As part of the 200-Year Anniversary celbration of the Benevolent Irish Society in 2025, the Society is proud to feature at the Irish Hall a very select group of local and international speakers on Irish subjects. There are 8 lectures in total in the period of August 1 - August 16 and the range of topics is expected to be thoroughly thought provoking.

The lectures are free but we are asking for sign-up so that we can predict refreshment numbers.

THE IRISH-LANGUAGE REVIVAL MOVEMENT AND CANADA, 1898-1915

The ideology of the Irish-language revival movement in Ireland from the last quarter of the

nineteenth century deeply influenced the generation that founded the modern Irish state a

century ago. That ideology explains why Irish, though an endangered minority language, is

constitutionally the first official language of Ireland and why most Irish students still study Irish

until the age of 18.

The history of the Irish-language revival movement in Ireland is well-known. Indeed, the story

of that movement in the United States, including efforts to offer Irish emigrants and their

offspring opportunities to learn and use Irish, to provide Irish-language reading material in Irish-

American print media and to support financially the movement in Ireland, has been a rich field

of research for scholars in recent years. However, the story of the Irish-language revival

movement in Canada has received scant attention: in fact, it had long been accepted wisdom

that the was no Irish-language movement in Canada. Such a view is incorrect. The Irish in a

number of Canadian centres established Irish-language societies at the turn of the twentieth

century. This lecture will not only discuss these societies and identify the main individuals

involved in them but frame Irish-language activities in Canada both in the context of the history

of the Irish-language revival in general and, unsurprisingly, in keen interest in Ireland in

language matters in Canada, in particular the fortunes of French.