Cultural Homecoming & the Irish Language: The Role of Heritage in Reinforcing Identity & Emotional Well-being

1.1 Interrupted identity: Language and the cornerstones of self

At its core, identity is not a one-dimensional concept. While perceived by many as something categorical, a singular entity embodying our innermost selves, identity must instead be viewed as a complex, multi-layered psychological structure. What’s your name? Where do you live? Where are you from? Where is your family from? What do you do for work/for fun? The most commonly asked questions upon meeting someone reveal the foundations of how someone commonly makes up their sense of self, namely, nationality, ethnicity, place identity, and self-expression. If we consider these four to be identity ‘cornerstones’, each forming as a rough blueprint for each person’s individual identity, we may also consider that the wider canvas of our identity is flexible, something fluid that can change as a person changes throughout their life and through their life choices.

Tom Inglis compares the malleable nature of identity to a person flitting between different identities, ‘like a bee visiting different plants’,¹³ suggesting that identity is neither fixed nor permanent; moreover, it is something we have personal control over. In their words, identity can be best defined as ‘a cultural tool-kit that people use to construct an image and understanding of themselves’.¹⁴ Through this lens, we can picture identity formation as a flexible system of several moving parts, necessary to construct our self-image and the image we present to others, with place, ethnicity, nationality and self-expression underpinning the foundations.

However, what of cultural identity? UNESCO has described cultural identity as a shared sense of identity within a cultural group,¹⁵ which is often defined by different facets of culture and heritage, such as language, traditions, rituals, gastronomy, art, architecture, music, dress, cultural values, religion, etc.¹⁶ Each of these embodies different elements of cultural expression, which we can define as the vehicle through which one’s traditional culture is expressed, wherein communities and individuals can present themselves and who they are. However, it must be emphasised that a person or community may also express themselves through foreign cultures; it is not limited to just one’s own.

The positive effects of cultural heritage on identity have been widely explored.¹⁷ Indeed, heritage is also described as that which cements a community’s identity.¹⁸ In a case study centred on an Inuit language training program, Sylvia Moore illustrates the profound change in the participants after learning their native language, with one describing their experience as finding ‘a piece of the puzzle you didn’t know was missing’.¹⁹ Laura-Jane Smith also recounts how, through claiming ownership of their Indigenous ancestry, Alaska was able to effectively develop ‘a strong sense of identity and self-esteem’ among their local youth.²⁰ These examples of reinforced identity and self-esteem directly reflect the concept I’ve termed ‘cultural homecoming’, capturing the experience of those who, upon reconnecting to their cultural heritage— language, dance, cultural traditions, etc.— experience an increased feeling of happiness, reinforced identity and general well-being. I chose the word ‘homecoming’ as I felt it evokes the feeling of returning home, influenced by connecting more deeply with one’s heritage.

In particular, language has been recognised as a leading factor in determining a unique identity. Stuart Hall and Paul DuGay believe that language has the power to define a ‘unified stable identity’,²¹ whereas Aidan Pine and Mark Turin characterise language as a marker of social and cultural vitality.²² Additionally, Masud Khawaja refers to language as a ‘natural resource’²³ that he claims is fundamental to Indigenous collective identity. These definitions suggest that language is a defining influence towards building a strong and realised cultural identity. Michael Chandler and Christopher Lalonde support this idea, equating culture, with an emphasis on language, with strength of identity, and suggest that a weakened or declining culture destabilises our collective sense of self.²⁴ This theory positions language as a psychological component of identity, indicating that without it our mental health and well-being suffer.

Gaeilge has been described as a mark of Irish cultural distinction, and without it, Ireland would be ‘digested without trace or remainder by England’.²⁵ The subjugation of Gaeilge and its effects on Irish identity have also been widely discussed.²⁶ In the sixteenth century, it was believed that by forcing the Irish to give up their Irish names and language, it would in time lead them to ‘quite forget their Irish nation’,²⁷ suggesting that by suppressing Gaeilge, the English would ‘obliterate Irish identity’.²⁸ This reiterates language’s position as a core component of a strong cultural identity, and implies that a people’s identity is in fact dependent on its language, and its loss allows a more dominant culture to reshape it as they see fit.

According to Rev. Patrick Kavanagh, a people’s language demonstrates who and what they were ‘even better than their history’,²⁹ portraying language as a kind of community consciousness wherein a people’s intellect, morals, thoughts and beliefs are kept. Tony Crowley supports this, likening Gaeilge to ‘the repository of the nation’s past’.³⁰ Likewise, the linguist Ken Hale compares language loss to bombing the Louvre Museum: ‘When you lose a language, you lose a culture, intellectual wealth, a work of art. It’s like dropping a bomb on a museum, the Louvre’.³¹ After the Irish War of Independence of 1919– 21, when Ireland first gained independence from Britain, Irish revolutionary leader and statesman Michael Collins also observed the relationship between Gaeilge and Irish self-expression, asking, ‘How can we express our most subtle thoughts and finest feelings in a foreign tongue?’.³² Here, language is likened to a sort of cultural archive, a hive of information directly connecting us with our forebears and collective history, able to reveal the distinct thought patterns and emotional expressions unique to one’s people.

That said, if a foreign language is enforced on a people, are their inherent psychological structures then thrown off balance? If language is intrinsically tied to a person’s thoughts and feelings, does its subjugation also repress an innate part of their identity? Cut off from a fundamental facet of their self-expression and unable to categorically belong to the culture of the conquering language, does this in turn leave them culturally displaced or stateless? Michael O’Hickey mirrors this concern, stressing that the threat of Anglicisation renders Irish identity undefined, ‘mongrel’, ‘colourless’, and ‘nondescript’.³³ This description, while harsh, brings me to argue that language and culture are the main vehicles of Irish consciousness, a cornerstone upon which we build, develop and embody our authentic selves, as well as the defining factors that distinguish us from other nations and communities. Moreover, it reiterates the idea of Gaeilge’s position as being somewhat stateless or culturally ‘exiled’ and suggests that Gaeilge, while in no way dead, is somewhat displaced or has been made the ‘other’ in its own home.

In 1996, the United Nations Development Programme published their annual report on human development,³⁴ which identified that the enforcement of a dominant language serves as what John Walsh describes as a ‘culturally repressive form of development’,³⁵ hindering the growth of other languages and cultures while accelerating the dominant power’s own progress. If so, the repression and erasure of Gaeilge as Ireland’s primary spoken language interrupted the natural evolution of Ireland’s cultural landscape. I argue that Irish cultural identity then stagnated over time as Gaeilge and Irish cultural norms declined, whereupon this ‘interrupted identity’ triggered a form of arrested development in Irish identity and the Irish psyche, unable to move forward due to English cultural domination and Ireland’s collective unprocessed trauma.

Despite considerable efforts to acknowledge and reflect on the legacy of Ireland’s colonial history, such as national memorials, famine commemorations and museum exhibitions, I argue that on an emotional level Ireland has neither resolved nor recovered from its historical trauma. Moreover, we can view this so-called interrupted identity through the lens of Vamik Volkan’s idea of the ‘chosen trauma’ of a nation,³⁶ an event(s) that, when the nation has failed to mourn this trauma, defines its national identity and becomes frozen, thus inhibiting its cultural development and keeping it and its people in a state of purgatory. Ultimately, the slow decay of Gaeilge and Irish cultural traditions is intertwined with Ireland’s unprocessed trauma; over seven centuries of colonisation— subjugation, slaughter, famine and cultural genocide— created a deep emotional wound in the collective Irish psyche that has been passed down generationally to the present day.

1.2 Cultural exile: The psychological impacts of heritage

As a concept, well-being is a conditional state. Described as a positive state of being achieved when our ‘personal, relational, and collective needs’ are satisfied,³⁷ to be ‘well’ in human society hinges upon a range of external and internal factors— physical and mental health, meaningful relationships, purpose, financial security, belonging, community, secure housing, self-expression, self-worth and a strong sense of identity. Well-being is best considered a spectrum of these determining factors, wherein if one or more are absent or at risk, our broader happiness and life satisfaction suffer. In this context, well-being is both conditional and unconditional: conditional as it relies on specific criteria to manifest and unconditional with regard to its determining factors. While identity is more fluid and malleable, often changing as a person changes, the causal factors behind well-being are fixed and unchanging. Can a person’s well-being truly thrive in the face of illness, poverty, self-hatred or isolation? If we consider these determinants to be pillars of well-being, we can better understand that, as a framework, the nature of well-being is, to a large extent, symbiotic— a collectivist embodiment of human health and happiness that cooperates to remain whole and realised.

This cooperative outlook on well-being is mirrored in the findings of the Barngarla Language and Wellbeing Study.³⁸ Devised to document the positive impacts of language reclamation on the Barngarla Aboriginal community in South Australia, a framework for emotional well-being was constructed according to eight themes identified: connection to spirituality and ancestry; connection to body; connection to mind and emotions; connection to family and kinship; connection to community; connection to culture; connection to country and connection to self.³⁹ In this framework, well-being is conceptualised as several pieces of a larger whole, upholding and providing stability to the self. That said, the themes identified in this study encompass many human emotional needs, which bears the question: must our core emotional needs be met before we can build a concrete sense of self? Or rather, are identity and well-being interdependent, two interconnected bodies reliant on the other’s regular subsistence? From this perspective, the cultivation of both identity and well-being can be seen as a collaborative effort. As we collectively engage with our culture and ancestry, our minds and bodies, our family and community, our identity is reinforced as we nurture our own well-being.

In contrast to those found in most Western societies, this framework and other Indigenous frameworks of well-being place greater emphasis on culture as a central component of well-being’s structural makeup, framing culture as the building blocks towards ‘a sense of wholeness’⁴⁰ and ‘the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle’.⁴¹ Through this lens, culture is a frequently overlooked factor in what constitutes our holistic well-being. The music we listen to, the books we read, the films, series and plays we watch, the concerts and festivals we go to, the museums we visit and the languages we speak play a part in anchoring us deeper within ourselves. Ultimately, culture serves as an amplifier to our self-expression. Through different mediums of culture, we explore the deeper parts of ourselves; we express our feelings, both joyful and painful; we feel seen and understood in our life experiences; and we come together in groups and communities to enjoy our special interests. All of this reinforces our unique sense of self and cultural well-being, allowing us to play with and express unexplored aspects of our identity and providing a concrete sense of belonging to our community, our country and places where we make our home.

In recent decades, the concept of cultural well-being has been increasingly recognised in foreign cultural policies, most notably in Wales and New Zealand. In 2006, Wellington City Council designed a ‘Cultural Wellbeing Strategy’, wherein cultural well-being was described as a requisite for a sense of belonging, collective identity, community and greater quality of life,⁴² with emphasis placed on language and other intangible assets. In Wales, one of the primary aims of the 2015 ‘Wellbeing of Future Generations Act’ was ‘a Wales of vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language’,⁴³ which also cited a symbol of Welsh well-being as the ability to speak Welsh.⁴⁴ The European Commission has also recognised the importance of culture and heritage for quality of life and psychological well-being, having launched the project ‘CultureForHealth’ in 2020 for the development of culture and well-being in the EU.⁴⁵ Likewise, the Arts and Health Lead in the World Health Organisation (WHO), Christopher Bailey, described culture and the arts to be ‘no different than recommending good behaviour or exercise. They’re a core part of what makes us human’.⁴⁶ Through this lens, culture is presented as a linchpin that contributes to maintaining our collective identity, community and quality of life, as essential to our health as diet and exercise.

In this vein, many academics have identified language as a chief determinant of well-being,⁴⁷ having been attributed to self-esteem, group identity⁴⁸ and belonging.⁴⁹ There is also a clear correlation between language loss and suicide in Indigenous communities.⁵⁰ Darcy Hallett et al. examined 150 Indigenous Inuit communities (circa 14,000 people)⁵¹ and found that the suicide rates in ‘high-language’ Indigenous communities,⁵² where at least 50 per cent of its members could speak their ancestral language, were six times lower than in ‘low-language’ communities.⁵³ What is more, Margrethe Bals et al. and Marc Zimmerman et al. observed improved mental health and self-esteem among Indigenous youth in both the Norwegian Arctic Circle and North America after engaging more deeply with their native languages.⁵⁴ These outcomes confirm the intersection between language, well-being and our wider mental health, indicating that language is indeed a stabilising factor that supports and reinforces our well-being.

That said, why does language influence our well-being to such a great extent? According to Donald Taylor and Esther Usborne, clarity of cultural identity is paramount to building a strong self-concept and psychological well-being, claiming that a psychologically healthy person would have ‘a clearly defined personal and collective identity’.⁵⁵ Language is a significant cultural marker irrespective of nationality or location, a national and cultural symbol that indirectly heralds a person’s cultural background. It is therefore logical that as language often characterises cultural identity, language loss would sow great confusion around a group’s identity, particularly after the enforcement of a new dominant language, destabilising their self-concept, their sense of belonging to their homeland, and their self-expression in the process. In the decades following the famine, when most Irish people no longer spoke Gaeilge, did that make them English? In the present day, are the Irish now English because it remains the majority’s first language? Certainly not, yet it cannot be denied that as Gaeilge was subjugated and later declined as the pre-eminent spoken language in Ireland, this has created space for the more powerful English language and culture to irreversibly embed itself into every domain of Irish society, not least in education, the judicial system and the government, leaving Irish identity confused and clouded by English influence.

Taylor and Usborne support this idea, arguing that colonised communities who have experienced cultural destruction have no clearly defined collective identity, and as a result, are in a ‘cultural collective identity vacuum’.⁵⁶ Similarly, Khawaja claims that language loss and undefined cultural identity create people who are ‘torn between two cultures’⁵⁷ and who feel ‘lost when they do not easily fit into either’.⁵⁸ These descriptions directly reflect the experience of what I call ‘cultural exile’. When a colonised group cannot express themselves in either their native culture or that of their oppressor or now feel that they do not belong to either culture, this can generate great confusion and distress around their cultural identity. However, this concept captures this experience of uncertain cultural identity and non-belonging not only among formerly colonised societies but also among people who have emigrated abroad, second- and third- generation immigrants, and multi racial and ethnically diverse people, as well as those still under colonial rule; this concept can relate to any person or community in a state of conflict between two or more cultures. Douglas Hyde, a founding member of the Gaelic League, discussed this experience of uncertainty surrounding Irish identity, arguing that the Irish were ‘imitating England and yet apparently hating it’⁵⁹ and were ‘ceasing to be Irish without becoming English’.⁶⁰ Hyde also claimed that the Irish were living in a ‘half-way house’,⁶¹ unable to express themselves culturally yet unable to adapt to the enforced English cultural practices. This perspective presents the Irish as disoriented and confused, depicting them as having no distinct cultural identity, neither Irish nor English.

What is more, the psychological impacts of colonisation, including control of culture, have been associated with specific behaviours and patterns, including a sense of inferiority, alcohol abuse, self-hatred, and restricted identity.⁶² Similar patterns have been noted in Irish people, with shame, self-hatred and worthlessness,⁶³ and ‘disturbing levels of contempt and self-hatred’ frequently identified.⁶⁴ Garrett O’Connor diagnoses the ‘malignant shame’ in Irish people as a mixture of low self-esteem, emotional suppression and cultural inferiority, accrediting this to the deep-rooted and lingering effects of British domination in Ireland, which he argues the Irish have internalised and transmitted across each generation.⁶⁵ I argue that this cultural inferiority is in part a longstanding effect of the denigration of Gaeilge and Irish people, most notably throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the Victorian era, Irish people were considered ‘backward’, ‘inferior’,⁶⁶ and ‘wild, reckless and indolent’,⁶⁷ where hostility towards the Irish was ‘extended to their language’.⁶⁸ Gaeilge was seen as an ‘inferior language’⁶⁹ spoken by ‘backward, rural and ignorant members of society’.⁷⁰ According to Farrel Corcoran, this view of Gaeilge derived from the ideological codes from England which portrayed the Catholic Irish as a ‘biologically inferior species’.⁷¹

From Moore’s perspective, the Irish internalised these negative stereotypes of themselves and of Gaeilge, instilling a widespread sense of inferiority and shame towards themselves and their language.⁷² Hyde supports this, accrediting Gaeilge’s defamation with an Ireland where the people ‘blush and hang their heads when overheard speaking their own language’.⁷³ This disdain towards Gaeilge reflects Gandhi’s concept of internalised colonisation, wherein colonised peoples ‘believe in their own inferiority’.⁷⁴ Fanon interprets this relationship between cultural loss and shame by arguing that colonised societies frequently come to respect their coloniser’s culture better than their own.⁷⁵ Indeed, according to Glynis Breakwell, if a language is stigmatised, its speakers may develop a negative self-image and, subsequently, experience great psychological distress.⁷⁶ Thus, the degradation of a language often results in its native speakers internalising this negative representation and subsequently abandoning it in favour of that of their colonial oppressor. These examples strongly indicate that when a language is maligned and misrepresented, it affects its speakers as if they themselves had been publicly shamed and humiliated.

There is thus great evidence to suggest that the loss, destruction and denigration of language and culture unequivocally damage a colonised people’s emotional well-being, most noticeably by instilling self-hatred, internalised shame, cultural inferiority, confused identity, cultural exile and isolation, in addition to difficulties with self-expression. With this in mind, I argue that language, culture and heritage serve as psychological necessities; if, based on the previously reviewed literature, we argue that language is aligned with identity, then to destroy and hate a language is to destroy and hate its speakers. To eradicate a language is to injure and pollute a group’s pre-existing cultural identity, generating immense confusion, self-loathing and destructive behaviour. Indeed, Laing compares the destruction of a colonised people’s language with destroying their experience, ultimately a violent extension of the ‘power to define reality’,⁷⁷ suggesting that destroying a community’s experience will provoke destructive behaviour among the colonised, claiming that ‘if our experience is destroyed, our behaviour will be destructive’.⁷⁸ To this end, the reverse must also be true, namely that the reclamation and revitalisation of language improves and reinforces a positive state of well-being, resulting in increased self-esteem, a more distinct sense of self, greater ease of cultural expression, and lower rates of mental illness and suicide.

3.1 Effects of cultural loss

3.2 Irish heritage and identity

3.3 Impact on well-being

4.1 Limitations

Despite the results establishing Gaeilge as having positively affected the participants’ identity and well-being, it is clear that this study has certain limitations. The sample of participants used was small and thus only represented a very small part of the populations of each group. Likewise, as this study was focused solely on the current and recent effects of Gaeilge on the participants, I had little insight into the participants’ sense of cultural identity and well-being prior to connecting or reconnecting to Gaeilge. I must also acknowledge that the sample could be considered somewhat biased, as I have chosen a group of people who have actively chosen to learn Gaeilge, as opposed to those who have little interest in the language at all. Additionally, the sample included people who were both Caucasian and either Irish born or of Irish descent, and thus there is no insight into how Gaeilge and Irishness affect Irish people of colour or immigrants in Ireland. However, this could be explored with further study.