Gaelic revival

For the Gaelic resurgence to overthrow English supremacy in the 14th-16th century, see: Gaelic resurgence.

The Gaelic revival (Irish: an Athbheochan Ghaelach) was the late-nineteenth-century national revival of interest in the Irish language and Irish Gaelic culture (including folklore, sports, music, arts, etc). Irish had diminished as a spoken tongue, remaining the main daily language only in isolated rural areas, with English as the dominant language of the majority of Ireland.

Beginnings

The Young Ireland movement of the 1840s, in common with other European nationalist movements of the time, sought a new kind of national identity in the stories and myths of ancient Gaelic Ireland. This was seen in the poetry published in The Nation newspaper. The works of writers such as Thomas Davis and Thomas Moore used Gaelic themes, in the words of Kevin B. Nowlan, "to glorify the notion that although we may now be in the mire, we were once great, we were taller than Roman spears."

Sport

Prior to industrialisation, sport was disorganised by modern standards with rules for ball games frequently being agreed between opposing teams on a per-game basis. The emergence of organised sport in England in the nineteenth century, where football games were played by written rules establishment by the Football Association and the Rugby Football Union, led to the soccer and rugby codes becoming popular in Britain and spreading to Ireland. The soccer code emphasised a kicking game, rugby emphasised a carrying game. The style of football that had been played in Ireland prior to this was a combination of carrying and kicking, and some people involved in the Gaelic Revival were concerned at the encroachment of the English codes that were displacing the traditional native style of football, with cricket contributing to the decline of hurling. Most prominent of these was Michael Cusack of County Clare who, along with Maurice Davin, John Wyse Power, John McKay, J. K. Bracken, Joseph O'Ryan, Thomas St. George McCarthy and several others formed the Gaelic Athletic Association. The association codified the native style of football in the form of what is now modern Gaelic football, and the rules of hurling were also codified. The Gaelic Athletic Association went on to preserve the native pastimes to the point where they were saved from extinction and to this day remain the most popular sports in Ireland.

See also

• Language revival
• Celtic Revival
• Irish Literary Revival

References

John Hutchinson, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism; The Gaelic Revival and the creation of the Irish Nation State. London, Allen and Unwin, 1987.

External links

• The Revival of the Irish Language