The ambiguous and often contested position of the Irish language was attested to as recently as the 2011 Irish general election, where a debate on the compulsory status of the language in the educational system became a central political issue. Brief use of the language by both the British Queen and the US President on recent state visits highlighted the symbolic role of the language. The language, as cultural artefact, is deeply imbued and layered with historical significance, whether pertaining to trauma associated with the famine and language loss, a romantic Celticism, or deployment as part of or in reaction to an aggressive cultural nationalism. This is evident in literary characters such as Joyce’s Miss Ivors, whose fervent attitude to the language is spurned in The Dead, or Joyce’s alter ego, Stephen Dedalus’ admission that the English language was for him an acquired speech: “My soul frets in the shadow of his language”. Contemporary deployments of the language whether in Brian Friel’s Translations, or poets such as Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s Ceist na Teangan (The Language Issue) and Colm Breathnach’s Trén bhFearann Breac (Through the Speckled Land) also display the ambiguous relationship of the language to history and temporality. The 1798 memorial at Waverly Cemetery, Sydney, could be seen as a diasporic iteration of the deployment of Irish in this manner. This paper will explore these themes with reference to Derridean hauntology and David Lloyd’s concepts of the spectral and the ruin.

Having completed a BA in Applied Languages (French, Irish, Japanese) in 2005 Jonathan was offered an internship at the Asia-Europe Foundation, Singapore. Upon return to Ireland he worked in an administrative position at the University of Limerick Language Centre. Jonathan completed a Master of Arts in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies also at the University of Limerick in 2008. Prior to commencing doctoral research at the Australian National University Jonathan worked as an advisor with the University of Limerick’s Language Support Unit, taught Irish with the University of Limerick’s Aonad na Gaeilge and tutored on introductory linguistics and cultural studies courses.