“We’re dealing with questions of identity, questions about the language, and about the position of the language today. And we’re looking at those questions in a humorous, engaging way that will get people thinking about them.”
Artistic Director of Aisling Ghéar theatre company, Bríd Ó Gallchóir, discusses the major themes being explored in their contemporary, Irish language reinterpretation of the classic George Bernard Shaw play, Pygmalion, which will be performed in An Taibhdhearc, October 21-24.
Indeed, societal attitudes to how language is used are of central importance to the play as written by Shaw.
Originally set in London, Eliza, a destitute Cockney flower girl, meets the eccentric phonetics expert Professor Henry Higgins who endeavours to teach her to speak in a more refined manner in order to pass her off as a member of the upper classes.
Aisling Ghéar instead seeks to explore these themes context of the Irish language in modern-day Belfast.
“This isn’t a translation. It’s a reinterpretation; a reimagining” says Ó Gallchóir. “We’re talking about a young girl from Belfast who has done all of her education through Irish. She’s outside City Hall making TikToks, when two professors of Irish hear her and one of them says, ‘Oh my God, listen to that – she’s ruining the language.”
It is then decided that the professor will help Éilís – the Belfast version of Eliza – enter the most prestigious sean-nós singing competition at the Oireachtas festival and attempt to pass her off as a grandniece of the renowned Donegal writer Seosamh Mac Grianna.
Social class
One of the most significant differences between the theme of the play in Irish and in English though is the relationship between language and social class.
Historically, Irish has been associated with poverty and desolation and among modern native speakers, accent tends to be based on geography rather than class. However this is not to say that there are no complicated questions today around attitudes over how the language is spoken.
With the recent increase in urban Irish speakers, who do not usually speak the language with the same ‘blas’ as their counterparts in the Gaeltacht, there is often debate and disagreement over the level of prestige and authenticity that is attributed to “Gaelscoil Irish” in comparison to the Irish of the Gaeltacht.
“Are you a ‘true Gael’ if you were born in Belfast and raised through Irish, but nobody would call you a native speaker?,” says Bríd.
“When I commissioned the writer, Nuala Ní Néill—she’s an Irish speaker from Belfast who came through the Irish-medium education system here—she was so concerned with all of these questions too.
“We had many discussions about them. She said, ‘In Ireland, it was the poorest people who had the language.’ It’s not about class, so that leaves us with plenty of questions to explore.”
Interestingly, the play’s emphasis on phonetics – which the character Professor Higgins is an expert in – raises a number interesting questions about how Irish is thought today.
Phonetics refers to the branch of linguistics dedicated to the study of the sounds produced in speech. It explains how subtle differences in these sounds can effect pronunciation, accent and dialect.
In the past, it was commonplace for those studying Irish to model their pronunciation on how the language was spoken in the Gaeltacht, although this practise is largely non-existent in the education system today.
“When I came to Belfast, I had close friends, they were so passionate about the language. They’d go to the Gaeltacht and try to model their dialect, when they were speaking naturally, on the Irish of the Gaeltacht. It was Rann na Feirste instead of Béal Feirste,” Bríd says.
“All of that is gone now. These are exactly the conversations I’ve been having myself. When you learn German at university, your goal is that maybe one day someone might think you’re from Munich.
“But of course, that’s the question; We’re Irish—we are from ‘Munich’, just a different Munich. It’s complicated, and it’s fascinating. I hope we get people talking about all these questions.”
Ultimately this raises questions not just about how urban Irish-speakers should be thought to speak the language, but also how they can find their own authentic voice in the language given the existence of these questions.
“Every language needs a standard, but at the same time we want people to be free, to have the confidence and the freedom to speak the language in their own way,” Bríd says.
“In a way, that’s what the ending in the original version of Pygmalion is about. She has to find her own voice beyond the dialect, beyond everything she has been taught. That’s what we’re focusing on: giving Éilis a voice that’s true to herself, to her own background.”
Aisling Ghéar will be holding auditions for the role of Éilís in An Taibhdhearc, Galway on Monday, July 20.
The role is open to Irish-speaking actresses over the age of 20 with a background in singing and drama.
For more information contact [email protected].
