University College Dublin Press
Foreign Tongues
Victorian Language Learning and the Shaping of Modern Ireland
9781739086312
Distributed for University College Dublin Press
Foreign Tongues
Victorian Language Learning and the Shaping of Modern Ireland
The first historical overview of the study of languages in Ireland from an expert in the area.
How history shifts languages and languages in turn shape history is a deep-rooted, dynamic process manifest in Victorian Ireland. In Foreign Tongues, Phyllis Gaffney sheds new light on this period of Irish history, exploring how continental influences that predated the Penal Laws were reinvigorated in the wake of the French Revolution. An influx of foreign teachers and religious orders created institutions for an emerging élite, and University education expanded. At the same time, civil service reforms opened careers across the British Empire to graduates from all religions. The result is that Ireland’s Victorian colleges embraced language study—ancient and modern, Irish and European—more eagerly than their British counterparts.
An adaptive, fast-changing academic landscape laid the groundwork for today’s Ireland—culturally confident, open to Europe and the world—while the dramatic rise of the Gaelic League forged a bond between language, education, and politics with pervasive effects on Irish identities in the twentieth century. None of that was plain sailing. Gaffney’s profiles of individual professors reveal pioneering scholarship, precarious careers, sudden scandals, and denunciations and dismissals linked to local conflicts and foreign wars. On the positive side, the advance of women’s education cleared the path for a cohort of notable female professors across modern languages.
This wide-ranging, detailed study draws on multiple sources to cast a fresh light on aspects of Irish history, viewed through the complex lens of language education.
How history shifts languages and languages in turn shape history is a deep-rooted, dynamic process manifest in Victorian Ireland. In Foreign Tongues, Phyllis Gaffney sheds new light on this period of Irish history, exploring how continental influences that predated the Penal Laws were reinvigorated in the wake of the French Revolution. An influx of foreign teachers and religious orders created institutions for an emerging élite, and University education expanded. At the same time, civil service reforms opened careers across the British Empire to graduates from all religions. The result is that Ireland’s Victorian colleges embraced language study—ancient and modern, Irish and European—more eagerly than their British counterparts.
An adaptive, fast-changing academic landscape laid the groundwork for today’s Ireland—culturally confident, open to Europe and the world—while the dramatic rise of the Gaelic League forged a bond between language, education, and politics with pervasive effects on Irish identities in the twentieth century. None of that was plain sailing. Gaffney’s profiles of individual professors reveal pioneering scholarship, precarious careers, sudden scandals, and denunciations and dismissals linked to local conflicts and foreign wars. On the positive side, the advance of women’s education cleared the path for a cohort of notable female professors across modern languages.
This wide-ranging, detailed study draws on multiple sources to cast a fresh light on aspects of Irish history, viewed through the complex lens of language education.
380 pages | 10 halftones | 7.09 x 9.69
Education: Education--General Studies
Language and Linguistics: Language History and Language Universals, Language Studies
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Illustrations
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PART ONE: CONTEXT
1 IRISH UNIVERSITIES: WHY ALL THE LANGUAGES?
Language Study, the Victorians and Ireland
Catholic University of Ireland, University College Dublin
Why Study Modern Languages?
Polarities: Pen / Tongue, Monastery / Marketplace
Language Study in England and Scotland: a Slow Tilt to the Modern
Languages in Ireland’s Universities: a Different Perspective
2 LANGUAGE, CREED, IDENTITY
Ireland’s Shifting Languages: Irish, English, Latin
Continental Irish Colleges: a Loquacious Diaspora
French in Early Nineteenth-Century Seminaries
Catholic Missionary Colleges: euntes ergo docete omnes gentes
Linguistically Agile Clergy
Translation: Church Triumphant, Nation Resurgent
PART TWO: LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS
3 VARIETIES AND MILESTONES OF LANGUAGE EDUCATION
Diverse Models of Schooling
Languages in Post-primary Schools: French Connections
The French College and University College, Blackrock
Recognition, Regulation and Repercussions
Modern Languages Versus Classics in Irish and English Schools
Matriculation, Gender, Class and Language Study
Women Outside the Walls: ERASMUS-cum-TEFL ante diem
4 ANCIENT CELTIC: RESPECTABLE ROOTS
Irish in Victorian Universities: a Catalogue of Challenges
Celtic Philology
Rationales for the Study of Irish: Sectarian Contests
Antiquarian Rationales: some pre-Famine Irish Grammars
5 THE MODERN IRISH BATTLEGROUND
The Gaelic League and Identity Politics
The Gaelic League and other Modern Languages
The Gaelic League and the Language Classroom
PART THREE: WITHIN THE GROVES OF ACADEME
6 PROFILES AND PATTERNS: MODERN LANGUAGE PROFESSORS
Early Appointments at the CUI (UCD)
Peter Le Page Renouf
L’abbé Félix Schürr
L’abbé Georges Polin
Édouard Cadic
What Patterns Emerge from These and Other Such Profiles?
Language professors: foreign nationals, refugees, educators, amateurs
A foreign gentleman is unseated: Angeli v. Galbraith (1856)
Religious allegiances: the vilification of de Véricour
Research, philology, empire
Course content, approaches to teaching and assessment
Teaching and assessing the spoken language
Language study for non-language degrees
7 HOME-GROWN LANGUAGE PROFESSORS
Irish-born Modern Linguists
Irish Professors in the Gaelic Revival
The greening of the clergy: the turbulence of Father O’Hickey
Polemical pioneers: nativists and progressivists
Pioneering Women Professors of Modern Languages
A pattern requiring explanation
Teaching, research and scholarship of women academics
Four individual profiles
Emily Anderson (German): cryptology and musicology
Maria Degani (Italian and Spanish): the importance of being Irish
Mary Kate Ryan (French) and Agnes O’Farrelly (Modern Irish): activism
Gifted women language graduates
Women’s place: the grammar of cultural change
Political Allegiances in a Changing University Landscape
PART FOUR: BEYOND THE VICTORIANS
8 SHIFTING LANGUAGE PERSPECTIVES
Regulatory Frameworks (1922–1970s)
Institutional regulation: NUI’s language requirements
Irish revival: rise, fall, survival
Modern languages since independence
North and South: Divergent Policies, Divergent Cultures
Irish language study in Northern Ireland
Modern languages in Northern Ireland: a brief comment
Shifting Contexts of Language Learning Since the 1970s
Shifting regulations, shifting sociolinguistics: the Irish language
Decommissioning the classics, pendulum swings in modern languages
New European alliances
A New Scale of Anglicisation: English as Lingua Franca
CODA
Timeline
List of Works Consulted
Index
List of Illustrations
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PART ONE: CONTEXT
1 IRISH UNIVERSITIES: WHY ALL THE LANGUAGES?
Language Study, the Victorians and Ireland
Catholic University of Ireland, University College Dublin
Why Study Modern Languages?
Polarities: Pen / Tongue, Monastery / Marketplace
Language Study in England and Scotland: a Slow Tilt to the Modern
Languages in Ireland’s Universities: a Different Perspective
2 LANGUAGE, CREED, IDENTITY
Ireland’s Shifting Languages: Irish, English, Latin
Continental Irish Colleges: a Loquacious Diaspora
French in Early Nineteenth-Century Seminaries
Catholic Missionary Colleges: euntes ergo docete omnes gentes
Linguistically Agile Clergy
Translation: Church Triumphant, Nation Resurgent
PART TWO: LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS
3 VARIETIES AND MILESTONES OF LANGUAGE EDUCATION
Diverse Models of Schooling
Languages in Post-primary Schools: French Connections
The French College and University College, Blackrock
Recognition, Regulation and Repercussions
Modern Languages Versus Classics in Irish and English Schools
Matriculation, Gender, Class and Language Study
Women Outside the Walls: ERASMUS-cum-TEFL ante diem
4 ANCIENT CELTIC: RESPECTABLE ROOTS
Irish in Victorian Universities: a Catalogue of Challenges
Celtic Philology
Rationales for the Study of Irish: Sectarian Contests
Antiquarian Rationales: some pre-Famine Irish Grammars
5 THE MODERN IRISH BATTLEGROUND
The Gaelic League and Identity Politics
The Gaelic League and other Modern Languages
The Gaelic League and the Language Classroom
PART THREE: WITHIN THE GROVES OF ACADEME
6 PROFILES AND PATTERNS: MODERN LANGUAGE PROFESSORS
Early Appointments at the CUI (UCD)
Peter Le Page Renouf
L’abbé Félix Schürr
L’abbé Georges Polin
Édouard Cadic
What Patterns Emerge from These and Other Such Profiles?
Language professors: foreign nationals, refugees, educators, amateurs
A foreign gentleman is unseated: Angeli v. Galbraith (1856)
Religious allegiances: the vilification of de Véricour
Research, philology, empire
Course content, approaches to teaching and assessment
Teaching and assessing the spoken language
Language study for non-language degrees
7 HOME-GROWN LANGUAGE PROFESSORS
Irish-born Modern Linguists
Irish Professors in the Gaelic Revival
The greening of the clergy: the turbulence of Father O’Hickey
Polemical pioneers: nativists and progressivists
Pioneering Women Professors of Modern Languages
A pattern requiring explanation
Teaching, research and scholarship of women academics
Four individual profiles
Emily Anderson (German): cryptology and musicology
Maria Degani (Italian and Spanish): the importance of being Irish
Mary Kate Ryan (French) and Agnes O’Farrelly (Modern Irish): activism
Gifted women language graduates
Women’s place: the grammar of cultural change
Political Allegiances in a Changing University Landscape
PART FOUR: BEYOND THE VICTORIANS
8 SHIFTING LANGUAGE PERSPECTIVES
Regulatory Frameworks (1922–1970s)
Institutional regulation: NUI’s language requirements
Irish revival: rise, fall, survival
Modern languages since independence
North and South: Divergent Policies, Divergent Cultures
Irish language study in Northern Ireland
Modern languages in Northern Ireland: a brief comment
Shifting Contexts of Language Learning Since the 1970s
Shifting regulations, shifting sociolinguistics: the Irish language
Decommissioning the classics, pendulum swings in modern languages
New European alliances
A New Scale of Anglicisation: English as Lingua Franca
CODA
Timeline
List of Works Consulted
Index