on roadsigns? If they were to stop all the grants for companies setting up in the back end of Conamara, providing jobs that Poles or Latvians will end up doing anyway? Stop teaching it in school? Send The Boys around to the studios of TG4 and Raidio na Gaeltachta, armed with sledgehammers and crowbars, to smash them up? (Whoever writes that instruction should make sure to have a typo on it, with "TV3" on it instead of "TG4", only to realise the 'mistake' too late. Bonus.)

Introduce 21st century versions of the Penal Laws, except this time it's Irish speakers to be persecuted, not just Catholics. They would have to be substantially updated, as being debarred from owning a horse is not a hardship these days (but we could reserve that sanction for Hector Ó hEochagáin.) Instead, introduce a law that anyone with a sine fada in their name will be prevented from owning a 4x4 or an investment property in Sofia.

Soon Irish will be driven underground. The sincere lovers of the language will take to the streets to protest. Meet that protest with the riot squad. Instruct the Gardai (except they won't be called that anymore) to crack open a few skulls.

When people realise that they are no longer allowed to speak or use their native language, demand for it will grow exponentially. Clandestine meetings will start to take place to resist the suppression of the language. College students, who once passed around drugs and flagons of cider at their parties, will instead distribute illicit texts of stories by Mairtín Ó Caidhin and poetry by Máire Mhac an tSaoi, in small rolled-up pages, which can be easily concealed within bodily orifices should the authorities raid the party.

Movies will be made about the struggle, starring Robin Williams as the inspirational leader of the rebels, who enriches their lives before being shafted and sent away.

Secret societies of Irish speakers would flourish around the country, teaching the language to the young. Before long, everyone would be fluent, and the language would be saved.

It just might work, you know.

*No link because it's subs only.