In this Research Workshop with Dr Síobhra Aiken, Mitchell Institute Fellow Sabbatical Fellow 2024–25, we will discuss some of the methodological challenges of her current book project, which traces the utopian efforts of a group of Kerry-born immigrants in the industrial city of Springfield, Massachusetts to sustain an Irish-speaking enclave in their adopted home from the 1890s to the 1930s.

The case of Springfield is one of many examples of migrant communities across North America in the nineteenth and early twentieth century in which ethnic languages were passed on intergenerationally despite strong society pressure to adopt the language of the host country.  Springfield was somewhat unique, nevertheless, in that the community was based in an urban context and lived side by side with other immigrant groups.  Local community activists declared Springfield a ‘Gaeltacht’ and launched a range of ultimately frustrated efforts to preserve Irish as a community language: they established an Irish-language journal, boasted about their Irish-speaking football team, and attempted to convince parents to raise their children bilingually at a time when this was widely derided.

This project takes the case of one language community to probe larger questions about migration and linguistic displacement, about assimilation and community cohesion, and about the language rights of minority and migrant groups.  Central to the book is the tensions within migrant communities between those who value the preservation of cultural and linguistic identity and those who prioritise assimilation and anglicisation.

Participants in this Workshop are not excepted to have prior knowledge on the topic or period.  The discussion questions will focus on the broader implications and relevance of this project both historically and in the present, including:

• What are the language rights of minority and migrant groups?
• How do host communities cater for or inhibit linguistic continuity among migrant groups?
• What are the challenges of researching minoritised linguistic communities who seldom leave a trace on the official record of the host country?

Síobhra Aiken is a Senior Lecturer in Irish and Celtic Studies at Queen’s University Belfast and a member of the Young Academy Ireland (YAI). Her first monograph, Spiritual Wound: Trauma, Testimony and the Irish Civil War (2022) was awarded Royal Historical Society Whitfield Prize and the ACIS Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books in Language and Culture.