TYPES OF IRISHNESS: IRISH GAELIC TYPOGRAPHY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY MATHEW D. STAUNTON In the 1980s and 1990s many Irish parents were disconcerted to find their children using the same script for their Gaelic and English language homework. For their generation the Irish language looked strange set in anything but a Gaelic font and they found it difficult to understand how the words could possibly sound the same set in Roman. There was a direct and organic connection between the language and its distinctive visual form. This was what they had learnt at school and they had no reason to question it. For their children’s generation the same education system broke this seemingly sacred connection and left the Irish language looking pretty much like French or Spanish on the printed page. This chapter explores the who and why of such a profound typographic change. Who is it that decides to abandon a national script or an alphabet? More importantly, who is in a position to orchestrate such an enormous change? And why? What do they gain? What exactly is at stake? Fig.1 The Irish Gaelic Alphabet 1 The first question is perhaps the easiest to answer. To impose a particular style of writing and printing on a national level you need to be a monarch, a dictator or a government minister, or to have a close connection with one. Adolf Hitler, Ataturk and, in the case of Ireland, Elizabeth I and Fianna Fáil have all changed the face of a national language and in so doing made it perfectly clear that there is nothing organic or direct about the relationship between a language and its letterforms. On the 1 This Gaelic font was designed by the graphic designer and calligrapher Jean-Baptiste Taisne and is used here with his kind permission.