BY ERIN GOLDEN, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Abdul-Malik is not a typical Irish Gaelic speaker. He isn't elderly, rosy-cheeked, or particularly fond of wool sweaters, and his Muslim faith prohibits him from stopping at the pub for a pint of Guinness.

But for the past several weeks, the 32-year-old man has spent Saturday afternoons inside a classroom on Chicago's Northwest Side, repeating seemingly nonsensical words and navigating the sometimes confusing grammatical structure of the Irish language.

And he isn't alone. The language that many think is dead -- or alive, but an ocean away in the sheep-dotted hills of rural Ireland -- is thriving, especially in Chicago.

Cook County has an estimated 1,500 residents who speak Irish at home, more than any other county in the nation, according to U.S. Census data.

Like most Americans who speak Irish, Abdul-Malik's classmates at the Irish American Heritage Center tend to have some Irish branches on their family tree. But beyond that, it's a diverse group.

It includes teenagers, retirees, young mothers and language buffs of all kinds.

Despite the students' diversity, Abdul-Malik -- in an Irish Republican Army T-shirt paired with his long beard and traditional Muslim prayer cap -- stands out. But according to Abdul-Malik, Islam and Ireland have more in common than most people believe.

"I come from an Irish family, so I got interested in Irish history, especially political issues," said Abdul-Malik, who was born Michael Ryan and raised in suburban Oak Park. "But I didn't really grow up feeling like I was part of an Irish community, like many people in Chicago do."

Eleven years ago, when Abdul-Malik converted to Islam, he rediscovered his Irish roots and developed an interest in language, particularly how it was used by Irish political groups involved in the lengthy struggle against British rule.

"When I became Muslim, I got more into my Irishness . . . I started to see the links between the struggles [of Irish Republicans] and those of Islam," he said. "A lot of my Muslim friends are immigrants, and they have their own language and culture . . . and for me, that's the Irish identity."

According to John Gleeson, co-director of the Center for Celtic Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Abdul-Malik's re-discovery of his Irish identity is not uncommon phenomenon among Americans who take up the language.

"It's a key that unlocks their heritage," Gleeson said.

For some older students, like suburban Evanston resident Elizabeth Costello-Cruzich, learning Irish is a way of connecting with a family tradition that grows more distant with each passing year.

"My great-grandparents came from County Galway, a Gaelic-speaking area of Ireland," Costello-Cruzich said. "I've wanted to get in touch with that heritage, especially now because I'm the last living member of my family who's interested in it."

In addition to the adult language classes, the Heritage Center has programs for children. Despite the difficulty of learning the language, many young people have come to embrace Irish as a kind of secret code spoken only by a select club of their peers.

"Irish is kind of hard to learn, but it's interesting," said 16-year-old Jessica Smith, who lives on Chicago's Northwest Side and had an Irish grandmother. "It's like how a lot of my friends are Polish and go to Polish school, but I do that for Irish. People think it's cool."

Across the Atlantic Ocean, where in recent years Irish had been spoken mostly in rural, underdeveloped areas of the Emerald Isle, young people also are embracing the language.

For years, Irish children had been encouraged to learn English as a means of escaping their isolated and often impoverished communities. But according to experts, the growing American interest in the Irish language has helped revitalize the once-endangered tongue in its birthplace.

"People [in Ireland] had lost faith, hope, confidence in their language," said Gleeson. "[When] they find out now that Americans are willing to learn their language . . . that encourages the young people that [Irish] is valuable."

On both continents, developments in the entertainment world have made Irish a legitimate language of pop culture. This year marks the tenth birthday of TG4, Ireland's first Irish-language television channel, which broadcasts news, films and other original programming.

"The foundation of [TG4] has made Irish relevant . . . it's created a set of celebrities who are associated with it, and that's made it a hip language," said Brian Ó Conchubhair, assistant professor of Irish language at the University of Notre Dame. "It allows those members of the diaspora who are fluent to maintain their links, but Irish is no longer isolated in Ireland."
TG4 programs can now be downloaded worldwide from the Internet and Ros na Rún, an Irish language soap opera, is broadcast on public television in a handful of American cities, including Philadelphia and San Francisco.

"People have been saying that Irish is dead for how many hundred years now . . . but Irish is far from dead," said Michael McMechan, who has taught Irish classes at Chicago's Heritage Center for more than a decade.

"It is by no means certain to survive, but now Irish is becoming strong because more and more people are learning it outside of Ireland."

November 2006

12-Nov-06 | 6:22 AM
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