Conas a bhrionglóid tú as Gaeilge?

How do you dream in Irish?

Recently, a friend of mine has taken it upon himself to learn the language of Ireland. His efforts have moved beyond personal reclamation of the dialect and onto the next phase of his journey which is to create a community of Irish speakers, otherwise known as a Gaeltacht. Unlike conventional Gaeltachts, Stephen Sutton’s new endeavour is an online Gaeltacht called Teamhair Gaeltacht or Tara Gaeltacht. Stephen has unearthed a well spring of Gaeilgeoirí and wider circle of Gaelic speakers of varying skill levels and they are conversing healthily away the last few weeks. The more advanced speakers are helping the weaker ones and the buzz on the page is electric.

“I decided to set up a Facebook group to gauge the level of interest. In the first two days 600 people joined.  I was absolutely blown away by the level of interest. It has plateaued slightly since but that is to be expected. I’m expecting another uptick when we start to organise events. We now have a few Gaeilgeoirí on board too, which is very exciting and pushes our chances of success from possible to likely. There is a lovely non-judgemental attitude within the group and people are just having the craic with their mistakes. The way it should be. The Irish were always able to laugh at ourselves and it’s great to see people throwing caution to the wind.”

read more about it in Stephen’s article below or go straight into the conversation as Gaeilge over on the Teamhair Gaeltacht Facebook group here:

An Gáe Bolg

The reason I bring this up, not merely shamelessly plugging a friends initiative, is that I had a conversation on Thursday gone in work that completely fascinated me to the point where I can’t stop thinking about it. A new colleague of mine called Michael, middle aged, was part of a conversation between a large group of us about the native tongue. Some of my African colleagues, new to the parish, were asking us questions about the language. They were explaining stories of back home where there were an obscene amount of languages spoken in their countries. They explained how this was one of the main aspects of their identity and a badge of honour. To be able to speak your hometown or tribal dialect is important to them because without that they are lost. We agreed. We explained our situation to them and how the government went soft on Irish in the schools. On hearing this, one of the African ladies came out with probably the most refreshing statement I have heard from a foreigner in years. She said that we should be more like Germany and force the language on the people, native and foreign. She speaks fluent German, having border hopped through the place for a short period of time. Africans have a frightening ability to learn new languages that I don’t think the Irish could hold pace with. Her point was valid and I asked her how she would feel about me demanding that she spoke Irish. Her answer was that we should do it no matter who complains and apologise to no one. At this point it was already a very refreshing and sincere moment of cultural exchange. I was being blunt and candid about current issues in Ireland and they were enjoying that I wasn’t tippy toeing around them. The conversation was already stimulating but it took a turn into what I can only describe as dream land. Overhearing my conversation with the Africans, Michael spoke up, adding his two cents. Michael told us that he sent his son to the Gaeltacht and on one occasion, while his son was back at home, he told Michael that he had an incredible dream the night before. Michael’s son had dreamt that he and his friends were all talking away in a large group about innocuous things but get this; the entire dialog between Michael’s son and the group happened entirely as Gaeilge!

Michael’s son’s experience has brought home to me how the battle for the revival of the Irish language is not merely one of Irish literacy. It is a battle that needs to be fought deep inside the subconscious. How was it that Michael’s son was able to construct or manifest a large group of possible eight or nine people in his mind, applying the Irish language to their speech, in their accents and likely spoken in their tone and pitch? Much of my readership overlaps with that of other content creators who delve into topics outside of the conventional mainstream. Perhaps they could provide better insight on the mechanisms in the brain or the interconnectedness of the global or national subconscious, but I think I can nail down a point or two here. From that conversation I had with Michael I have come up with other ideas of my own as I mulled it over, theories of the nature of the world if you will.

I have long seen Irelands battle against the globalists as a kind of tug of war. On one side national identity has its boots planted in the ground, holding firm while the globalists invest in a more aggressive strategy. Although we have the strength to hold we cannot risk readjusting or shifting to a hard pulling formation. We simply hold or “hang” as the tug of war terminology would be. The science of tug of war boils down to a concept known as static friction, which refers to the force that prevents relative motion between two contacting surfaces when they are at rest. This force has many parallels to the psychological tug of war between the tribes of the world and the central Combine. Increasing the usage of such dialects massively increases the static friction on our end of the rope, increasing our chances of success. Conscious, subconscious, collective consciousness and the spiritual world are all terrains in which we are fighting, looking for ways to increase our static friction, or equivalent force in those arenas. The local dialects of the world have proven to be strong barriers to globalism as they innately encourage tribalism and by extension, nationalism. ár dteanga dúchas Could be used to keep these globalists out of our business if we were to develop a political force that spoke it well.

In the context of the Irish language, a successful campaign to revive it should measured by how far into the psyche we can penetrate with not just the language, but the essence of how the language is or was. It has to become not just second nature, but our nature entirely. As a non-physical entity, or egregore, the Irish language can traverse beyond the limitations of the physical world and reestablish itself at the heart of the National mindset, out of the reach of the colonial physical world. From there the revival has its stronghold, and where it can launch its attack. As the Irish revival kicks into gear, reading some novels or story’s in Irish before going to bed could premise the dreamworld for such an experience like that of Michael’s son. Practicing wakeful thought in Irish during the day could also set the tone for dreamland to adopt the native tongue. Scientists who study the different states of consciousness have formed a consensus that dreaming is directly linked to learning and new memory formation.

51% of dreams contained at least one feature bearing strong, direct similarity to a recent waking experience. Interestingly, however, it was rare for a dream experience to exactly replicateany particular waking event, occurring in only about 2% of all reports. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(10)01360-6#%20

As you can see, dreams vary between accuracy when reproducing the days events. Also, dreams can be metaphorical, lucid and or broken. They can be all over the place, disorganised and weird. It would take a concerted effort to induce such a dream. More than likely you would have to engage in and practice lucid dreaming to obtain the desired results. Use of autosuggestion or mantras as Gaeilge before bed after a period of reading ár dteanga dúchas will likely lead to a lucid event. My goal right now is to keep tipping away with little bits before bed and attempt this. As soon as I am confident I can produce Irish and type it from my mind I will be joining Teamhair Gaeltacht for sure, and after that, hopefully, I will converse in the otherworld, perhaps we will talk to each other there if dreams are as connected as they say. A good place to start is this story called, Aislinge Oengusso.

Oíche Maith agus codladh sámh. Labhróidh mé leat san áit sin.