The Revival of the Irish Language Gerry OShea A central tenet of colonialism highlights the superiority of the ruling power in all facets of cultural expression. So, in 19th-century Ireland, the British overlords stressed in their words and attitude that their system of government, their literature, their games, their religion, and, of course, their language were far ahead of anything practiced locally. The Gaelic Revival, which included the foundation of the Gaelic Athletic Association and the emergence of outstanding Anglo-Irish writers like William Butler Yeats and John Millington Synge rejected these foreign suppositions of Irish inferiority. The Gaelic League, founded in 1893 with Douglas Hyde, son of a Protestant rector from county Roscommon as president, focused on promoting the study and use of the Irish language. They got a positive reception in all parts of the island because the second half of the 19 t...