Irish Language recruitment

[depaor01]

11 minutes ago, Airshipped said:

Not to overly complicate things, but don't forget that there was a whole Irish language revival movement underway in the late Victorian and Edwardian period. In that regard quite a number of Irish language speakers were not native speakers.

For example here's Robert Francis Casey, a chap who won the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) with the RAF Independent Force in WWI.

In the Irish Census 1901 he doesn't claim any Irish language proficiency:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Antrim/Antrim_Rural/Ballycraigy/914937/

However, by the time of the Irish Census 1911 he claims that he can (and in all probability can) speak Irish. It's in an area nowadays that's perhaps more associated with Loyalist bonfires, a memorial to Billy Wright etc:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Antrim/Antrim_Rural/Ballycraigy/106377/

(As an teenager by then Casey would appear to have omitted reference to his Glasgow birthplace).

Obviously the situation is much different further west in Ulster, e.g. I recall a figure of in excess of 10,000 Irish speakers being counted for Co Tyrone in the census, and they would largely have been native language speakers.

If the raw data were made available, it would be interesting to see how many similar language differentials between the two censuses exist. It's peripheral to this particular thread unless someone makes a unique link to servicemen, but something I hadn't thought of before.

[geraint]

Excellent comments by you both, and another direction of interest in the language/enlistment topic. My original posting was on actual posters or newspaper advertising in Gaelic - a point of interest that I could associate with the equivalent situation regarding Wales and Welsh language recruiting processes. In 1914 there were approx 1.3 million Welsh speakers half of which considered themselves monolingual Welsh. What was the Irish and Scottish highland linguistic comparisons and how did the Government react to them? Lloyd George was a Welsh speaker and very sympathetic to the Welsh land, tithe and educational politics in Wales. William Hughes the Australian PM was also a fluent Welsh speaker.

My knowledge of pre 1914 Irish politics is tenuous o level stuff from the early 70s. How were the different counties, religions, social/racial backgrounds dealt with by the WD? Were native Irish men mixed deliberately with native Anglo-protestant workers in the regiments. As the war progressed - I return to this topic - was Gaelic utilised in recruitment?