Gaelic revival

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

Interest in Gaelic culture was evident early in the nineteenth century with the formation of the Belfast Harp Society in 1808 and the Ulster Gaelic Society in 1830, and later in the scholarly works of Robert Shipboy MacAdam, John O'Donovan and Eugene O'Curry, and the foundation of the Ossianic Society. Concern for spoken Irish led to the formation of the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language in 1876, and the Gaelic Union in 1880. The latter produced the Gaelic Journal. Irish traditional sports were fostered by the Gaelic Athletic Association, founded in 1884.

The Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge) was established in 1893 by Eoin MacNeill and other enthusiasts of Gaelic language and culture. Its first president was Douglas Hyde. The objective of the league was to encourage the use of Irish in everyday life in order to counter the ongoing anglicisation of the country. It organised weekly gatherings to discuss Irish culture, hosted conversation meetings, edited and periodically published a newspaper named An Claidheamh Soluis, and successfully campaigned to have Irish included in the school curriculum. The league grew quickly, having more than 48 branches within four years of its foundation and 400 within 10. It had fraught relationships with other cultural movements of the time, such as the Pan-Celtic movement and the Irish Literary Revival.

Important writers of the Gaelic revival include Peadar Ua Laoghaire, Patrick Pearse (Pádraig Mac Piarais) and Pádraic Ó Conaire.

The Belfast "renaissance of Irish music", that saw the staging of the Belfast Harpers Assembly in July 1792, has been seen as "the precursor by a century of the Irish Gaelic Revival", and to have been "the beginning of a long association between northern Protestants" and the struggle to preserve and advance the Irish language". In 1795, with the aim of preventing "the total neglect and to diffuse the beauties of this ancient and much-acclaimed language", the Northern Star, the newspaper of the United Irishmen, produced the Irish-language grammar, dictionary and anthology, Bolg an tSolair. In the same year, the Star advertised classes in the language offered by Pádraig Ó Loingsigh (Patrick Lynch) at the Belfast Academy.

In 1808, one of the harp festival's principal organisers, the physician and polymath, James MacDonnell established the Belfast Harp Society. In addition to "preserving the national music and national instrument of Ireland", it sought to procure and disseminate "information relative to the language, history and antiquities of Ireland".

With an additional subscription from MacDonnell, and with the enthusiastic support of Mary Ann McCracken (who is known to have studied from Charles Vallency's Irish grammar), and her Gaeilgeoir friend, the poet Mary Balfour of Limavady, the Society organised Irish language classes. These were provided by James Cody. who used An Introduction to the Irish Language (1808) compiled by the Presbyterian minister William Neilson (Uilliam Mac Néill).

From 1828/30, MacDonnell resumed this work as chairman of Cuideacht Gaoidhilge Uladh (the Ulster Gaelic Society). The society focussed on the contemporary Irish vernacular, rather than in the classical language of manuscripts, but abjured the religious evangelism that persuaded other Protestants to pursue a similar interest. With Tomás Ó Fiannachta, Robert Shipboy MacAdam, joint secretary of the society, published An introduction to the Irish language intended for the use of Irish classes in the Royal Belfast Academical Institution – a grammar for the school founded on progressive principles by William Drennan and other United Irish veterans.