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I started this blog 10 years ago to write about trains, trams and trolleys in Gaelic.

I know it’s kind of a niche topic but I thought it’s important that there is a range of different material available in Gaelic and railways are what I’m interested in.

I’ve become very disillusioned with the Gaelic world in the last year or so, however.

Around a year ago, the Gaelic Crisis in the Vernacular Community report came out. The book rightly identified the weakness of Gaelic in traditional communities (as did a variety of previous reports) however, it was also very negative about new speakers and about urban Gaelic speakers.

And rather than leading to a discussion about how to best promote Gaelic in the traditional community – something that everybody in the Gaelic community surely wants to see – the key take-home message for many people seems to have been negativity towards urban Gaeldom and adult learners. Processions of people have taken to social media and old media alike saying that cities and learners get too much funding and too much priority, many calling for cuts in funding and others referring to people using Gaelic in cities as hobbyists. At best for many, people like me are irrelevant to the promotion of Gaelic, and for others we are actually cultural imperialists. And for some, even seeing Gaelic as a national language is an act of cultural appropriation.

The debate has moved from how to promote Gaelic to who is and who isn’t a Gael. An identity-politics debate that I’m not even particularly interested in. More recently, there have been vocal calls for native Gaelic speakers/Gàidheil/Gaels to be given a special indigenous status or and/or for a Parliament for Gaels. Where this leaves fluent learners and people outside the Hebrides, and where it leaves people who don’t think themselves of Gaels is a good question.

Those challenging the views of Gaelic Crisis towards new communities or challenging the ethnicisation of Gaelic online are subject to so much trolling that it just isn’t worth continuing.

This ethnicisation of the Gaelic debate really disturbs me. I feel that reversing language shift should be civic and not ethnic.

If we can’t empower traditional Gaelic communities without disempowering new communities, count me out. Of course, we could easily do this, but in this polarised toxic debate, it has become something of a zero sum game where many advocates of traditional communities see this as incompatible with support for new communities. (Fortunately I don’t think the opposite is true, but I’d be totally against that too!)

It’s important to note that few people in the Gaelic world agree with the ethnicisation of Gaelic. It’s also important to note that most of the people that have been calling for an ethnic definition of the Gaelic community in my experience are themselves learners and don’t belong to the communities that they are trying to gatekeep. I’d also make the important point that most advocates of enhanced support for traditional Gaelic communities have no problem with new communities and new speakers – and I agree strongly with them.

However, in a situation where many people are actively defining learners and cities as, at best unimportant, and at worst actively damaging traditional communities, it is difficult to keep on. It’s particularly difficult to do cheerful content when you are not allowed to say that Gaelic is your own language and you are not considered authentic/Gàidhealach/indigenous to be a member of the ethnically defined Gaelic community.

If I have to be an “ally” or a member of a “diaspora” to use Gaelic as a learner or in a city, count me out.

I should say that this isn’t just me. I know dozens of other people in the Gaelic world in the cities – native speakers and learners alike – who are very very dissolutioned due to ethnicisation of Gaelic and othering of new speakers and urban Gaeldom. The toxic debate is damaging people’s mental health and leading many to leave the Gaelic world or seeking to leave the Gaelic world.

For this reason, I’ve deleted my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

For this account, I’m asking – should I stay or should I go?

Should I delete the account or should I keep writing it in English?

Alasdair

Nuair a bha mi nam bhalach, bha leabhar agam air an robh British Electric Trains in Camera. Bha e làn dealbhan de thrèanaichean dealanach air feadh na RA, a’ gabhail a-steach BR, London Underground, Subway Ghlaschu agus an Tyne and Wear Metro.

Bha mi beò ghlaicte leis an leabhar agus leis na dealbhan ann.

Nam inbheach, tha mi air a bhith a’ feuchainn ris na trèanaichean a b’ fheàrr leam bhon leabhar fhaicinn san fheòil, mar gum biodh, agus mar thoradh air sin, chaidh mi gu Lunnainn bho chionn goirid.

Chaidh mi ann gus latha fosgailte London Transport Museum Acton Depot fhaicinn gus cuid de na trèanaichean bhon leabhar fhaicinn.

Ach bha àite eile bhon leabhar a bha mi airson fhaicinn – Stèisean Broad Street.

Nuair a chanas mi ‘faicinn’, bu chòir dhomh a ràdh nach eil Stèisean Broad Street ann tuilleadh.  Chaidh a leigeil ann an 1986, ach chaidh mi a dh’fhaicinn far an robh e agus gus faicinn na bha air fhàgail dheth.

Bha Broad Street ri taobh Stèisean Liverpool Street agus tha ionad Broadgate a-nis na aite.

Tha gu leòr termini air fhàgail: Blackfriars, Cannon Street, Charing Cross, Euston, Fenchurch Street, Liverpool Street, London Bridge, King’s Cross, Paddington, Victoria, Waterloo, Marylebone, Moorgate and St Pancras, ach bha rudeigin sònraichte mu Bhroad Street, rudeigin gu math “atmospheric”.

Bha dealbh den stèisean san leabhar agam le le teacsa mar “The long term future of the decrepit Broad Street Station is unknown” le dealbh de thrèanaichean Class 501.

Bha an dealbh caran coltach ris an dealbh seo:

Stèisean Broad Street c1983

Dhùin Broad Street fhèin agus stèisean Dalston Junction dìreach beagan a tuath air cuideachd. ann an 1986

Ach ged a bha BR a’ smaoineachadh nach robh feum air an stèisean tuilleadh, bha iad ceàrr. Ged a chaidh Broad Street fhèin a leigeal, chaidh an loidhne ath-fhosgladh gu beagan a tuath air agus chaidh a’ mhòr-chuid den drochaid a-staigh dhan stèisean ath-fhosgladh mar phàirt den London Overground ann am pròiseact sònraichte gus Loidhne Lunnainn a Tuath agus Loidhne Lunnainn an Ear a cheangail ri chèile mar phàirt de chearcall timcheall air a’ bhaile. Mar sin, an àite a bhith a’ stad aig terminus mar a bhoidh iad roimhe, tha an loidhne a’ dol seachad air làrach Broad Street, a’ dol tro stèisean ùr aig Shoreditch High Street agus an uair sin a’ dol air Loidhne Lunnainn an Ear, a bha na pàirt den London Underground gu 2007.

Seo mapa rèile den sgìre a’ sealltainn far an robh Broad Street agus dè tha air tachairt leis na loidhnichean bhon uair sin:

Chaidh Dalston Junction ath-fhosgladh cho math ri stèiseanan ann an Haggerston, Hoxton agus Shoreditch High Street anns na 2010an. A-nis, tha na figearan mar a leanas: Dalston Junction: 6 millean cleachdaichde sa bhliadhna, Haggerston 3.5m, Hoxton 3.2m, Shoreditch High Street, 9 m.

Ach ged nach eil Broad Street ann tuilleadh, tha cuimhneachadh gu math inntinneach air fhàgail.

Air an drochaid a b’ àbhaist a bhith a’ dol a-staigh dhan stèisean, tha dà thrèana tiùb ann (London Underground 1983 stock) a tha a-nis nan stiùdiothan mar phàirt den ionad Village Underground.

Agus ma tha thu airson coimhead air Broad Street air film, rinn Paul McCartney film (film caran lapach, feumar a ràdh) far an robh an stèisean ann – Give my Regards to Broad Street (1984).

Alasdair