United Ireland: Irish language and culture are back, but what does the island's future look like?

WE HEAR ALL the time that we’re in the middle of this big cultural revival. People are interested in the language and our indigenous arts and culture in a way that they haven’t been for a very long time.

Certainly, in my lifetime growing up in Dublin from an Irish-speaking background, it was the height of ‘uncool’ to speak Irish until very recently. There’s now been a major shift, and a welcome one.

That much we know, but what does that mean? A language, of course, does not exist simply because TikTokers are posting about ‘Six ways to say sex as Gaeilge’. For me, it’s glaringly obvious: by reclaiming your language, you are also reclaiming a sense of self, of autonomy and of your culture.

A change in our attitude to the Irish language can become a change, by osmosis, to how we feel about Ireland itself. There’s no use in relearning your language if you don’t care what happens to Ireland. 

But what use is a language revival if the people speaking it can’t afford to live here? Modern Ireland is a country facing deep contradictions – we have a pervasive housing crisis that erodes our ability to breathe, let alone to thrive. Families ‘live’ in emergency accommodation, our streets are peppered with derelict buildings owned by speculators, and many urban areas are being hoovered up by international vulture funds. Our carers are undervalued, and child poverty rates remain far too high, both north and south of the border. The challenges are real, the impact cruel.

How can Ireland unite?

I come from the first generation that is going to be worse off than their parents, and the listeners to our How To Gael podcast are the generation of young people stuck in their parents’ box rooms.

You might ask yourself what the concept of a United Ireland would offer them, and the answer would be everything. They, and I, are hungry for a new type of Ireland.

We are all familiar with the podcast genre of ‘white middle-class millennial women solving cold murder mystery cases’. Well, at How To Gael, we have opted for a similar approach with our new series on the potential for unification of this island. Our aim with this podcast series is to start a conversation with our listeners and our peers.

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The BBC produced its own series on the question of Irish unity in October, and the conclusion they drew from speaking to people on both sides of the divide was that we in the Republic need to seriously engage with the idea of a United Ireland if a border poll is ever to come to pass.

How often is it that countries get to reimagine their states? How exciting is the prospect of getting to ‘rebuild’ our house, as Mary McAleese has often put it? Of course, this is not without its challenges. The road ahead to potential unity is thus far unpaved and unclear, and I, like most people, have no interest in living in a place where people don’t feel welcome or comfortable.

As global politics shift and Western democracy looks to be under threat, it’s more important than ever that we are all actively engaged with what happens in our society.

We have a great reputation in Ireland for staying on the right side of history, but we also have gaping holes in our understanding of our own political and societal nuances. In 2023, a survey found that half of people south of the border had not travelled northwards in the previous five years, and two-thirds said they had no friends in Northern Ireland. There is a lot of outdated thinking that needs to be challenged. These conversations can feel very intimidating, of course, and that’s one of the great challenges we face.

There is lots to discuss, and while I firmly believe there is a great opportunity here for success, there is also an opportunity for failure, and that’s why it’s imperative we start having serious conversations North and South of the border about what we want for Ireland’s future.

That’s the great thing about democracy. Everybody’s voice matters. Debate and discussion give way to new avenues to learn from each other. That’s why we’ve embarked on this new mini-series, How To Unite Ireland? because we want to learn and we want to have more conversations on how best to improve this great island we all call home.

We sat down with Taoiseach Micheál Martin and spoke about his Shared Island initiative, with Economist Stephen Kinsella to figure out what this might cost us and what economic frameworks need to be in place. Journalist Sam McBride, historian Andrew Clarke AKA Tanistry are also with us over the coming weeks, as well as president of the GAA Jarlath Burns and PhD Candidate Róisín Nic Liam.

While I can’t guarantee you a solution to the question, I can say it’s an important and worthwhile listen for all of us.

Doireann Ní Ghlacáin is one of the hosts of the How To Gael podcast, along with Louise Cantillon and Síomha Ní Ruairca.

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