Jailtacht
The Irish Language, Symbolic Power and Political Violence in Northern Ireland, 1972-2008
Distributed for University of Wales Press
234 pages
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8 color plates, 25 halftones
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6 x 9
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© 2012
Jailtacht closely analyzes the emergence of the Irish language among republican prisoners and ex-prisoners in Northern Ireland from the 1970s to the present. This pioneering study shows how, despite the efforts of prison authorities to suppress the language, in some parts of the prison it became the exclusive language used by prisoners. Drawing on interviews with these prisoners, Diarmait Mac Giolla Chríost shows how these developments gave rise to the popular coinage of the term “Jailtacht,” a deformation of “Gaeltacht”—the official Irish-speaking district of the Republic of Ireland—to describe this unique linguistic phenomenon. He goes on to trace the dramatic impact this politically rooted adoption of the language had on Irish society both at the time and in the subsequent decades.
Stephen May, University of Auckland
“Mac Giolla Chríost’s study of the role of Irish in the republican conflict in Northern Ireland—and, more broadly, the often complex relationship between language and political violence—is nuanced, innovative, and deeply compelling. This is sociolinguistic study at its very best.”
Contents
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. Chronology
3. Style
4. Performance
5. Visual Grammar
6. Ideology
7. Conclusions
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. Chronology
3. Style
4. Performance
5. Visual Grammar
6. Ideology
7. Conclusions
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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History: European History
Language and Linguistics: Language Studies
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