An Gaeilge in Cork City - An Historical Perspective to 1894. de Beecher, Sean - 1993

1993. Cork, Goldy Angel Press, 1993. 22 x 14 cm. 83 pages, 18 illustrations. Original Softcover. Excellent, close to new condition. Summary: It has long been the received wisdom that the Irish language was never the vernacular of Cork City: that the city was in turn, Norse, Norman French and English speaking. So accepted was this theory that even Daniel Corkery considered Cork to be an 'alien' city. In An Gaeilge in Cork City, Seán Beecher challenges these assumptions. He demonstrates that Cork was in effect an Irish speaking city from its foundations down to the early decades of the nineteenth century: that the language survived even the ravages of the Great Famine. The author traces the development of the Irish language from the earliest times. He places the language at the heart of the struggle for identity and separateness. He uses native and English sources to show that the language was perceive as the greatest obstacle to colonisation: that there was a continuing English policy to eradicate the Irish language. An Gaeilge in Cork City is the first work to study the position of the Irish language in an urban environment.