Fáinne
Fáinní but often Fáinnes in English) is the name of a pin badge worn to show fluency in, or a willingness to speak, the Irish language.
All the personnel actively involved in promoting the concept of An Fáinne were associated with Conradh na Gaeilge, and from an early time, An Fáinne used the Dublin postal address of 25 Cearnóg Pharnell / Parnell Square, the then HQ of Conradh na Gaeilge though the organisations were officially separate, at least at first.
The effectiveness of the organisation was acknowledged in the Dáil Éireann on 6 August 1920, when Richard Mulcahy, the Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for Clontarf suggested that a league on the model of the Fáinne for the support of Irish manufactures might be established.
They spoke Irish, as did everyone from their village, so there was no point whatsoever wearing a pin to prove it, even if they could have afforded one, or for that matter, even known they existed.
According to Piaras Béaslaí's own article in the magazine Iris An Fháinne in 1922, he states that in the winter of 1915 the language movement was at a low ebb due to lack of funds and a large portion of the best Gaels being so involved in the work of the volunteers that they were forgetting about speaking Irish.
He says he wrote an article in The Leader proposing that Gaels establish an association of those who would take a solemn oath to only speak Irish at certain events and to other Gaeilgeoirí and that they should wear a clear symbol.
He says that he went to speak to Cú Uladh (Peadar Mac Fhionnlaíoch 1856–1942), then vice president of Conradh na Gaeilge, and he highly praised the idea.
The consistently high standard required to qualify for the Fáinne at this time made them quite prestigious, and there are many reports of people being recruited as night-school teachers of Irish-based purely on the fact they wore the pin.
Included among reasons commonly given for this were that the change in fashion made it impractical to wear a lapel pin; the resumption of hostilities in Northern Ireland making people either not wanting to show publicly a "love for things Irish" for fear of intimidation; or, for the more radical elements to place "Irishness" second to "freedom".
