Editing Conradh na Gaeilge (section)

== Foundation: "De-Anglicising Ireland" ==
[[File:Gaelic League advert in Gaelic Journal 1894.jpg|thumb|300px|Advertisement for the Gaelic League in the ''[[Gaelic Journal]]'', June 1894. The English text reads "This Association has been founded solely to keep the Irish Language spoken in Ireland. If you wish the Irish Language to live on the lips of Irishmen, help this effort according to your ability!"]]
''Conradh na Gaeilge'', the Gaelic League, a successor to [[Ulick Bourke]]'s earlier Gaelic Union, was formed in 1893, at a time when [[Irish language|Irish]] as a spoken language appeared to be on the verge of extinction. Analysis of the 1881 Census showed that at least 45% of those born in Ireland in the first decade of the 19th century had been brought up as Irish speakers.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fitzgerald |first1=Garret |title=Estimates for baronies on minimum level of Irish among successive decennial cohorts: 1771-1781 to 1861-1871 |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy |date=1984 |issue=84c |pages=127}}</ref> Figures from the 1891 census suggested that just 3.5% were being raised speaking the language.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hindley |first1=Reg |title=The Death of the Irish Language: A Qualified Obituary |date=1990 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-0415064811 |pages=15, 19}}</ref> Ireland had become an overwhelmingly English-speaking country. Spoken mainly by peasants and farm labourers in the poorer districts of the west of Ireland, Irish was widely seen, in the words of [[Matthew Arnold]], as "the badge of a beaten race."<ref name="Arnold">{{cite book |last1=Arnold |first1=Matthew |title=The Study of Celtic Literature |date=1891 |publisher=Smith, Elder & Co. |location=London |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5159/5159-h/5159-h.htm |access-date=10 March 2021}}</ref>

The first aim of the League was to maintain the language in the ''[[Gaeltacht]]'', the largely western districts in which spoken Irish survived. The late 20th-century ''Gaeilgeoir'' activist [[Aodán Mac Póilin]] notes, however, that "the main ideological impact of the language movement was not in the ''Gaeltacht'', but among English-speaking nationalists". The League developed "both a conservationist and a revivalist role".<ref name="Mac Póilin">{{cite book|last1=Mac Póilin|first1=Aodán|title=Our Tangled Speech: Essays on Language and Culture|date=2018|publisher=Ulster Historical Foundation|isbn=9781909556676|location=Belfast|pages=83, 119, 134–137}}</ref>

The League's first president, [[Douglas Hyde]] (''Dúbhghlás de hÍde''), the son of a [[Church of Ireland]] [[Rector (ecclesiastical)|rector]] from [[County Roscommon]], helped create an ethos in the early days that attracted a number of [[Unionism in Ireland|unionists]] into its ranks. Remarkably, these included the Rev. Richard Kane, Grand Master of the Belfast [[Orange Order|Orange Lodge]] and organiser of the Anti-[[Home rule|Home Rule]] Convention of 1892. But from the beginning there was an unresolved conflict between non-political rhetoric and the nationalism implicit in the League's revivalist project.<ref name="Mac Póilin" />

With the aid of [[Eugene O'Growney]] (author of ''Simple Lessons in Irish'') [[Eoin MacNeill]], [[Thomas O'Neill Russell]] and others, the League was launched in the wake of an address Hyde delivered to the Irish National Literary Society, on 25 November 1892:<ref>{{Cite journal|title = On the Necessity of De-Hydifying Irish Cultural Criticism|last = Stewart|first = Bruce|date = 2000|journal = New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua| volume= 4|issue=1|page = 23}}</ref> ‘"The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland’". Citing [[Giuseppe Mazzini]] (the Italian nationalist who had been the inspiration for the rare language enthusiast among the [[Young Ireland]]ers, [[Thomas Davis (Young Irelander)|Thomas Davis]]), Hyde argued that "in Anglicising ourselves wholesale we have thrown away with a light heart the best claim we have to nationality".<ref>{{cite book|last=Hyde |first=Douglas |year=1894 |chapter=The necessity for de-Anglicising Ireland |editor-first=C.G. |editor-last=Duffy |title=The Revival of Irish Literature |location=London |publisher=T.E.Unwin |page=116}}</ref>

Implicitly, this was a criticism of the national movement as it had developed since [[Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829|Catholic emancipation]]. Although a [[gaeilgeoir]], [[Daniel O'Connell]] had declared himself "sufficiently utilitarian not to regret [the] gradual abandonment" of the language.<ref name="Ó Tuathaigh">{{cite journal |last1=Ó Tuathaigh |first1=Gearóid |year=1975 |title=Gaelic Ireland, Popular Politics and Daniel O'Connell |journal=Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society |volume=34 |pages=21–34 |jstor=25535454}}</ref> For Emancipator's keenest supporters, the "positive and unmistakable" mark of distinction between Irish and English was "the distinction created by religion".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beckett |first=J.C. |title=The Making of Modern Ireland, 1603-1923 |publisher=Faber & Faber |year=1966 |isbn=0571092675 |location=London |pages=332}}</ref> Hyde's project spoke to a new exclusionary sense of what it is to be Irish. The simple practice of referring to Gaelic as "the Irish language", consciously or not, rendered "those who did not speak it as less Irish, and those who did not even acknowledge its status as non-Irish".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Townsend |first=Charles |title=The Partition: Ireland Divided, 1885-1925 |publisher=Penguin |year=2021 |isbn=9780141985732 |pages=47}}</ref>

The League rapidly developed into the leading institution promoting the [[Gaelic Revival]], organising Irish classes and student immersions in the [[Gaeltacht]], and publishing in Irish. The League's first newspaper was ''[[An Claidheamh Soluis]]'' (The Sword of Light) and its most noted editor was [[Pádraig Pearse]]. The motto of the League was ''Sinn Féin, Sinn Féin amháin'' (Ourselves, Ourselves alone).<ref>{{Cite book | last = Murphy | first = Brian P. | title = The Catholic Bulletin and Republican Ireland: with special reference to J. J. O'Kelly ('Sceilg') | publisher = Athol Books | year = 2005 | location = London | pages = 51–53 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=0ESaAAAACAAJ&q=The+Catholic+Bulletin+and+Republican+Ireland| isbn = 0-85034-108-6}}</ref>