Gluaiseacht Chearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta

Gluaiseacht Cearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta (English: "The Gaeltacht Civil Rights Movement") or Coiste Cearta Síbialta na Gaeilge (English: Irish Language Civil Rights Committee"), was a pressure group campaigning for social, economic and cultural rights for native-speakers of Irish living in Gaeltacht areas. It was founded in Connemara in 1969 to highlight the decline of the Irish language and to campaign for greater rights for Irish speaking areas in the area of access to services, broadcasting and ultimately an elected assembly of their own. It was later named Gluaiseacht na Gaeltachta (English: "The Gaeltacht Movement").

Gluaiseacht Chearta Siabhialta na Gaeltachta
Date	1969–1970s
Location	Ireland, especially Connemara
Resulted in	Údarás na Gaeltachta created to encourage local development RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta founded as national radio station Oireachtas na Gaeilge held around Ireland, outside of Dublin

History

The organisation continued on where the earlier Muintir na Gaeltachta had left off, but also took inspiration from the contemporary Northern Ireland civil rights movement and the American civil rights movement. Among the founders of the organisation were the writer Máirtín Ó Cadhain and the community and political activists Seósamh Ó Cuaig and Seán Ó Cionnaith.

The Irish Republican Army and Sinn Féin under the leadership of Cathal Goulding and Tomás Mac Giolla played a role in establishment of as part of its policy of the Reconquest of Ireland following on the teachings of James Connolly, who believed that the Irish people required both political and cultural decolonisation.

The campaign was often of a militant nature, such as the placing of nails under the wheels of the car carrying the then Taoiseach Jack Lynch in Galway West during the 1969 general election campaign. In that election a member of the campaign, Peadar Mac An Iomaire polled more than 6% of the vote in that constituency.

The campaign had some successes, including the establishment of a nationwide Irish-language radio station RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta based in Connemara and of Údarás na Gaeltachta — an elected body responsible for the economic and social development of the Gaeltacht regions but with far less power than envisaged by Gluaiseacht. Three Gluaiseacht candidates stood unsuccessfully in Connemara in the 1979 Údarás election. Gluaiseacht persuaded Conradh na Gaeilge to hold Oireachtas na Gaeilge outside Dublin in 1974, and secured recognition of sean-nós dance in 1977.

See also

• Desmond Fennell

References

Sources

• Ó hIfearnáin, Tadhg (10 September 2009). "Irish-speaking society and the state". In Ball, Martin; Muller, Nicole (eds.). The Celtic Languages. Routledge. pp. 572–5. ISBN 9781134100347. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
• Ó Muirí, Pól (23 September 2009). "Gluaiseacht Chearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta faoi scrúdú". The Irish Times (in Irish). Retrieved 19 March 2016.
• Ó Tuathail, R (1969). "Gluaiseacht Cearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta". Comhar. 6: 9–10. doi:10.2307/20552763. JSTOR 20552763.
• White, Jerry (17 November 2009). "A brief introduction to Gluaiseacht Chearta Siabhialta na Gaeltachta". The Radio Eye: Cinema in the North Atlantic, 1958–1988. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. pp. 122–9. ISBN 9781554582129. Retrieved 19 March 2016.

External links

• Ceart Teanga na Gaeltachta