The languages of transnationalism: translation, training, and transfer

Abstract

In the flows and connections that are central to transnational studies, language is a conduit that facilitates transfers; it allows for the movement of ideas and people across national and linguistic boundaries. In the case of transnational Irish studies, foreign languages have been both bridges and barriers: bridges in that they allow access and interaction with nonAnglophone worlds, but also barriers because Irish Studies has generally shied away from non-English-language investigations. The degree to which transnational Irish Studies has remained Anglophone, even when purporting to be global in nature, is striking. 1 Irish interactions with Australia, America, Canada, and Britain have, for obvious reasons, dominated Irish transnational studies, while connections with European and non-Anglophone countries have historically received little attention.2 In this article I wish to examine exchanges outside of the English-language domain in nineteenth-century Ireland in order to highlight important alternative dialogues that existed beyond the dominant English narrative. To illustrate these trends, I will use two case studies of multilingual Irish transnationalism from the nineteenth century. The first focuses on translation activity, and the second investigates the study of modern foreign languages in this period. Both will serve to illustrate the currents and circuits between Ireland and Europe that existed in the period and offer new perspectives on an Irish transnationalism that traverses not just national but also linguistic borders.