On November 17th and 18th
the Cooish, a festival to celebrate and promote the Manx language, took place, and featured a variety of public events and workshops designed to
help people use Manx Gaelic in every day life. Adrian Cain, the Manx
Language officer from Culture Vannin, helped to organise the festival.
The last couple of
weeks have seen a series of language events arranged by Jeebin, The Manx
Language Network, to support speakers of the language.
The events are known as the Cooish, a Manx term that has a wide range of meanings, including a cause, chat or affair. The annual Ned Maddrell Lecture saw the start of the activities and this year’s presentation was delivered by T J O Ceallaigh of Limerick University.
He provided a brilliant overview of the present state of immersion education through Irish and an enthusiastic and large audience, given the torrential rain that day, went home inspired.
It’s hoped that Jeebin can now develop a close working relationship with Limerick University that allows a sharing of ideas and best practice between that institution and the Department of Education, Bunscoill Ghaelgagh and Culture Vannin here.
Last weekend saw a series of events which included a fantastic evening of music, a performance from the new Manx Bard, Annie Kissack, a lecture about the Tourist Industry from Nicola Tooms of Manx National Heritage and a pop-up Gaeltagh in the Café in Marks and Spencer.
It was very rewarding to see so many Manx speakers from a wide-range of backgrounds and ages enjoying using the language in such an informal setting and it demonstrates what a positive future the language has.
The last couple of weeks has also seen fluent and new speakers adopting Manx words from Archibald Cregeen’s Dictionary of the 1830s.
Every day this year Culture Vannin has been posting on Facebook and Twitter a word from his dictionary and during the Cooish we have been encouraging people to adopt, love and cherish a word and in doing so make the link between the world of Archibald Cregeen and the Manx of today.
This has proved to be a fun and light hearted way to engage people and anyone is welcome to adopt a word from the lexicon here, found at learnmanx.com
Contact adrian@culturevannin.im and we’ll get the word in the post to you.
The week also saw the presentation to Dollin Mercer from Manx Radio of the inaugural Londeyr Award given for his use and support for the language whilst the activities will continue this weekend with a Manx Gaelic beach clean.
Much has been achieved with Manx Gaelic over the last 20 years and the enthusiasm shown over the last few weeks demonstrates what an important community asset the language is.
More details are available from the Learn Manx Facebook page, or from learnmanx.com
by Adrian Cain
Language Development Officer
www.learnmanx.com
