Let’s have a referendum on the status of Irish

‘When the Irish language is quite dead”, wrote Roger Casement, we will realise “that a race has passed away from the family of men, and that an ancient nation has ceased to exist.”

“That the nation may live”, wrote Patrick Pearse, “the Irish life . . . must be conserved.” That life was principally vested in the language; when the “last repositor” of that died, the Irish nation would be no more.

“Any ...