Tuesday 6 January 2009

The O.C.


…de la Yale Globalist:

In Episode 17 of the first season of The O.C., Marissa breaks up with Ryan because he is jealous of her friendship with Oliver, a new transfer student. But to teenagers watching the show in Dublin, she breaks the news to him in Irish.

The stars of this American TV show, which is dubbed for Irish TV, are some of only a few voices speaking Irish today. There were once an estimated two million or more Irish speakers in Ireland. Today, only 20 to 70,000 people are considered fluent…

…“When I was growing up, Irish was considered a rural thing, a backward thing,” explained Breandán Ó Caollaí, deputy consul general of Ireland. For much of the 20th century, the language was dismissed as a symbol of the poor Ireland that so many had left behind. Ireland’s economy has experienced a dramatic revival, but the language has yet to capture the new generation. That is where Marissa and Ryan come in...

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