'None so fitted to break the chains as they who wear them, none so well equipped to decide what is a fetter.' – James Connolly

The Republican Socialist Youth Movements holds the position that the revival of An Gaeilge is impossible under the present economic system which has neither basis nor reason to defend and advance the language. A successful Irish language revival depends on the establishment of a Socialist state here in Ireland that can properly safeguard and promote the language.

For us, the question of the language is bound up with the class and national questions. Irish speakers, especially in rural areas are some of the most deprived people in the country. The ruling class keeps the Irish language community in a state of backwardness and de facto disenfranchisement. The attendant misery and exploitation goes to the heart of why Republican Socialists support national liberation.

Genuine national liberation and Socialist revolution in Ireland will include liberation of the Irish language by default. Republican Socialists stand for the re-conquest of Ireland along the lines of Connolly Socialism and in the tradition of Máirtín Ó Cadhain.

The cultural hegemony of Britain was the outcome of socio-economic interests inherent in Irish society; the breaking of this cultural hegemony therefore would require a revolution. Ó Cadhain summed his position as: “Irish is the Reconquest of Ireland and the Reconquest of Ireland is the salvation of Irish. The people’s own language is what will save them.”

The revival of the Irish language depends on the revival of those who speak it. Ó Cadhain saw Irish as the means of expression and cultural medium of the most downtrodden social group in Ireland. It is through the revolutionary Reconquest of Ireland that the Irish speaking community could be revived. When he writes that the people’s own language is what will save them, he expresses his belief that revolution should be a development immanent to the life and culture of the community and vice-versa.

The revival of the Irish culture depends on the revival of the Irish people, the revival of the Irish people depends on the revival of the Irish culture. The struggle for the Irish language should be part of the Reconquest of Ireland, if the Irish language movement fails to be active leaders in that struggle, then the whole Irish revival will fail.