Tír gan Teanga, Tír gan Anam: An Irish Stew?

This morning I am going to try to approach a topic which has been in the back of my mind for many years and which the theme of this congress and the presence of colleagues from varied linguistic backgrounds has obliged me to consider more explicitly: the position of Irish people with regard to their native tongue and in particular the effect of the position on our patients' sense of identity and on a practice of psychoanalysis that lays such emphasis on speech and language.…