English has been spoken in Ireland since the arrival of the first Anglo-Normans in 1169, though its use declined steadily towards the sixteenth century. During the reign of James I, settlers from Scotland and England arrived in Northern Ireland (Ulster) and from the mid-seventeenth century Cromwell sent English settlers to all parts of Ireland. For a century and a half English remained the language of the landowning protestant Ascendancy class. Gaelic speakers began to learn English from the end of the seventeenth century onwards, especially in urban areas. The Catholic Church supported it and from the establishment of a national school system in 1831 education was almost exclusively in English. In addition, poverty and famines forced hundreds of thousands of Irish to emigrate to the USA, England or Scotland, so English was seen as an advantage. By 1901 the proportion of Gaelic speakers had reduced to less than 18% (Census 2006: 12).
Today in both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic English is the language most widely used but it has a low prestige. Gaelic/Irish is the national language of the Irish Republic and has considerable status but its everyday use lags far behind English. However, it is used in all schools either as medium or subject of education and the census of 2006 states that nearly 41% of the Irish do speak and understand it (12). Irish English, on the other hand, is not seen as prestigious, it plays no role in identity formation and is only rarely used as literary language. In fact, Kidberg (1995: 174) comments on the efforts of Synge to establish his Anglo-Irish as a national literary language:
This demand [of Synge’s] for an official recognition of Hiberno-English went unanswered. Nationalist leaders could celebrate standard Irish as a counterveiling discourse to standard English, but they could not embrace the new hybrid language, which Synge was magnifying.
Irish English refers to all varieties of English used in Ireland (MacArthur 1989c: 305). It may be seen as a generic term with Anglo-Irish and Hiberno-English
92 The following overview of the development of English in Ireland is based on discussions by Bliss
(1972: 35-6), Price (1961: 35-38), Kallen (1997: 1-34) and Görlach (2000: 620). Additional materials and quotes will be provided in the text. The discussion will focus on the geographic region which was to become the Republic of Ireland.
139 as sub-categories. Anglo-Irish refers both to the political relationship between England and Ireland and, specifically, to the group of English protestant landowners who settled in Ireland in the seventeenth century and the English variety spoken by their descendants (Todd 1989: 32, MacArthur 1998a: 40). Hiberno-English is the English spoken by those Irish whose ancestral mother tongue was Gaelic (Todd 1989: 36, MacArthur 1998b: 273). However, Henry allocates each to the opposite definition and adds that Anglo-Irish is the nineteenth-century rural variety while Hiberno- English a more urban variety (1977: 20). The English used by Synge is often referred to as Anglo-Irish by himself and other authors of the Irish Dramatic Movement as well as literary scholars. Synge’s Anglo-Irish was the English spoken by Gaelic native speakers at the beginning of the twentieth century in the most western rural areas of Ireland, such as the Aran Island, Kerry and Wicklow. For the purpose of this thesis I have used the term Irish English for the linguistic discussion and will refer to the literary language, used amongst others by Synge, as Anglo-Irish.
The English spoken by the Irish is heavily influenced by Gaelic in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and syntax, and it is the word order in particular that is based on Gaelic. In addition, Irish English contains many of the seventeenth century archaisms that were preserved by the landowners of English descent. Irish English is not one homogenous variety. Kallen (1997: 21) identifies three main dialect regions – Munster, Connaught and Ulster – which show considerable differences from each other but also internally. Nevertheless, some common characteristics, especially for the Irish English spoken in the Irish Republic, can be identified.
Most familiar in terms of pronunciation is probably the general non-use of [ϴ] and [ð] and their replacement by [t] and [d]. The /r/, instead of being alveolar [ɹ] is pronounced retroflex [ɻ]. The long [i:] as in words like meat, tea or decent is pronounced as long [e:]. Often the diphthongs [əʊ] and [eɪ] in words such as goat or
face are pronounced as monophthongs [oː] and [ɜː] respectively. Not strictly a
phonetic feature, the use of mainly and/an, but also well or sure to introduce a question (An do you like it?) is a direct transfer from the Gaelic where questions in the present tense usually begin with the unstressed element an.
As regards grammar and syntax, many features concern the use of the verb.
After + verb stem+ing indicates a recently performed action (I’m after doing it just now. = I’ve done it just now.). a+verb stem+ing expresses the passive (You were
140 indicates two simultaneous actions (I went in and me trembling. = I went in trembling.). Often it + to be is used to foreground words or phrases and also emphatic pronouns: It’s a lovely girl she is. It was himself I wanted. Yes and no which do not exist in Gaelic may be replaced in an answer using the verb in the question: Is it yours? – It is not.
Direct transfers of Gaelic vocabulary into Irish English are words like banshee
(a whaling female spirit, from bean sídhe = woman fairy) but also complete idioms or sayings like An open mouth often catches a closed fist.
Many of these features can be found in Synge’s work, e.g.:
Pegeen: It’s above at the cross-roads he is, meeting Philly O’Cullen and a couple more are going along with him to Kate Cassidy’s wake.
Shawn: And he’s going that length in the dark night?
Pegeen: He is surely, and leaving me lonesome […]. Isn’t it long the nights are now […]? […]
Shawn: Aren’t we after making a good bargain, the way we’re only waiting these days on Father Reilly’s dispensation from the bishops of the Court of Rome. (Synge 1968b: 57-9)