Last week I had the opportunity to attend a bilingual school holiday program on the Isle of Skye where the local primary school is split into English-medium and Gaelic-medium modes of education.

Starting in P1 (age 4-5), students on Skye have the choice to enroll in immersive Scottish Gaelic instruction that tapers off to include English-language classes by the middle of primary school. The goal is fluency in both Gaelic and English by the start of secondary (around age 12). Many families do not choose this option.

Descended from Old Irish and a close relative to Modern Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic has not yet enjoyed the same level of revitalization as Irish. There is an attitude I have picked up on in my travels that this “Definitely Endangered” (UNESCO) Indigenous language of Scotland is useless/for old people and rural bumpkins/only added to street signs for quaint tourist appeal.

Despite this, the number of Scottish Gaelic speakers has risen slightly over the last decade. According to the 2022 census of Scotland, 2.5% of people reported having some level of skill in Gaelic compared to 2011’s 1.1%. For comparison: Ireland’s 2022 census reported nearly 40% of its population has some skill in Irish Gaelic, and about 18% of the population of Wales are native Welsh (from the other branch of Celtic languages) speakers.

As I sat on a plastic chair listening to a group of Gaelic-medium 8-12 year olds singing carols in the language of Skye, I felt the old wooden beams of the Dunvegan Community Hall humming along with them. Having starry eyes for all things Indigenous revitalization and tracing half of my ancestry to Scotland, I felt that I would give so much to have this foundational bilingualism in Gaelic.

I thought of a poem I wrote this year called "No" after confirming that I would not be able to legally stay in the UK:

"I who know nothing
   Feel no magic in rowan
Call herbs by their Latin
   Pay rent to the chieftain

I who from nowhere
   Tread soft in your pasture
Long-forgotten daughter
   Who asks to stay longer"

And I thought of this section of Louis MacNeice’s 88-page poem “Autumn Journal” where he waxes pure angst about his birthplace, the North of Ireland, after studying and teaching in England for many years:

"Let the school-children fumble their sums 
  In a half-dead language;
[...]
  Let the games be played in Gaelic.
[...]
Why should I want to go back 
  To you, Ireland, my Ireland?
[...]
  [S]he gives her children neither sense nor money 
Who slouch around the world with a gesture and a
     brogue
  And a faggot of useless memories."

The whole poem is very much worth a read and contextualizes this attitude from MacNeice, writing in 1938, who I believe would be delighted to see the boom of Irish Indigenous cultural resurgence happening today in 2025. I would love to sit down with him and watch Belfast (2021) and Kneecap (2024).

Longing for pre-Christian, nature-based religions and endangered tongues I’ve never known, my own ancestral culture, is something I am trying to be more comfortable speaking about. Some British people will actively deride Americans for seeking out this connection, but I see this now as a colonial attitude that reinforces the category of Whiteness, i.e., “Stop trying to find an identity outside of White supremacy and capitalism!”

I believe it is a healthy desire for European-Americans to want to connect to their own long-forgotten traditions, and if done respectfully can actually create more room for the revitalization of Native American cultures and languages in Turtle Island and other expressions of decolonization.

My hope is that Scotland will continue to shrug off the shackles of the United Kingdom and pursue greater independence in all areas, including the promotion of Scottish Gaelic — recently officially recognized alongside Scots under the Scottish Languages Act 2025 (SLA 2025).

Shoutout to the young people of Skye who filled my eyes with tears and heart with hope, and to everyone bumbling along awkwardly in their reconnection with a pre-colonial past toward a post-colonial future.