Foreign Tongues: Victorian Language Learning and the Shaping of Modern Ireland - Couverture souple

Gaffney, Phyllis

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1739086317 ISBN 13 : 9781739086312

Editeur : University College Dublin Press, 2024

Synopsis

The first historical overview of the study of languages in Ireland from an expert in the area.

How history shifts languages and languages in turn shape history is a deep-rooted, dynamic process manifest in Victorian Ireland. In Foreign Tongues, Phyllis Gaffney sheds new light on this period of Irish history, exploring how continental influences that predated the Penal Laws were reinvigorated in the wake of the French Revolution. An influx of foreign teachers and religious orders created institutions for an emerging élite, and University education expanded. At the same time, civil service reforms opened careers across the British Empire to graduates from all religions. The result is that Ireland's Victorian colleges embraced language study--ancient and modern, Irish and European--more eagerly than their British counterparts.

An adaptive, fast-changing academic landscape laid the groundwork for today's Ireland--culturally confident, open to Europe and the world--while the dramatic rise of the Gaelic League forged a bond between language, education, and politics with pervasive effects on Irish identities in the twentieth century. None of that was plain sailing. Gaffney's profiles of individual professors reveal pioneering scholarship, precarious careers, sudden scandals, and denunciations and dismissals linked to local conflicts and foreign wars. On the positive side, the advance of women's education cleared the path for a cohort of notable female professors across modern languages.

This wide-ranging, detailed study draws on multiple sources to cast a fresh light on aspects of Irish history, viewed through the complex lens of language education.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Phyllis Gaffney is a researcher who has taught at Carysfort College of Education and University College Dublin. She is the author of several books, most recently The Medieval Imagination: Mirabile Dictu.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University College Dublin Press
• Date d'édition: 2024
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1739086317
• ISBN 13: 9781739086312
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 250
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible