Dia duit! Peyton Dacy is ainm dom. Or for those who do not speak Gaeilge (Irish): Hello! My name is Peyton Dacy. While this is a simple phrase to learn in any language, this is a big first step for someone like myself whose family hasn’t spoken its native tongue for at least 150 years. We lost our native language due to England’s colonization of Ireland over the past 800 years, which almost caused the language to become completely extinct.

My family most likely lost its connection to the language sometime around the Great Hunger, also known as the Irish Famine. The Great Hunger is not merely an ordinary famine as it is often presented in history classes across the United States — it was a systematic starving of the Irish people at the hands of the English government.

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During the Great Hunger, an estimated one million Irish people died and 2 million emigrated, mainly to the U.S., to escape the horrors happening. My family was a part of the two million Irishmen who fled the Emerald Isle in search of a better life away from the tyranny of English rule. 

If families hadn’t already lost the Irish language because of British suppression of the language, families that immigrated to the U.S. often lost it later due to assimilation. 

This loss of linguistic and cultural connection to Ireland has slowly contributed to the assimilation of Irish Americans into the structure of white supremacy in American society today. In order to fight against the assimilation induced by white supremacy and colonialism, I have begun to learn and participate in my family’s long ago lost language and culture. 

My own journey into reconnection started almost unknowingly through stories of Irish mythology and folklore. I had always been into folklore about werewolves and fairies, with my mom always encouraging me to explore these interests as long as I didn’t piss off the fairies. As I grew older, my interest in Ireland shifted from Irish mythology and folklore to Irish history. I was always so inspired by the resilience of the Irish people despite the deck always being stacked against them, and I became particularly interested in their fight for liberation and equality during the 20th century. 

My interest in 20th-century Irish liberation struggles led me to begin learning about The Troubles, a period of time in occupied Ireland when Irish Republicans fought against British occupation through a multitude of methods, including guerilla warfare. By studying The Troubles, I began to learn about the Irish Republican Army and then the Provisional Irish Republican Army, which valiantly fought for Irish sovereignty. 

Simply put, the PIRA split off from the official IRA over disagreements over the use of militant force in the fight for Irish freedom and sovereignty. The PIRA, also commonly referred to as the “Provos,” has been the subject of many songs over the years, which is how I discovered Irish rebel music. 

Since discovering Irish rebel music in my sophomore year of high school, I have been religiously listening to bands such as The Wolfe Tones, The Irish Brigade and The Irish Rovers. While a majority of these bands’ songs are sung exclusively in English, the bands use traditional methods of writing Irish folk music and traditional instruments such as bodhran and uilleann pipes. These bands then slowly introduced me to Irish folk music sung entirely in Irish, such as “An Dord Feinne” by The Wolfe Tones.  

Last semester, I accidentally stumbled upon an Irish rap group from West Belfast called Kneecap. They are a Republican rap group that vocally supports Irish independence from Britain’s tyrannical rule through their radical Gaeilge-forward music. The band is probably best known for the hit song “C.E.A.R.T.A.,” which translates to “rights” in English. I fell in love with the band’s music despite my very limited understanding of the Irish language. When the band released their movie on Aug. 2 — aptly named “Kneecaps” — about their rise to fame, I knew that I had to see it.

This hilarious, cynical and sometimes downright dirty Irish language film was the final nail in the coffin that inspired me to finally pursue learning the Irish language. I decided I was going to undertake learning Irish after seeing a particular scene early in the movie. The young protagonist, one of the future frontmen of Kneecap, Wee Naoise (Aidan McCaughey) and his friend Wee Liam Óg (Cillian Kernan) are taught Irish by Naoise’s father, Arlo (Michael Fassbender). 

In this scene, Arlo prompts the two by saying, “Gach focal a labhraítear i nGaeilge [Every word of Irish spoken],” and the two respond in Irish, “Is é piléar scaoilte ar son saoirse na hÉireann [Is a bullet fired for Irish Freedom].” 

This moment in the movie really spoke to me, as it motivated me to get involved in my own language decolonization. Beyond my own journey, it also showed me how indigenous languages being learned by new generations can be vital to oppressed peoples’ fight for freedom. From the Irish spoken in West Belfast to the Ojibwe spoken on Leech Lake Reservation, people speaking their mother tongues that were almost taken from them is powerful. 

As I start my own journey of language reclamation, I want to highlight other language activists right here in our backyard, in California and the broader U.S. Over the next semester, I will work to highlight projects, artists and experts who are helping keep endangered languages alive. I hope to showcase how language preservation, regardless of where it occurs, helps empower oppressed people across the globe. Slán!

Peyton Dacy is a junior writing about the importance of language revitalization as an indigenous language dies out every 40 days. Dacy’s column, “Every 40 days,” runs every other Tuesday. Dacy is also the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Director at the Daily Trojan.