Content associated with: Language questions in Scotland
Language questions in Ireland
Matthew Woollard
The question of language in the census is related to problems of nationality, nationalism and national identity. However in the United Kingdom, at least, questions in the census relating to language are well-removed from the traditional philosophies underlying British census-taking. Questions on language were not part of the 'medical' program which epitomised the British censuses. The Irish census was taken on a rather different administrative basis than in the rest of Britain, as a result the Irish census, post 1841 was more advanced than its British counterparts and the range of questions asked was much greater, including education, religion, literacy, house accommodation – more a social survey than a simple population count.
During the nineteenth-century questions on language were introduced slowly into the British censuses and these questions can be seen as the first which were successfully introduced through the lobbying of special-interest groups. Language questions had been asked in many European censuses, e.g., in Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Prussia, Sweden and Switzerland all followed suit during the 1850s or 1860s. Arel has pointed out that most of the discussions in the international statistical community at this time was less concerned with language spoken per se, but with 'cultural nationality'.
This latter principle was probably not the one however which caused the introduction of the question in Ireland. From 1830, with the introduction of the National School System, the use of Irish was forbidden in schools. The question on the use of Gaelic in Ireland in 1851 could possibly be seen as an attempt to ascertain the extent to which the policy of 'extinguishing' Irish had been successful. The involvement in this census of Captain Thomas Aiskew Larcom (1801-1879), however, leads to a simpler and less sinister conclusion, part of which was to see the geographic distribution of Irish language speakers. The first hypothesis must not be ruled out, as within the province and county reports Gaelic speakers were tabulated by age. This is significant because it could have allowed, after the following census, comparisons to be made over time, using the significant variable of age. One must, however, be careful not to fall into a teleological trap here, as precise motivations are not always clear.
It is also the case that the question was not anticipated at the outset of the census: the Act of Parliament for Ireland Census (Ireland) Act, 1850 13 & 14 Vict. c.44 allowed the census commissioners to extend, on an ad hoc basis, the inquiry beyond the subjects legislated on. The language question for this census was appended to the bottom of the householders' schedule which required the person filling in the form to add, in the education column "the word Irish to the name of each person who speaks Irish, but who cannot speak English, and the words 'Irish and English' to the names of those who can speak both the Irish and English languages". It should be pointed out that this question, the progenitor of all language questions in the British Isles, is a 'closed' question, i.e., that it allows for only two possibilities. A blank space should mean that the person does not speak Irish at all, though it can be interpreted, with a reasonable level of accuracy, as meaning those who spoke only English.
The tables published in the 1851 report only show those who spoke Irish and those who spoke both Irish and English. The assumption that the remainder are solely English speakers is left to the reader. (Census of Ireland 1851, Part VI. General report, p. xlvii.) Furthermore, because of the its positioning, some householders and enumerators may have missed the question and not answered it. What is perhaps curious is that in the published returns there is no evidence of those who didn't answer, nor on possibility of a differential undercount.
In the 1861 census the same question was asked, and the positioning of the question on the schedule seems to have been exactly the same as in the previous census which suggests that the census commissioners were not concerned about the possible undercount and actually considered the figures were accurate, or that they didn't really care. (Census of Ireland 1861, Part V. General report, p. cxi.) If one takes the second of these possibilities, one could argue that an undercount will always benefit the non-Irish speakers as they were, tacitly at least, considered to be the 'default'. Similar tabulations were given in 1861 as for 1851. They show that a total of 19.1 per cent of the population spoke Irish (i.e., Irish or Irish and English) compared with 23.3 per cent in 1851. The report makes no comments on this decline and as in 1851 the proportion of Irish speakers is taken from the whole population (i.e., at all ages) to minimise its incidence.
Using these reports it is possible, to calculate age-specific rates. For 1851, the range from around 11.5 per cent for those aged 10 and under to 35 per cent for those in their seventh decade of life, shows that the mean is less than useful figure. A different recalculation is necessary for 1861, but is possible. Comparing age groups shows that for each age group, with the exception of the over 80s that there is a decline in the proportion of Irish speakers. Results of this analysis suggest four factors -- that there may be differential levels of mortality, that is that Gaelic-speakers have higher mortality rates; second that there may be differential migration rates, both by age and language; and third, age reporting may be suspicious. What is particularly interesting here is the increase for children, suggesting that some are learning Gaelic over the age of 10. (See Fitzgerald)
By 1871 the statistical (and political) situation had altered. The same question was asked in the same format and two tables were produced. The first as for 1851/61 showing overall proportion of Irish speakers down to 15.1 per cent. The second showing language spoken distributed by age, with same figures for 1861, which show, conclusively that there were fewer younger people taking up the language.
The more ominous side of this census was found in a rare comment on the subject from the Irish commissioners: "The disappearance of this ancient member of the Celtic family of tongues from living speech may be somewhat delayed or somewhat accelerated by circumstances beyond calculation or conjecture, but there can be no error in the belief that within relatively a few years Irish will have taken its place among the languages that have ceased to exist...". (Census of Ireland 1871, Part III. General report, p.190.) Even loosely said this cannot be taken for an unbiased statistically-informed response. In the following census, however, the reported proportion of Irish speakers rose to just over 18 per cent of the total population. The returns showed a further decrease in the numbers (and proportion) of people speaking Irish only; and an increase in the numbers (and proportion) of people speaking both Irish and English.
The commissioners suggested two reasons for these changes; first, the increase in Irish and English speakers may have been because of an alteration in the design of the schedules, which included a separate column for answering the question, thus giving a higher response rate. One of the reasons for the decline in Irish-only speakers was caused by a 'correction' of the returns. For localities where there were few Irish speakers the enumerator was asked whether or not those people who had reported 'Irish' were in fact Irish speakers "..in numerous cases the answers showed that the entries were erroneous and they were accordingly corrected. This investigation reduced considerably the number of those returned in the first instance as speaking "Irish and English", but not at all to the same extent as it reduced the number of those who were returned from the districts referred to as speaking "Irish", the answers showing that the entry should have been "English"." (Census of Ireland 1881, General report, p.74.)
To all intents and purposes the commissioners are suggesting that a number of people had lied on their schedules. It is worth noting that the commissioners are misleading in their final clause. As in previous years the question was 'closed': the word 'English' was not a proscribed response. Furthermore, of most interest is the fact that they went to the trouble of carrying-out this follow-up, which at face value leads to improved results. However, these corrections were only one sided. No similar survey was carried out to check whether non-responses in areas with high Irish-only districts were similarly erroneous. The aim may have been to improve the results, but such one-sidedness suggests a bias.
In the following three censuses in 1891, 1901 and 1911 the same question was asked, in the same format and the overall proportions suggest that the proportions of Irish language speakers drop. – 14.5 per cent (1891); 14.4 per cent (1901) and 13.3 per cent (1911) but there was an increase in Irish speakers within the younger age groups between 1901 and 1911. No census was taken in Ireland in 1921, though both Northern Ireland and the Republic took a census in 1926. It was, presumably, deemed too politically sensitive to ask a language question in Northern Ireland in that year, and it was not until 1991 that a language question was next asked there. (The Northern Ireland census of 1926 did ask a question on religion, so it may not have been due simply to political sensitivity.)
The form in which 'cultural nationalism' may be ascribed as the motivation for the language question in Ireland is, if at all, the opposite of the traditional use of the question. Here it may have been used to show the extent of language (and thus) cultural assimilation within Britain; and thus the question is fixed so that any under-reporting of Irish language speakers leads tacitly to over-reporting of English only speakers.
The relationship between language and nationalism in Ireland is a vexed one. In the census almost identical questions were asked but the series must be seen as discontinuous as its form altered, but it essentially shows a decline, and a disproportional decline in Irish only speakers. Some of this decline may be illusory as people may have been giving false answers in the earlier years, though the evidence for this is scanty. It seems that (post-1890, with the formation of the Gaelic League) Irish language teaching was promoted to the extent that children seem to be retain Irish, but the proportions decreasing is a factor of emigration.
REFERENCES
G. B. Adams, 'Language in Ulster, 1820–1850', Ulster Folklife, 19 (1973), 50–55.
G. B. Adams, 'The 1851 language census in the North of Ireland'. Ulster Folklife, 20 (1974), 65–70.
G. Fitzgerald, 'Estimates for baronies of minimal level of Irish-speaking amongst successive decennial cohorts: 1771–1781 to 1861–1871', Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 84c (1984), 117–155.
C. Ó Dochartaigh, 'Irish in Ireland', in G. Price, ed., Languages in Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 2000), 6–36.
Edward Higgs, A clearer sense of the census. The Victorian census and historical research (London, 1996).
E. Margaret Crawford, Counting the people. A survey of the Irish censuses, 1813–1913 (Dublin, 2003).
D. Arel, 'Language categories in censuses: backward- or forward-looking', in D. I. Kertzer and D. Arel, eds, Census and identity. The politics of race, ethnicity, and language in national censuses (Cambridge, 2002), 92–120.
Census of Ireland, 1851, The census of Ireland for the year 1851. Part VI. General report [with appendix, county tables, miscellaneous tables, and index to names of places], 1856 BPP XXXI. [2134]. [View this document: General report, Ireland, 1851]
Census of Ireland, 1861, Part. V. General report, Appendices, County Tables, Summary, Index, BPP 1863 LXI.1 (3204-IV). [View this document: General report, Ireland, 1861]
Census of Ireland, 1871, Part. III. General report, maps and diagrams, summary tables, appendices, BPP 1876 LXXXI [C. 1377]. [View this document: General report, Ireland, 1871]
Census of Ireland, 1881, General report, maps and diagrams, tables, appendicies BPP 1882 LXXVI (C.3365). [View this document: General report, Ireland, 1881]