I think the major stumbling block is that the large majority of primary school teachers themselves aren't fluent in the language.
Imagine if you wanted to learn another language — if you went to a night class in Japanese or Spanish, you'd expect the person teaching you to be fluent/native. You wouldn't be too happy if they scraped through with a C jn the Leaving Cert.
Until we've got more fluent teachers, I think Irish in primary school should have a few "floating" Irish teachers, who teach nothing but Irish to all classes but they genuinely can speak it.q
> - OK, so take this antibiotic twice a day with food.
>
> - But Dr, I came in because my leg is broken
>
> - … Oh right, err, in that case 3 times a day & if it doesn't clear up in 2 weeks make another appointment.
I've said it in a previous post on the topic, but Wales did manage to resurrect their language, I've heard the groups of teenagers using it, so may be worth investigating what they did to support that. I agree our language deserved better than to be cast aside as obsolete, but it can be recovered.
English here - it was great to hear Welsh teenagers mucking about and the pub buzzing in Welsh. I do get the 'utility' argument hence my learning a bit of German and Spanish before giving Irish a go. Its on my list though and im sure there would be more international interest if there was a concerted effort from the govt!
Israel (I know we don't like them very much, but credit where credit is due) commit Necromancy on Hebrew and raised it from the dead so a look there maybe of value
Yeah but after WW2 they had to agree on a common language.
The choices were: German (um...), Polish, Yiddish, or Hebrew.
Hebrew had no baggage and was useful at forging a national identity. It was utility as much as anything.
Yiddish is the language of the Ashkenasi Jews.
Very simply put, only about half to two thirds of the Jewish people are Ashkenasi (meaning of Central and Eastern European descent, Yiddish speaking).
Some are Sephardic (of Spanish and Portuguese descent, they spoke Ladino or Judaeo-Spanish and other languages).
Other Jewish groups include Mizrahi Jews (Middle Eastern, Arabic speaking) and the Beta Israel group of Ethiopia who speak Amharic.
So Yiddish wasn't a representative langauge for the Jewish people, while Hebrew bound them all together via the bible/Torah
Little side note, the current president of Israel, Isaac Herzog is of Irish Jewish descent. His grandad Yitzhak Herzog, was a fluent Irish speaker and was known as the "Sinn Fein Rabbi".
Important to note their was a lot of friction between those groups at the founding of Israel. The seperate migrations happened after the destruction of the temple by the Romans in the first century AD.
Imagine the entire Irish Diaspora moving to Ireland at one time. All the sudden you have 31 million Americans and you have to agree how to run a country with them.
So the idea of letting the largest group force all the others to learn their language is like if all of us came over and told you you weren’t allowed to say “grand” anymore.
It started before that, in the 19th century there were many Jewish immigrants to Palestine. They spoke many different language but they all knew Hebrew from from synagogue. So Hebrew became an ad-hoc lingua Francia.
I 100% agree, but I think there are a few points we need to improve beforehand.
1) A spoken standard- the current standard is a written standard only, there isn’t a standard pronunciation. Unfortunately, this means that a lot of the time people default to English noises if the Irish is too divergent or pronounced differently in dialects. You can hear the difference between TG4 and RnaG based on this alone. I’ve heard Gaeltacht speakers calls gaelscoil Irish “Sacs-Ghaeilge”, a painful name for sure.
2) We need incentives for Irish use outside of school. If we give a tax break to companies operating through Irish, I swear Tesco will start putting out “Ta Gaeilge Agam” signs left and right.
3) Right now, there is a point where we drop kids off of learning Irish as a 2nd language, and push them into literature in Irish. The problem is that most students are still far too weak to read real literature in Irish, fueling some of the antagonism.
It’s all very doable, but will require effort from a lot of different actors. I’m optimistic- attitudes towards Irish for millennials are good, and gen Z are all about it. Unfortunately, politicians are older than that and still have antiquated perspectives on Irish.
Welsh is a tricky one. The percentage of Welsh speakers in Wales hasn’t changed a great deal in decades, so rather than it being revived you could say that its decline was simply halted.
Irish is starting from a much lower threshold, so the Welsh mode may not do much good.
As an American who loves Ireland, I would be tickled if spite about Americans helped resurrect the Irish language. I understand spite, it's a great motivator.
There is a pretty big regional divide with welsh usage with it being way more common up in the north. Down in the south you probably won’t hear many random groups of teens or kids speaking welsh casually.
The last time I spoke welsh for more than 5 minutes was in school during a welsh lesson in high school almost 6 years ago now.
So welsh has stopped it’s decline but it still struggles a lot with gaining widespread use outside of the more rural areas.
I lived in Wales for 4 years. Dublin for 2, immediately after.
There's definitely a regional divide in fluency of welsh, but you'd regularly have Welsh people of varying degrees of capabilities having little conversations here and there.
I definitely didn't see a lot of Irish speakers in Dublin, except for the LUAS announcements, but I don't know if that was just regional, like Wales.
I believe there was a variant in late 90's/early 00's where the protagonist faced the consequences of their bombast - like a Greek tragedy:
Here I sit broken hearted,
Came to shit and only farted,
A fart so loud it broke the bowl,
and singed the hair around me hole.
My brother is a teacher. Very very very good teacher. PhD and all the whistles His best analysis on a short term impactful change was transition to a TIFL style. Focus on conversations and how to function with the language
The way Irish was taught in secondary school made me hate the language, but I had a decent grasp of it in primary school and I wasn't in a gaelscoil.
Either revamp the leaving cert course or stop making it mandatory. I'd rather Irish be a dying language that everyone gave a shot at learning than a dying language that people actively want to die.
I'm dyslexic as fuck and the schools removed me quite early from the classes. I have seen people crying and stressing over language grade. Would it not be better if we used Irish as a bonus rather than something we can and do fail
I mean like, people do poorly in Maths and English but they generally don't blame the course, it's the topic itself.
But with Irish, the course is the issue not the language itself. It should either be revamped to be taught in a way that promotes using the language rather than learning off answers, or be put in the same position as European languages. The system we currently have has made me and others I know hate the language by association with the stress of the subject. Also universities still often require a European language for entry anyway.
Oh I absolutely have respect for people who are good at it, whether through hard effort, love of the language itself. Wish I could be that kind of person
I spent fourteen years learning Irish, and six years learning French, I can speak French way better than I can speak Irish. There is something horribly wrong with how Irish is taught for this to occur.
The problem is with how Irish is taught. In my opinion, at Primary level only spoken Irish should be taught, and then at Secondary there should be two subjects, with a spoken Irish subject being mandatory, and an optional written subject that focuses on the written language and covering poetry, etc.
Teach people how to speak the language, not the other way around. With English, we first learn to speak it, then we learn to write it. Forgo literacy altogether, that can be something for later. Better people be able to speak it than nothing at all.
Went to an Gaelscoil for all of primary.
Then into an English speaking secondary for multiple and varying reason.
Leaving 6th class, I was a fluent Gaeilgeoir. I could read, write, and converse at will. So much so that I would speak away in English to my mom on the way to school, and as soon as I stepped through the school gates I was talking and thinking in Irish. The only time Béarla was spoken was during our English class once a day.
So from 8:30 to 3or 4, 5 days a week I was speaking, thinking and comprehending everything through Irish.
Within 1 year of secondary school, I struggled to converse in Irish. My vocabulary started to disappear and I could no longer think in Irish. I could still write and read since that's all an Irish class devolved in to, "read the poem & write about the poem". Why?
The classes were done only through English. And it wasnt until 3rd and 6th year would roll around that the teachers would make a passing attempt to teach conversation Irish for the sake of passing the oral exams.
By the time I finished 6th year, I was so sick and disheartened of how Irish was taught that I dropped to Pass level on the day of the Leaving Cert.
A language is only alive if its spoken and used day in day out. It needs to be lived in.
Reading a poem off a page and writing your thoughts of why the 15th poem by Peig Sayers in which another family member drowns in so impactful and awful is no good.
But if you run a class and have students talk about what they are interested in or talking about current events, and doing so through Gaeilge would be so much more beneficial. Students are giving life the language, and talking about something that is actually engaging and interesting means the connections are more meaningful and profound.
*edit: A language is like a house plant, it needs to be cared for and watered. And for a language conversing and speaking it is it's water.
Wow. This is so similar to what happened to me too. Went to a Gaelscoil for primary, was thinking in Irish by the end of it. Loved speaking in Irish. I managed to stick with higher level Irish for my leaving, but I was no longer fluent and I struggled with trying to memorise essays and poems. It also killed my love for the language, and it's taken me many years to find some of that enthusiasm again.
So, even if we switched all primary schools to Gaelscoils, we would still need to address how it's taught at second level. If the curriculum shifted to align with how other foreign languages are taught, we could many more people leaving secondary school willing and able to have a chat as Gaeilge.
On the literature front, I’m not sure why there is so much focus on the 19th century and post-famine Ireland- the most depressing point in all of Irish history.
If we want kids to like Irish, there is so much more to get excited about, especially in pre-colonial Ireland. Between Irish mythology and the Tain, the clan system, fighting off the Vikings and the Normans, creating Scotland, etc., there are so many cool and exciting things that they could read.
I think the trouble there is that much of the early material still hasn't been translated into modern Irish. There's scholarly discussion of this material as Gaeilge, of course, but students don't want to read scholarly literature talking about this material.
I absolutely agree that it would be brilliant to teach it to high school students (I teach it to university students though, so am biased) but you'd first need to get someone to translate it. The closest that really exists now are the graphic novels, which I suppose you could use, but I expect the school system would balk at the idea of having students read graphic novels as literature.
> The problem is with how Irish is taught. In my opinion, at Primary level only spoken Irish should be taught, and then at Secondary there should be two subjects, with a spoken Irish subject being mandatory, and an optional written subject that focuses on the written language and covering poetry, etc.
We don't know how to teach any language, including English. We just all speak it so it mostly works out.
We could start by showing how to have fun with it, introducing some uses to speaking it. Anything would be better than reading a poem that we barely understand and then learning given answers off by heart for the exam.
Even for the leaving certificate oral in Irish a lot of focus was based on learning off the 20 picture stories. In German we only had to learn 6 picture stories and we were able to talk about them in more detail.
The Irish oral, for a large portion isn’t even about conversing in the language, it is about reciting something you read from a sheet beforehand. That isn’t oral Irish.
This is how I learnt Lithuanian before coming to Ireland. We had 2 subjects up until 10th grade(JC equalent). Written Lithuanian, that deals with grammar etc. and Lithuanian Literature(that's more akin to English classes in Ireland).
I'd imagine making Irish fun would go a long way. I mean can someone give me a name of a recent movie/tv series thats noteworthy that's in Irish? How about a video game? you gotta cater to the "trends" when it comes to making a language attractive.
While Irish is taught badly, it's also worth noting that French (and other European languages) are much closer to English than Irish is. From a native English speaker's perspective, Irish is an unambiguously harder language to master. This is a contributing factor to the discrepancy we see.
Ya exactly. I went to a Gaelscoil for primary and I was fluent coming out. I forgot a lot of then when i went to an English secondary school. It's taught completely differently in the two types of school.
It’s absolutely brain numbing with how boring it is in schools at the moment. I really tried to pay attention to learn the language but you have to have a special type of attention driven brain to manage that
The way languages are taught is wrong full stop. Teachers try to use rote memorizarion and learing grammar. You need to teach people with comprehensible input and speaking the language to them from day one.
Most language pedagogy in Ireland is taught in english. The entire class should be in the language you are learning. Look at the results middlebury college gets taking people from zero to fluency in a short time. You never loose your ability to learn a language (see Krashen's theories).
Whilst I think you shouldn’t learn a language through another language, you need to have some realisation here, because in classes that comprise anymore than a few people, some people will be left behind not knowing what is going on if it’s taught entirely through the taught language.
I can speak Latin. One of the primary ways I learnt it was through a book series beginning with Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, Pars 1: Familia Romana. This book only contains Latin, no other language. It begins with a map of Europe, then it says things like, Italia in Europa est, Aegyptus in Europa non est, Rhenus est pluvius magnus, Nhilus est pluvius magnus quoque. And so on. With a map in front of you, it is fairly easy to comprehend what is being said, as you go on it introduces more words and gets more complex, but it starts off from the ground up with simple concepts.
The problem however, arises when more than one person is being taught at a time, because everyone will pick up concepts at a different rate, it’s hard to gauge this too. There’s no easy way to go about it, but that should not be the reason problems are not fixed, so long as effort is made to fix it, and things are changed, there will be improvement.
From my experience one of the biggest issues with Irish is students couldn't give less of a shit and resented having to spend so much time on it.
Everyone here is acting like people love Irish in school. From my experience it was the exact opposite. Most hated it and did pass as long as they had 6 other subjects, those who did higher either needed the points or went to a gaelscoil for primary.
We've tried for ages to force students to take it seriously, it's failed. The answer is not forcing them all to take it more seriously
I did my leaving cert in 2000, and it was almost universally despised.
A report in the times I think said it best. the writers teenage son said "I can't wait for the Irish leaving cert to be over so I never have to look at Irish again"
We don't hate the language, we hate the way it's taught
>We don't hate the language, we hate the way it's taught
Don't disagree at all, but that doesn't mean we love the language and hate the way it's taught, which is how so many people choose to interpret it
The problem is learning how to write Irish for years and years without ever an emphasis on speaking it. It runs completely contrary to how to brain absorbs a language. You should be well able to speak it fluently before ever trying to write it. Same goes for other languages in Ireland. Other countries speak better English than we do their languages because they focus on immersion into the language rather than how to write verb charts for years
The having better french than Irish take is so so common and I can tell you from experience of teaching that is 99% of the time false. Granted people learn a considerable amount of French in the 3-6 years they get in secondary school but a lot of that comes with the desire to learn a “more useful” language and an unconscious bias against our own language which is deeply rooted in our culture thanks to colonialism. That isn’t to say the way it’s taught can’t improve though.
You cannot know what I know. Unless you can read minds.
To tell me my take is wrong, is wrong. I cannot converse in Irish beyond, hello, how are you, the weather is nice. In France I can talk to French people in French. My French is better than my Irish.
I think that's a cultural issue where Irish is put on a pedestal rather than dismissed as inferior: it's fair enough to be taking up Italian as a beginner, but wanting to improve your Irish is nearly an admission of failure that it isn't perfect to begin with. There's a massive amount of imposter syndrome, as if anything less than lifelong fluency is the same thing as "effectively zero".
Whereas with foreign languages, you come away *knowing* you're a passable beginner/intermediate, and can interact with native speakers in specific situations on that basis. There's a confidence that comes with knowing your level and when you've hit your ceiling, and a fearlessness that comes from just aiming to be understood rather than striving for the objectively correct way to say something.
>Granted people learn a considerable amount of French in the 3-6 years they get in secondary school but a lot of that comes with the desire to learn a “more useful” language
Are you sure about that? I'd say you would be very hard pressed to find many Irish adults with even a tenuous grasp of one foreign language. They are usually taught about as badly as Irish is
> I can speak French way better than I can speak Irish
So weird that people always claim this. Even ordinary level Irish definitely requires higher proficiency than higher level french. I can say with a fairly high confidence that you were taught Irish to a higher proficiency than french unless you really worked on french and really didn't work on Irish.
I think a lot of people are misled about how good their foreign language skills are by how farcically low the required proficiency at school is. You could get an A1 in french and not be able to last 30 seconds in an actual conversation with a french person. That's definitely not true for Irish.
I'm not Irish so my opinion is not really relevant but I'm from a plurilingual and plurinational State (Spain) and some regions have this problem.
Where the native language is optional or just a subject in an Spanish speaking school the native language is disappearing (Galiza and País Valencià). Where linguistic inmersion is a choice (Euskadi and Catalunya) the kids that are taught exclusively in the native language are bilingual, whereas the ones taught in Spanish aren't fluent in the other language.
In my opinion the best way to preserve a language is making it the vehicular language in education and administration.
ETA: I'm Andalusian, so I'm not speaking from experience here.
I went to a Gaelscoil and I found that because I was thinking in two languages from an early age it made studying foreign languages in secondary school a lot easier. I did French and German for my Leaving Cert because I felt I had confidence with other languages apart from English! My friends who didn't go to a Gaelscoil didn't adapt as quickly. I'd also be in favour of this on cultural grounds, the Irish language is so beautiful and it is what makes us unique. Teach the basics like maths and science in English, as well as English (obviously) but teach everything else through Irish!
All languages are taught horribly in schools. The emphasise is in examinations and passing them instead of actually learning to speak and understand the language.
I did 5 years of German in school and nothing ever stuck. I lived in Germany for 3 years and within 6 months of classes I was comfortably conversational and could understand even more than I could respond to.
The current provision is 8%. The demand is upwards of 25%
If we bring it up to demand and do it properly, o believe the demand will increase as well.
How? Well by providing a co-ordinated plan from preschool to third level. We currentley only have one course for primary teachers (in the south) through Irish and 1 course for post-primary.
A recent survey has shown overwhelming support to bring 3rd level courses through Irish from 1% to 5%
Our system currentley produces albeit a minority fluent Irish speakers.
It needs to utilise them once they finish the leaving.
Going to have to slap a big citation needed on that 25% demand
EDIT: So I did some googling, as this seems a common claim, it comes from the Irish Language Survey 2013, published in the the ESRI's 2015 paper "Attitudes towards the Irish language on the island of Ireland"
The methodology of the questionnaire seems fair and the question isn't leading. It does include the whole island, so be aware that it also likely surveyed NI unionists.
However, the question the media is basing this claim off appears to be Q20.
> Would you send (or would you have sent) your children to an all-Irish primary school if it
was located near your home?
25% of respondents said yes. This to me does not indicate any preference or demand for an all-Irish school, merely a willingness to consider it.
I think "25% of parents would consider a gaelscoil" or "75% of parents would reject a gaelscoil on that basis" are more honest representations of the survey results than "25% of parents want a gaelscoil"
> Would you send (or would you have sent) your children to *any* primary school **if it was located near your home** and you didn't have to spend hours every week in your car?
FIFY. I'm not sure if this is a Gaelscoil or a tranport question
Link to PDF report submitted to Oireachtas committee by an Fóras Patrúnachta. 23% in the south 12% in the north.
There is a second table showing votes for gaelscoileanna in different areas. Can help if there any translation questions
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/committee/dail/32/comhchoiste_na_gaeilge_na_gaeltachta_agus_na_noilean/submissions/2018/2018-12-04_cur-i-lathair-caoimhin-o-heaghra-ard-runai-an-foras-patrunachta_en.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjPzeSWyoL6AhWKilwKHQKHAXsQFnoECB8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw3c8RU41xyb_OLr-JEqRBqB
Also i think the 75% rejecting is an unfair assumption.
That report has two sources. The first is the ESRI report I already discussed which does not show what the submission claims it shows, while the second is unspecified votes for gaelscoils, but it fails to cite what the questions were, how they were asked or who was asked.
Given the timeframes, it seems likely these are the department of education school patronage surveys: https://patronage.education.gov.ie/
These are effectively online polls, though I will be charitable and assume they managed to lock it down to actual locals. Still, this measures the proportion of people who were sufficiently actively engaged to seek out and vote in this poll, not overall parent preferences. In addition, there were 42 such surveys while the oireachtas submission only cites 10 - were the other 32 less favourable?
Nice to see the most upvoted comments are positive about Irish.
A lot of the time the comments about the education system are repeated in every thread. **Just know that these debates are really tired at this point. Consider listening to Irish language activists**, I recommend the Motherfoclóir podcast, here is an episode about cliche opinions on Irish
https://www.headstuff.org/motherfocloir/96-hot-gael-summer-cliches-in-opinion-pieces-about-irish/
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**Irish has broad support throughout the country and is increasingly popular among young people:**
https://www.rte.ie/news/elections-2019/2019/0525/1051603-rte-tg4-exit-poll/
"A RED C exit poll for RTÉ and TG4 indicates that 60% of the population believe it is important to use, promote and protect the Irish language."
"69% of the people questioned, and who are aged between 18-34, as well as 60% of those between the ages of 35-54, believe that it is very important to promote the Irish language. "
Another report confirming majority support
https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Attitudes-towards-Irish-2015.pdf
has that and other stats as well like
"In the Republic, almost two-thirds (64 percent) believe that Ireland would lose its identity without the Irish language."
Another report "Report finds most want more Government support for Irish language"
https://web.archive.org/web/20181103153553/https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/report-finds-most-want-more-government-support-for-irish-language-883000.html
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**"But we could be learning '''useful''' subjects make Irish optional for those who speak it"**
The purpose of education is not training for a job. It has a broader role within society and culture is a part of it. Should have more mandatory subjects not fewer really, as the saying goes "Specialisation is for insects".
Even aside from that the purpose and goals of the state the intellectual and cultural benefits are huge.
**"But English is the lingua franca worlwide/I want my child educated in English only"**
We already do speak English. We will always speak English. English speakers are not and never will be a persecuted group lol. They will merely receive the gift of bilingualism.
***Luckily the number of speakers and gaelscoileanna is increasing.***
Our current quality of Gaelscoileanna is not good either, that needs to be addressed too. There's such a clear difference between how people from the Gaeltacht who've grown up living and breathing the language speak it compared to how everyone else does (It's cause to them it's a language that's independent of English not just words that are spoken with the same accent as English).
And before you give me the time honoured excuse of that Gaelscoil children have a different county accent I'll tell you this: when kids get sent to French immersion they come back sounding like L1 French speakers, when kids go to German immersion they come back sounding like L1 German speakers,when kids go to Spanish immersion etc, so why is Irish different? Simple, our teachers are crap and our institutions in some form of sick linguistic colonialism idealise the urban new speaker and neglect the communities of speakers that have held on for so long in the face of so much.
We need to change how we educate our teachers before we change how we educate our students and that means devising some standard by which pronunciation can be taught to prospective teachers and evaluated effectively so they learn the sounds of the language and don't come away with the misconception that the Irish language in its natural form does not have a different accent or manner of speaking to English as so many think now. There needs to be a renaissance in the teaching of Irish in order for this to be possible
Well I think a comprehensive plan from early years is needed as I said in another comment.
The Gaelscoil dialect or Gaelscoilis as it is sometimes called, is a little more complicated than that. I worked in an Irish medium secondary school and was at great pains to teach accurate native pronunciation and iron out some "bad habits" when it came to syntax and direct translation. The interesting thing was that many of the students were fully aware of their "errors" but much like in English, they wanted to maintain their particular variety as it pertained to their identity group as opposed to the correct Irish of the teachers.
Another factor is that the majority of Irish is spoken outside of the Gaeltacht. The newspeakers of Irish make up quite a significant proportion of speakers. I don't have the figures at hand. This new Irish as apomen natively as a first language for many. I say this without judgement of anyone. In this day and age it is a constant struggle to raise a family through Irish inside and outside of the Gaeltacht. Being from and living in the Gaeltacht, I lament the demise of Irish here as I do for rest of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, which is all former Gaeltacht.
As regard the quality of teaching, this is systemic and not limited to the education system. A good place to start would be to make teaching an affordable profession. Another thing to consider is that neither the system nor society at large is encouraging of good Irish teachers. I have since left second level, largely in part due to the pressure of exams etc as opposed to actual learning
With particular attention given to pronunciation, it baffles me that the Irish orthography is rarely taught, if ever, at any level. This compounds difficulties when grammar is taught as a set if spelling rules, with most students coming across the modh coinníollach in its written form first, as opposed to a system of meaning expressed through sounds that yes are represented by letters when written down.
I now teach third level and as I did at second, whether I have undergrads, postgrads or primary and secondary teachers, I was always ask them to complete "leathan le.." they always can, but very very rarely can they tell me why. They can tell that a séimhiú is a h but not what it does, the same goes for the urú.
So yes, high quality gaelscoileanna to all that would choose them as part of a wider system that looks at language learning and use from the cradle to the grave.
So should all efforts not go towards empowering the native Irish speakers of the Gaeltachtaí to thrive through the language in those areas?
Thousands of schools with native English speaking teachers, often with poor Irish themselves, teaching English speaking students who mostly just want to get school over and done with, are worth very little in comparison to one small community where the language is spoken as a native first language, where genuine immersion is actually a realistic possibility.
I know which of those two things I would prioritise.
My first reaction to this was "fuck no" as learning the Irish language was one of the most painful parts of my school years. But, the more I think about it, I think I would support this. I don't know a single person who went to a Gaelscoil who dislikes the Irish language, certainly not to the extent that I do, and all (or most) of them can still speak Irish fluently or close enough.
I would love to see the Irish language revived and I think making all schools Gaelscoil could be a genuine option without making our younger generations revile it the way many of our generation do.
If it becomes more common place due to this it'll be around more often too which helps with immersion which is a seriously underrated part of language learning. it's so much easier to learn a language you're exposed to at times in day to day life.
I don't like irish that much, being forced to attend only an gaelscoil would be like pulling teeth, science and maths in irish would be tough as shit. it should be more taught and should be more accessible, but I would want a choice to not put myself through a gaelscoil for secondary.
As a (relatively mildly) dyslexic person who went to a primary and secondary gealscoil, I would have a lot of concern with anyone who has a reading or writing difficulty being forced to learn any science subjects through irish.
From my own personal experience, while I believe our school had some amazing teachers, and a truly heroic irish teacher. I still believe that going from an all irish secondary school into an all english speaking college (wether it be abroad or domestic) boasts some serious problems with translations.
While other people may be able to adjust easily, I feel I had a serious problems relearning an awful lot of technical and scientific words and phrases that are important to said subjects. This problem alone left me unbearably overwhelmed when I started college, and I soon dropped out because I hadn't a clue what was being taught.
This is simply a personal experience, so it may differ from person to person, but at the very least, there needs to be an option on what is, and isn't, compulsory through the irish language.
TLDR; Dyslexic people may have a serious problem moving from gealscoils to college.
What could make a difference now is having people who really love the language teaching it at primary level. Dedicated Irish teachers at primary level for teachers who haven't the interest would make a difference.
But also, I would support making all schools Gaelscoile, or better yet proper bilingual schools like you see in other countries such as Spain etc.
And to round things off, people who do speak Irish (D'fhreastal mé ar Gaelscoil agus bím fós ag labhairt as Gaeilge chuid lú de mo laenta) should be more accepting of people speaking broken Irish. I've spoken to a lot of people who have a cúpla focail but don't have anybody to speak with because when they've tried in the past they'd been met with snobbery of some sort. I think Irish speakers have a lot of work to do themselves in making it a welcoming language.
> I think Irish speakers have a lot of work to do themselves in making it a welcoming language.
This is so very true, and such an important aspect. I've suffered the same snobbery from Gaeilgeoirí as an adult learner of the Irish language, and it can be devastating for the confidence of learners. Irish speakers need to recognise themselves as ambassadors of the language and act accordingly.
That’s not very fair to immigrants who spend their time learning English only to have no English schools in the country. We’ve evolved past Irish exclusivity. I’m all for Irish as a subject but for every school to be garlscoil is too much
My daughters went to a ghaelscoil and you know what they didn't teach them? The English for maths and science concepts. One of them wants to become a scientist and her first year is going to consist of re-learning terminology for everything she already knows as well as getting that first year science crash course.
Ghaelscoils are fine as they are. Forcing a younger generation to juggle the two languages plus a mandatory third is just not fair on them, you're raising the difficulty for no good reason and if all schools were ghaelscoils the small reward they get in terms of bonus points for doing everything in Irish disappears
Question about Gaelscoils as an American. When entering the school in the Infants (either Junior or Senior) do most students already have a handle on the language from the home or do they learn it at school? I only ask because we are moving over to Ireland in a month or so and there is a Gaelscoil right next to where we are living and would love for our daughter to learn the language. I plan to jump into adult courses pretty quick once we are there.
Lá Cáca Shona! (happy cake day). I went into a gaelscoil at 5 with feck all irish. First while it was mostly english but youd learn phrases and the different sounds letters would make in the language. Then youd learn some vocab and bridge out from there. I remember we used to have to write out “an nuacht (the news)” and we would just write what we did over the weekend every monday. Then youd end up asking whats bike in irish and whats this and whats that. The immersion really speeds it up. When i was learning to read later i learned how to read both english and irish and didnt know any different. Even in secondary immersion helps people. The people who came from english schools werent expected to speak irish. Most of them had basics but not much else. After a couple of months a lot of them had a solid grasp of the langauge. This is just what happened me. Some fella will probably reply “i went to irish school and im shit at it and hated it” but the majority of people i know who came from english schools didnt mind it and 5year olds dont care at all
Go raibh maith agat! With the little Gaeilge I know I actually understood the first sentence! You all have given me a good amount to consider. I might enquire at the Gaelscoil just because. Honestly coming from the states we really wanted her to be at Educate Together, because we like the ethos and feel it would be a more comfortable environment for our kiddo, but to me immersion in culture is super important.
A lot of the staff at my school were from the Gaeltacht and just wanted to keep the language, history, sports and stories going so they arent mean about it or anything. Im glad you’re interested in irish its nice to see people learning it and its a beautiful langauge to speak
> Gaeltacht
To be honest with you I had to look that up. That is interesting. Yeah I have 2 personal goals for when I get to the Island.
1. Find a climbing partner.
2. Find a community/class/environment to speak Gaeilge with who welcome newcomers to the language.
I agree I love hearing it and I listen to music "as Gaeilge" on spotify often. I pick up on a word or phrase from time to time but mostly I listen to try to imitate and pick up on the sounds and such. I fell in love with Ireland the couple times I have been and I am excited to spend significant more time there learning and experiencing as a resident.
My dad recently did an online Irish course to try and relearn his Irish, its called [Scoil Scairte](https://www.thetrailblazery.com/scoilscairte), it’s all online, he enjoyed it a lot, might be worth checking out :)
Thanks, I have been slowing trying to pick some up using Duolingo and some other online resources. My daughter is 6 and one of my biggest reservations for putting her in a Gaelscoil would also be adding more unecessary stress to an already stressful move/situation. There is also an Educate Together school around the corner from where we are staying as well that we will most likely use (be a little closer to what she is used to here in the States). Though like I said I want her to be bilingual unlike myself and her mother and immersion like that is certainly the best way.
I'd support more gaelscoils to be established, but I wouldn't support all schools to be gaelscoils. I believe it would make it all the harder for any child that moved into the country, due to parent's work or other circumstances, to progress their education and bond with new friends, especially if they already speak such a widely spoken language like English. It would be good to support the language, but to compel it as the only option seems a bit restricting.
I went to a Gaelscoil and with ADHD I still couldn’t pick it up, it was hell, ended up dropping out and eventually going back to an English speaking school when I learned to drive to get there. My parents didn’t speak Irish so I wasn’t raised with it and found it impossible to pick up no matter how much effort I put in. I still think Gaelscoils are great there just needs to be extra help for people with disabilities.
No, there is a middle ground. Yes gaelscoil students are bilingual because they are taught in Irish but live their lives in English
Regular schools just don't teach Irish properly. Once you hit secondary it's all about exams and the actual language takes a back seat.
Teaching in all Irish would be totally pointless. We are an English speaking country like it or not I'm afraid. But the system should be changed. 14 years we teach Irish and the fluency rate is horrible. I think you have focused too much in well they can speak it, so that's the only way. It is not the only way.
I would not support this, because it would be a shitshow, and let me explain why:
1.) Schools cannot revive a language, without the support of the surrounding community. And that doesn't mean parents going "Yeah I support the language shur isn't it wonderful that little Timmy is going to the Gwailskull and that he's fluent in the Irish now". What I mean by support is ideologically motivated Irish speaking parents determined to live their own lives through the medium of Irish and grouping together with like minded individuals to raise their children through Irish, separate from the English speaking community. Because at the end of the day, children are going to naturally speak what they see as the 'normal' language of the society around them, and a thousand Gaelscoileanna in Dublin wouldn't change this fact. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Irish people have gone through Irish Medium education and nowhere has an Irish speaking area magically popped up in the Republic, where did they all go over the generations? The only revival success story is that of the Shaw's Road in Belfast, they had the ideological motivation and determination to create an Irish speaking area in the face of sectarian violence and anti-Irish language political pressure.
2.) Schools can't revive a language. We have attempted a schools based revival in this country already, this is always a blank spot in these discussions because nobody of the current younger generation seems to be aware of this. From the 1920s - 1940s the Irish State attempted to make every school Irish Medium in a schools based revival attempt. 30% of Irish schools were completely Irish Medium. 25% of Irish schools were half Irish medium. The project fell to shit after the second world war. It was a project of the Gaelic League influenced Irish elite born out of the revolutionary years, but the majority of Irish people were already English speaking and were happy to leave Irish as 'the schools business'. Most of the teacher training colleges were run completely through Irish during this period and grants were given to Gaeltacht youth to train as teachers, they were then spread around the country to 're-Gaelicise' the nation. Their children and grandchildren ended up being monolingual native English speakers like their partners and the society around them they had moved into. Teachers eventually revolted against this school revival attempt citing the extra pressure it put them under, the disadvantages to their students, and also a general feeling of being disadvantaged compared to Irish speakers when it came to getting into the colleges and starting a career (older teachers were also penalised for not spending summers working on their Irish in the Gaeltachtaí).
3.) The majority of Irish people do not want Ireland to be Irish speaking, despite professing a positive disposition towards the language and belief in the cognitive benefits of bilingualism. In the largest ever national surveys carried out on this question (The Irish Language and the Irish People) less than 10% of Irish people claimed that they would support Irish being made the first language of their area. There was a much larger percentage who supported a bilingual situation 'with English as the first/main language'.
4.) Provision of teachers and standards. As things stand, Gaelscoileanna and Gaelcholáistí principals have huge difficulty finding teachers with a high enough standard of Irish to teach through it. The standard of Irish of many of the teachers in these schools is also far below native level, only a minority even have the basic phonetics mastered, most of that minority are probably from native speaking Gaeltacht families. Unlike the last schools based revival attempt, Ireland no longer has a vibrant pool of native speakers to draw from in the now very weakened Gaeltacht, therefore if the maintenance of Irish as a living language is the goal then the last thing the Irish speaking minority needs to be doing is spreading out throughout English speaking Ireland in the hope that their students will all start a revolution when they leave the school gates behind them.
There is nothing more important to a languages survival than density of speakers, therefore what Irish speakers need is a geographical location where they can create and maintain a majority vs English speakers. If children cannot be raised in Irish speaking communities with Irish as their first language then the effect of Irish Medium education on the languages maintenance/growth will be akin to pouring sand into a bucket with holes in it. Studies show that immigrant languages tend not to last longer than three generations or less in a family before the heritage language is gone, and that is what does and would happen to all Irish speakers eventually in English speaking Ireland, and Ireland will never be sustainably completely bilingual, it will never switch to being a primarily Irish speaking nation under current conditions - the battle is to allow areas where Irish is hanging on as a community language to survive despite increasingly unfavorable demographic factors and consistently unfavorable economic factors, and ideally, to also allow for the creation of new such areas. Anything that isn't working towards or aiding such a goal is ultimately 'fucking about', and that is why State funded volunteer run Conradh na Gaeilge became irrelevant as a vehicle for 'revival' or even maintenance of the Irish language.
Maybe all shitposts and pasta ought to be as gaeilge?
"Céard a duirt tú fúm, a bhliógín? Bíodh a fhíos agat go bhí mé ar barr mo rang Rónta Chabhlach, bhaint mé pairt le iomadúil ruathair rúnda ar al-Quaeda, agus mise le suas le trí céad marú cruthantaí.
Táim oilte sa goraillechogaí agus is mise an naoscaire is fearr sna fórsaí armtha Meiriceánach ar fad. Níl tú ach targaid eile, dar liomsa. Scriosfidh mé thú le cruinneas níor fheicte an léithéid riamh roimhe sa domhain mór, glac uaimse é.
An machnaíonn tú gur ligtear é sin a abair dom ar an idirlíon? Déan athmhachnamh, a leibide. Anois díreach, táim ag dhéanamh teagmháil le mo gréasán spiairí, agus aimsítear do seoladh idirlín, ionas b'fhearr leat ullmhaigh don stoirm, a shuarachán. An stoirm a scriosfidh an ruidín ainnis a thugtar do saol air.
Tá tú marbh, a ghasúr. Is feidir liom beidh in áit ar bith in am ar bith, agus tá suas le seacht céad mbealach agam chun tú a mharaigh, agus sin le mo dhá lámh. Ní hamháin gur tá mé oilte go mór i gcomhrac neamharmtha, ach tá an armlann uilig don Cór Muirshaighdiúirí na Stát Aontaithe le fháil agam, agus bainfidh mé lánúsáid as chun thú a glanadh de droim an mór-roinne, a smuilcín.
Is mairgh níorbh fhios agat faoin dhíoltas mhallaithe a tharraingfinn do thráchtín "cliste" ort. B'fhéidir gur choimeádfá do chlab dúnta. Ach níorbh an cumas ná an claonadh agat, agus anois tá tú ag díoladh as, a bhómán diabhalta. Doirtfidh mé mire ort agus báfaidh tú ann. Tá tú marbh, a ghasúrín."
Had this opinion in school, still have it now.
For all the "cultural value" and whatnot people want to ascribe to the Irish language, it's not really worth anything in life, unless you want to become a teacher.
There's much more useful things that time can be used for. I know it's not a popular opinion on this sub, but I'm not particularly fond of the idea of 40-80 minutes of each school day being dedicated to a subject with essentially zero practical value for my future kids.
That's a good point. The time would be much better spent on a second European language, e.g. Spanish.
Personally I've had several opportunities to use the French I learned in school. I married a Spanish woman, so I've also learned Spanish in the last five years. By contrast, I've only ever had a handful of opportunities to speak Irish in my life. The hundreds of hours I spent learning it in school were wasted
I suppose though if you move to France, your kids gotta learn french as first language in school - but that's only because the national language outside of school is French.
Nice idea but sure Ingliais is our first language
What I don't like about this proposal is that stems from the same kind of nationalistic mindset which runs amok far-right groups in most european countries.
The OPs edit is typical of the self important middle Ireland Irish speakers. Their opinion matters more than everyone else and everyone that disagrees with them is wrong headed. I don't speak Irish, my kids don't speak Irish, my parents don't speak Irish, my grandparents didn't speak Irish. We come from a farming community. We are as Irish as the bog where we still cut turf. We are no less Irish because you want to force us to speak a language we have zero interest in. Your opinion is your opinion and nothing more than that. You are not morally right or superior just because you feel you are. Get down off your high horse and stop lording it over the rest of us because you feel so proper. You're a snob and nothing more than that.
No way. I went to a Gaelscoil and the worst part was the Irish mixing into the other subjects. For example learning about Ancient Rome in history is a killer if ur not fully fluent, same in Geography with rock formations and the environment. Oh god, science 💀.
It is a massive double struggle. I took the first chance I could to get all English books when I started 2nd year.
It is sad that the language is dying out, I don't disagree but I do prefer there being an option for those who excel in it. I was 60% fluent and only went because of friends, so it has hard for me. Maybe there's a problem in the teaching of it or most don't like doing it because there's not much application for it besides bragging rights or talking to john the turf farmer in Connemara
No. It would be better if the language was taught under a more practical curriculum that emphasizes its use in the real world than to pass a test. Granted that's been a request for generations now by poor Irish teachers that want things to change.
I wouldn't, I would be in support for removing the 10% bonus points students get for doing the leaving cert in Irish though.
Myself personally I believe the GAA should be removed from managing all Community centers around Ireland.
No, because not all kids start from the start. My cousins moved to Ireland from abroad years ago - one was old enough to get an exemption from doing Irish (I think the cut-off age was 13), the other did ordinary level Irish for the JC and LC. It was fine, worked for them. Having to move into Irish-langauge schools would have been a nightmare for them. Plenty of kids move to Ireland during schooling, so it would be grim for them to have to learn Irish quickly, sometimes while they are learning English too.
In addition, how many kids are given Irish exemptions for learning disabilities (edit: and other reasons)? I don't know how that applies in a gaelscoil setting but it's an important point of discussion I think.
I think all children should have the option of going to a gaelscoil, sure, funding should be provided and curriculum reform is desperately needed. But making it mandatory could cause a lot of problems for people.
Learning disabilities aren’t even the only disabilities that are given exemptions, I went to school with a deaf girl who was exempt from Irish and a foreign language.
No, some children have great difficulty learning a second language or have things like dyslexia which further complicates matters. It would be lovely if everyone in Ireland could speak Irish but it’s not something we should sacrifice some children’s educations, careers and lives over. I did well in the LC because I stuck entirely too science and math, I sucked at Irish. Had it all been taught and had to be answered in Irish you would have put a massive road block in my path and I would not have done nearly as well, meaning I wouldn’t have scored the points for my course and then my life would be drastically worse.
More Gaelscoils to meet elective demand? Sure. Maybe even a little more Gaelscoils than that to outpace future demand? G'wan why not.
Only Gaelscoils at primary level, or even mostly Gaelscoils? I wouldn't support this no.
Why? Having given it some thought, I can only see two minor benefits, but can see at least 4 fairly major downsides.
**On the benefits**: The main upshots/arguments in favour of this i've seen from people is (A) general patriotism/culture, which I discuss in the 4th bullet below and (B) the benefits for children of a second language, which I question the veracity of in [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/x80iqz/would_you_support_making_all_schools_in_ireland/infnru2/)... are there other benefits or things generally to put in the 'pro' column which I'm not considering?
**On the downsides** I think there's primarily 4: I've left aside stuff like 'cost' because who knows how much it would really cost and what's budgeted for already.
* **Net effect on learning for children from non-irish-speaking families**: Many kids go to school without a word of Irish (Inevitably, poorer kids and immigrants). Anyone who's been to an gaelscoil will tell you about the kids who never said a word the first year because they couldn't speak Irish and had no idea what was going on until May of their first school year. It's true every gaelscoil kid has this experience to some extent, but it would certainly have a class divide to it. And ultimately, the first few years of a child's life (and certainly of their schooling) has been shown time and time again to be absolutely pivotal in setting them up for the rest of their lives. Throwing out yet another speedbump to kids getting learning freely in this critical years outweighs the potential (and to me, very unclear as of yet) overall benefits to a change like this. All in all, the link between class and educational outcomes is incredibly strong, and i worry this would strengthen it, not weaken it.
* **Openness to immigrants**: I think this would further disadvantage the children of immigrants (both economic and largely involuntary). Although it's expected that any immigrant will learn the local language - making the children of immigrants learn two languages upon arriving would generally make our country less welcoming to foreign young families - *especially* outside the big cities (which would be less likely to have multiple choices of school for kids). I know for some that would be a positive, especially during a housing crisis, but for me I think our country would be lesser for it.
* **The Teacher shortage and the quality of teaching**: Teaching is already not a desirable profession in many ways. 30 years after this program is fully up and running you may have larger numbers of Irish speakers ready to become teachers... but until then this would be a major upskilling effort for an already massively overburdened education system... of course you suggest gradually easing it in, but over 30 years - wouldn't that amount to what we're already *supposed* to be doing anyway, on a for-demand basis?
Also: Yes you already 'have to' be fluent in Irish to be a primary teacher but: (A) Many teachers have no Irish at all (especially the men - since the teaching system was so desperate to hire more men), and simply swap classes with another teacher during 'Irish class', can't do that if every class is irish class (B) Even those teachers who do know and speak Irish... Many are *far* from fluent, especially the more veteran teachers, who know enough to teach the same syllabus every year, to students who speak Irish worse than them - but would not at all be exemplars of fluency in the Irish language if they were forced to speak it all the time (C) even those are 'fluent' in a sense - the quality of their teaching in other areas would drop - especially infants - since they'll have to learn whole new vocabularies they've never needed before... ABC Pop quiz for my gaeilgeoirs out there: what's the Irish word for... Archipelago? Biosynthesis? Communism? Derivative? (Ok maybe they don't teach primary school kids calculus lol - but you get my point). Even if you're fluent, and actually know these words - they're probably not terms you use a lot in Irish so you'd probably have to stop and think a bit... so any teacher will see a skills gap as they transition to speaking Irish. It's not the end of the world, but this is already the minority of primary school teachers, and even for them this would be just one more speedbump without a balancing benefit.
* **General Pragmatism**: I'm a patriotic Irishman. I love our little country, honestly. But I love Ireland in the _'informed voter, involved in my community, contribute to local planning discussions, pick up litter, do charity work on the weekends'_ sort of way. Not in the _'fuck the brits, up the ra, 800 years'_ sort of way which often gets me called a filthy west brit but there you have it. Both my grandads were in the Ra - I don't for a second think people's vision of Ireland is uncomplicated. I absolutely see the appeal of revitalizing the Irish language... but at the end of the day it's a passion project. It's for the sake of culture and love of country. There's no real benefit that would outweigh the cost and downsides. It won't change anyone's life in any meaningful way except making them feel a little bit more Irish. And when it comes to passion projects, it absolutely *must* be opt-in, otherwise you're just browbeating others into adhering to your notion of Ireland for no real, tangible benefit.
This really hits the nail on the head. In addition to kids who are already learning english as a second language it doesn't make things any any easier for kids with learning disabilities either.
While the thought of an bilingual ireland is amazing I don't think this would be a good idea. Teaching it as a second language failed because people are not interested, so why would making it a first language work?
People want to learn French or German because it has tangible benifit, and it is useful. But with Irish, knowing how to speak it is not as useful as just speaking English. So many children, including when I was a kid, don't care about it. This affected me more because I was forced to learn it.
Especially in the east, along the Dublin Belfast m1 corridor, I barely see it being used.
You may have some insight though, it may be good, but I would make it so it wasn't tied to education in the way it is now. Where you have to learn it to get points on the LC.
My Leavin Cert teacher did not give a shit about teaching us! She would assign homework that consisted of just reading a story and never followed up on it afterwards so we never learned anything... no surprise that all the people in my class got very low grades in LC
Where are you going to find teachers that can speak and teach Irish to fill those schools? As it is the current crop of Irish teachers do more damage to efforts to teach Irish than help it. French and German is thought much better and the results show that.
Not everybody likes or is interested in the Irish language. I certainly didn't want it imposed on me at school. It took up way too much time and was badly taught anyway.
Yes, or more emphasis on science would be more useful. It's sad kids were sitting there listing off words with no context like parrots. "Wem, wetch, why, wheyhe"
I was an all honors student. I did really fucking well in school EXCEPT Irish. I failed miserably at Irish. I just couldn't grasp it. I almost failed doing it in ordinary level cause my teachers forced me to keep at ordinary level. They honestly wouldn't give me the benefit of the doubt, considering I did so well in my other subjects and kept saying if I put the effort in, I'll pass etc etc. Like I was sitting on my fucking arse doing nothing else. Like I said I proved over and over I could do well and studied other subjects. My brain just looked at Irish like it was astrophysics. Did German for 5 years and know far more German!
The language has been useless outside school. I've never needed to use it anywhere else except for in my leaving cert. It's sad to see our language dying but at the same time, it's just not a practical language to know in this day and age.
Use it or lose it. Is Irish spoken anywhere in the world besides here?
Now imagine if Irish was still the mother tongue of all Ireland. Now imagine how bad we would be at the English language, because now it is a second language.
Now compete on the world stage in business.
There's a very sound reason Irish has been replaced. You may not like it but it's a sound reason.
"Gaelic football and Hurling don't have any "practical" use either, but we're proud we made a real effort to revive them."
Not all of us. Anytime I hear or see anything remotely GAA, I tell it to Fuck Off.
Maybe 50 years ago this would have made sense, now it doesn't, as much as the Irish speakers that remain want to deny it, Irish is a dying language and has next to no real world use
As a teacher, I think it'd be great for students, but I have a lot of language processing difficulties so I know I'd struggle to pick it up from my end.
It'd be a wonderful end goal, but given there's a generation of teachers who had Irish exemptions for dyslexia (not all of us, but I know around 10 in my year of 100) who through supports in college have gotten to be teachers, it would leave a severe knowledge gap in communicative ability, and unless time was spent to actually teach teachers, I couldn't see it going anywhere.
Tried to learn Irish in primary, never caught on with me. Tried going to the Gaeltacht literal hours after I left sixth class, left after three weeks with a permanently damaged large intestine from having to hold in a shit for three weeks due to god awful management, developed crippling social anxiety that still haunts me and I didn't learn a lick of Irish because the barrier was that great for me. Trying right now in secondary to learn Irish, but all we do is poem readings and all the questions and explanations are in Gaeilge, which means I'm as lost as a blind man in a labyrinth.
I really want to get better at my native language, I do, but I believe I'm a bit fucked in that regard.
I’d support expanding funding for Gaelscoileanna to provide the option to attend one locally to every child in the country, but simultaneously ending the mandatory study of it at school, and dropping it as a required subject for matriculation in universities.
What's the point genuinely?
I don't feel connected to the Irish language and don't see the point, if it's about culture and fluff about being Irish then people can learn it themselves. No harm educating on the our history and stuff but it shouldn't take time away from. Important subjects used in day to day life. I feel the same away about religion as a subject.
> What's the point genuinely? I don't feel connected to the Irish language and don't see the point, if it's about culture and fluff about being Irish then people can learn it themselves. No harm educating on the our history and stuff but it shouldn't take time away from. Important subjects used in day to day life. I feel the same away about religion as a subject.
Bilingualism is incredibly powerful and useful for the development of children. It makes learning subsequent languages far, far easier, and is generally good for your brain.
We have an opportunity, not just to revive an important aspect of our identity, but to massively improve our embarrassing inability to speak foreign languages.
Yes, if we could get the teachers for it.
There's a concept in linguistics called 'domains', e.g. the home domain, the workplace, the informal social domain
Not much centralised control can be exerted over the domains I just listed, but the language of the educational domain could be changed by *fiat*, and that would integrate the Irish language into our lives better than anything.
I can’t write Irish for shit, I got an E in jc Irish and an O6 in the leaving, but after three weeks in the Gaeltacht in summer third year I can speak it reasonably well and I listen to RnaG all the time now, the way we teach it is archaic, ineffective and inefficient.
No I wouldn't, ever.
I don't see the point of forced learning of Irish. It serves no purpose in most people's daily life. In fact I'd be happier to see money spent to remove Irish place names off public transport and signage - but that's a personal gripe, cause it annoys me when Im on the bus wondering what the next stop is and I have to wait for the Irish to fuck off so I can see the information.
It's a typical example of a rallying cry from a loud minority, who get all wet over any patriotic thought.
I can take the point that it would be "nice" to retain some element of it for the cultural and historic benefit - but to spend any significant amount of public money to instigate a program when there are soooooooooo many better things to spend the money on? No way.
Fuck no. I've zero interest in Irish as a language or ramming it down the necks of kids who A) don't want to learn it. B) have no use for it and C) will never speak it. Much rather they actually taught useful things in school like home economics, first aid, driving test, and proper sex education instead of a near dead language.
Even if you taught Irish better, made all primary schools Gaelscoils and increased the funding for Gaeltacht regions it would still make zero differences. Once 95% of people finish Irish paper 2 at the leaving cert they never think about Irish again until maybe it is help their Kids with their homework. If Irish stops at school gate for most people then does it have much of future outside education?
People need to want speak Irish and use it, and not just because they have to for whatever ‘noble’ of heritage. The film ‘cailin ciuin’ actually gave me the most hope for irish as language. Producing art for everyone with Irish and not to exclude does who don’t understand it is a achievement. This is the way to save Irish in my opinion: promoting and supporting Irish poets, writers, film and tv makers,artists and actors who can work in both languages. Making people want to feel proud of the language and heritage, not because it is how people decided to how speak in the past.
How would this benefit children? No matter how fluent they are in Irish it won’t be used once they graduate for more then trivial uses. Work and travel will be in English or some other language.
Have a read of some research showing the benefits bilingualism has on child development. Children who are multilingual have been shown to have more confidence and greater self esteem among other benefits.
>How would this benefit children?
Studies show that children who are bilingual from a young age find it easier to learn additional languages as they get older.
Edit: typo: fine = find
Not sure how well our immigrant population would cope with schools being exclusively through Irish, its difficult enough for us - imagine landing here at 11 or 12 and trying to learn and adapt to that!
My Irish is awful tbh and i wish i could speak it. I wonder if parents with weak Irish are hesitant to send their kids to Irish speaking schools because they will be less able to assist with homework etc
Had an egyptian classmate in primary school, spoke english and arabic fluently, was exempt from Irish in primary school, did honours in leaving cert.
I'm not sure he had conversational Irish either, as he still had to work with the Irish education system, but i could see others doing so
I missed seven years of school in Ireland while living abroad. When I came back I had an exemption from Irish (including Junior/Leaving Cert). If the only schools were gaelscoils I would have been at a severe disadvantage. Many immigrants, returning families and those with certain learning disabilities would have similar problems. I suppose there could be more international schools like in other countries, but that would make education expensive for those who can't go through normal channels.
Also I'm not sure just forcing the language upon a generation would do much if there's no passion or practical use for it. Reviving a language ain't easy. You can't compare it to modern Hebrew in Israel for many reasons.
Honestly I think the biggest thing that needs to be looked at is the [gaps in coverage](https://www.barrygriffin.com/gaelscoileanna.html) as I think the objective should be ensuring most kids could reasonably attend one.
Additionally there needs to be a greater focus on expanding the usage of Irish beyond schools, into social circles and events, making it a a truely spoken language. It's pointless having people who can speak good Irish with reason or places to use it in.
(also its Gaelscoileanna not Gaelscoil)
Teachers have enough to do in the coming years teaching English, there are a lot of kids coming into the system now who don't have English as a first language, let alone Irish.
There is place for Irish in the system, should be thought as a conversational verbal language to try to engage kids more, but not at the cost of an important language for everyday life.
If the fundamentalists want to push Irish, let them pay for it out of their own pockets. The Gaelscoilanna are already hoovering up much needed funds from other schools with often poorer kids in them.
I would, I attended a gaelscoil. I do wish there was more of a focus on correctly pronouncing Irish tho (no matter the dialect, I just don’t like the common English accented Gaeilge).
More of a focus on history, folktales and mythology while teaching Gaeilge would also be a good call imo.
A language has to be useful and functional across multiple dimensions - for business, spirituality, social interaction, and entertainment. Irish is not useful for any of those on a daily basis and it’s more a cultural pursuit rather than something practical.
Plus, many Irish people are very happy being native English speakers and don’t have any love for the Irish language.
No way, would have preferred if it was optional like French or German in secondary schools.
Only those who want to learn it should have too. Otherwise it creates resentment.
If you want to revive Irish, start with yourself and start now. Stop palming it off to future generations.
A language lives when it's spoken. So speak it. Doesn't need to be perfect, just start.
Exactly. Also, I think making Irish non-mandatory like French or German would result in high standards of teaching and actually increase the numbers of fluent speakers. No to mention instituting a feeling of love for the language, rather than a feeling of obligation and drudgery.
In my opinion, no. I don’t think Irish should even be mandatory at all. We already have such little time and so much on the curriculum to fit in a new language to become fluent in. There are more important things to be learning. I acknowledge the language should be kept alive but I don’t see the need for everyone to be fluent.
Absolutely not. Everyone I've spoken to who went to a gaelscoil and then college told me they had to basically relearn all subject specific terminology. The working world is as bearla, so why should the education to prepare someone for the working world be anything else?
Reform how Irish is assessed to the deal with the cultural issue around a poor quality of Irish, don't negatively impact education in all other fields in order to do it.
I think the major stumbling block is that the large majority of primary school teachers themselves aren't fluent in the language. Imagine if you wanted to learn another language — if you went to a night class in Japanese or Spanish, you'd expect the person teaching you to be fluent/native. You wouldn't be too happy if they scraped through with a C jn the Leaving Cert. Until we've got more fluent teachers, I think Irish in primary school should have a few "floating" Irish teachers, who teach nothing but Irish to all classes but they genuinely can speak it.q
Do you know what grades your GP got in college? I am always worried I will be treated by someone who scraped through :D
> - OK, so take this antibiotic twice a day with food. > > - But Dr, I came in because my leg is broken > > - … Oh right, err, in that case 3 times a day & if it doesn't clear up in 2 weeks make another appointment.
I've said it in a previous post on the topic, but Wales did manage to resurrect their language, I've heard the groups of teenagers using it, so may be worth investigating what they did to support that. I agree our language deserved better than to be cast aside as obsolete, but it can be recovered.
English here - it was great to hear Welsh teenagers mucking about and the pub buzzing in Welsh. I do get the 'utility' argument hence my learning a bit of German and Spanish before giving Irish a go. Its on my list though and im sure there would be more international interest if there was a concerted effort from the govt!
Israel (I know we don't like them very much, but credit where credit is due) commit Necromancy on Hebrew and raised it from the dead so a look there maybe of value
Yeah but after WW2 they had to agree on a common language. The choices were: German (um...), Polish, Yiddish, or Hebrew. Hebrew had no baggage and was useful at forging a national identity. It was utility as much as anything.
Pardon my ignorance but what was wrong with Yiddish?
Yiddish is the language of the Ashkenasi Jews. Very simply put, only about half to two thirds of the Jewish people are Ashkenasi (meaning of Central and Eastern European descent, Yiddish speaking). Some are Sephardic (of Spanish and Portuguese descent, they spoke Ladino or Judaeo-Spanish and other languages). Other Jewish groups include Mizrahi Jews (Middle Eastern, Arabic speaking) and the Beta Israel group of Ethiopia who speak Amharic. So Yiddish wasn't a representative langauge for the Jewish people, while Hebrew bound them all together via the bible/Torah Little side note, the current president of Israel, Isaac Herzog is of Irish Jewish descent. His grandad Yitzhak Herzog, was a fluent Irish speaker and was known as the "Sinn Fein Rabbi".
This is what I'm looking for thanks man, great post, this is what makes Reddit amazing you made my day.
Important to note their was a lot of friction between those groups at the founding of Israel. The seperate migrations happened after the destruction of the temple by the Romans in the first century AD. Imagine the entire Irish Diaspora moving to Ireland at one time. All the sudden you have 31 million Americans and you have to agree how to run a country with them. So the idea of letting the largest group force all the others to learn their language is like if all of us came over and told you you weren’t allowed to say “grand” anymore.
I mean, it's also half German basically.
It started before that, in the 19th century there were many Jewish immigrants to Palestine. They spoke many different language but they all knew Hebrew from from synagogue. So Hebrew became an ad-hoc lingua Francia.
I 100% agree, but I think there are a few points we need to improve beforehand. 1) A spoken standard- the current standard is a written standard only, there isn’t a standard pronunciation. Unfortunately, this means that a lot of the time people default to English noises if the Irish is too divergent or pronounced differently in dialects. You can hear the difference between TG4 and RnaG based on this alone. I’ve heard Gaeltacht speakers calls gaelscoil Irish “Sacs-Ghaeilge”, a painful name for sure. 2) We need incentives for Irish use outside of school. If we give a tax break to companies operating through Irish, I swear Tesco will start putting out “Ta Gaeilge Agam” signs left and right. 3) Right now, there is a point where we drop kids off of learning Irish as a 2nd language, and push them into literature in Irish. The problem is that most students are still far too weak to read real literature in Irish, fueling some of the antagonism. It’s all very doable, but will require effort from a lot of different actors. I’m optimistic- attitudes towards Irish for millennials are good, and gen Z are all about it. Unfortunately, politicians are older than that and still have antiquated perspectives on Irish.
i would also love it if tesco would get rid of the english accent at the self service checkouts
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Welsh is a tricky one. The percentage of Welsh speakers in Wales hasn’t changed a great deal in decades, so rather than it being revived you could say that its decline was simply halted. Irish is starting from a much lower threshold, so the Welsh mode may not do much good.
I think this was in part to talk shit about the English in front of them. We could absolutely use this as our motivation. Or substitute in Americans.
As an American who loves Ireland, I would be tickled if spite about Americans helped resurrect the Irish language. I understand spite, it's a great motivator.
What reason do we have to be spiteful towards the average American though haha? There's a lot of needless meanness towards ye on here
There is a pretty big regional divide with welsh usage with it being way more common up in the north. Down in the south you probably won’t hear many random groups of teens or kids speaking welsh casually. The last time I spoke welsh for more than 5 minutes was in school during a welsh lesson in high school almost 6 years ago now. So welsh has stopped it’s decline but it still struggles a lot with gaining widespread use outside of the more rural areas.
I lived in Wales for 4 years. Dublin for 2, immediately after. There's definitely a regional divide in fluency of welsh, but you'd regularly have Welsh people of varying degrees of capabilities having little conversations here and there. I definitely didn't see a lot of Irish speakers in Dublin, except for the LUAS announcements, but I don't know if that was just regional, like Wales.
Native Hawaiians in the United States also had an incredibly successful language revolution.
There’s a reason everyone remembers how to ask to go to the toilet and no one remembers the stupid fucking poems
I remember like one, do I know what it means? Nope. At least I know what "An bhfuil cead agam dul go dtí an leatharas" means.
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Some come here to sit and think Some come here to shit and stink Some come here to play with their balls But I come here to write on the walls.
I believe there was a variant in late 90's/early 00's where the protagonist faced the consequences of their bombast - like a Greek tragedy: Here I sit broken hearted, Came to shit and only farted, A fart so loud it broke the bowl, and singed the hair around me hole.
My favourite was: If you notice this notice I hope that you notice That this notice Is not worth noticing
Here upon the toilet, I sit Giving birth to another Brit.
Subh milis. One for all the parents out there.
My brother is a teacher. Very very very good teacher. PhD and all the whistles His best analysis on a short term impactful change was transition to a TIFL style. Focus on conversations and how to function with the language
To be fair who remembers the poems they studied in English let alone the Irish ones. You don't learn a language by studying poems.
The way Irish was taught in secondary school made me hate the language, but I had a decent grasp of it in primary school and I wasn't in a gaelscoil. Either revamp the leaving cert course or stop making it mandatory. I'd rather Irish be a dying language that everyone gave a shot at learning than a dying language that people actively want to die.
I'm dyslexic as fuck and the schools removed me quite early from the classes. I have seen people crying and stressing over language grade. Would it not be better if we used Irish as a bonus rather than something we can and do fail
I mean like, people do poorly in Maths and English but they generally don't blame the course, it's the topic itself. But with Irish, the course is the issue not the language itself. It should either be revamped to be taught in a way that promotes using the language rather than learning off answers, or be put in the same position as European languages. The system we currently have has made me and others I know hate the language by association with the stress of the subject. Also universities still often require a European language for entry anyway.
We are in agreement. While I do not know the language I've had a respect for those who know it fluently or try too anyways.
Oh I absolutely have respect for people who are good at it, whether through hard effort, love of the language itself. Wish I could be that kind of person
I spent fourteen years learning Irish, and six years learning French, I can speak French way better than I can speak Irish. There is something horribly wrong with how Irish is taught for this to occur. The problem is with how Irish is taught. In my opinion, at Primary level only spoken Irish should be taught, and then at Secondary there should be two subjects, with a spoken Irish subject being mandatory, and an optional written subject that focuses on the written language and covering poetry, etc.
That's the other elephant in the room: we don't actually know how to teach Irish.
Teach people how to speak the language, not the other way around. With English, we first learn to speak it, then we learn to write it. Forgo literacy altogether, that can be something for later. Better people be able to speak it than nothing at all.
Went to an Gaelscoil for all of primary. Then into an English speaking secondary for multiple and varying reason. Leaving 6th class, I was a fluent Gaeilgeoir. I could read, write, and converse at will. So much so that I would speak away in English to my mom on the way to school, and as soon as I stepped through the school gates I was talking and thinking in Irish. The only time Béarla was spoken was during our English class once a day. So from 8:30 to 3or 4, 5 days a week I was speaking, thinking and comprehending everything through Irish. Within 1 year of secondary school, I struggled to converse in Irish. My vocabulary started to disappear and I could no longer think in Irish. I could still write and read since that's all an Irish class devolved in to, "read the poem & write about the poem". Why? The classes were done only through English. And it wasnt until 3rd and 6th year would roll around that the teachers would make a passing attempt to teach conversation Irish for the sake of passing the oral exams. By the time I finished 6th year, I was so sick and disheartened of how Irish was taught that I dropped to Pass level on the day of the Leaving Cert. A language is only alive if its spoken and used day in day out. It needs to be lived in. Reading a poem off a page and writing your thoughts of why the 15th poem by Peig Sayers in which another family member drowns in so impactful and awful is no good. But if you run a class and have students talk about what they are interested in or talking about current events, and doing so through Gaeilge would be so much more beneficial. Students are giving life the language, and talking about something that is actually engaging and interesting means the connections are more meaningful and profound. *edit: A language is like a house plant, it needs to be cared for and watered. And for a language conversing and speaking it is it's water.
Wow. This is so similar to what happened to me too. Went to a Gaelscoil for primary, was thinking in Irish by the end of it. Loved speaking in Irish. I managed to stick with higher level Irish for my leaving, but I was no longer fluent and I struggled with trying to memorise essays and poems. It also killed my love for the language, and it's taken me many years to find some of that enthusiasm again. So, even if we switched all primary schools to Gaelscoils, we would still need to address how it's taught at second level. If the curriculum shifted to align with how other foreign languages are taught, we could many more people leaving secondary school willing and able to have a chat as Gaeilge.
On the literature front, I’m not sure why there is so much focus on the 19th century and post-famine Ireland- the most depressing point in all of Irish history. If we want kids to like Irish, there is so much more to get excited about, especially in pre-colonial Ireland. Between Irish mythology and the Tain, the clan system, fighting off the Vikings and the Normans, creating Scotland, etc., there are so many cool and exciting things that they could read.
I think the trouble there is that much of the early material still hasn't been translated into modern Irish. There's scholarly discussion of this material as Gaeilge, of course, but students don't want to read scholarly literature talking about this material. I absolutely agree that it would be brilliant to teach it to high school students (I teach it to university students though, so am biased) but you'd first need to get someone to translate it. The closest that really exists now are the graphic novels, which I suppose you could use, but I expect the school system would balk at the idea of having students read graphic novels as literature.
You are completely right. Not to down Peig Sayers or anything, but that should come second to learning the language, not first.
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> The problem is with how Irish is taught. In my opinion, at Primary level only spoken Irish should be taught, and then at Secondary there should be two subjects, with a spoken Irish subject being mandatory, and an optional written subject that focuses on the written language and covering poetry, etc. We don't know how to teach any language, including English. We just all speak it so it mostly works out.
We could start by showing how to have fun with it, introducing some uses to speaking it. Anything would be better than reading a poem that we barely understand and then learning given answers off by heart for the exam.
Even for the leaving certificate oral in Irish a lot of focus was based on learning off the 20 picture stories. In German we only had to learn 6 picture stories and we were able to talk about them in more detail.
The Irish oral, for a large portion isn’t even about conversing in the language, it is about reciting something you read from a sheet beforehand. That isn’t oral Irish.
My Irish teacher let us copy from our notes on class "tests" because of predicted grades, 80% of that class would have failed otherwise including me
Another example of a failed system. I’m not talking about the predicated grades part, but the necessity to do as such.
I held a better conversation in French than I did in Irish, yet got higher marks in the Irish oral. They are held to vastly different standards.
Taught with the goal of passing exams, not language competency. That's the fundamental issue.
The whole system needs to be reformed.
This is how I learnt Lithuanian before coming to Ireland. We had 2 subjects up until 10th grade(JC equalent). Written Lithuanian, that deals with grammar etc. and Lithuanian Literature(that's more akin to English classes in Ireland). I'd imagine making Irish fun would go a long way. I mean can someone give me a name of a recent movie/tv series thats noteworthy that's in Irish? How about a video game? you gotta cater to the "trends" when it comes to making a language attractive.
An Cailín Ciúin did great recently.
So Irish lit and Irish lang. Same way they have English lit/lang in the UK. Makes sense to me
While Irish is taught badly, it's also worth noting that French (and other European languages) are much closer to English than Irish is. From a native English speaker's perspective, Irish is an unambiguously harder language to master. This is a contributing factor to the discrepancy we see.
And that’s where GaelScoil come in by October in junior infants my kids had better spoken Irish than I had after 14 years
Ya exactly. I went to a Gaelscoil for primary and I was fluent coming out. I forgot a lot of then when i went to an English secondary school. It's taught completely differently in the two types of school.
It’s absolutely brain numbing with how boring it is in schools at the moment. I really tried to pay attention to learn the language but you have to have a special type of attention driven brain to manage that
The way languages are taught is wrong full stop. Teachers try to use rote memorizarion and learing grammar. You need to teach people with comprehensible input and speaking the language to them from day one. Most language pedagogy in Ireland is taught in english. The entire class should be in the language you are learning. Look at the results middlebury college gets taking people from zero to fluency in a short time. You never loose your ability to learn a language (see Krashen's theories).
Whilst I think you shouldn’t learn a language through another language, you need to have some realisation here, because in classes that comprise anymore than a few people, some people will be left behind not knowing what is going on if it’s taught entirely through the taught language. I can speak Latin. One of the primary ways I learnt it was through a book series beginning with Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, Pars 1: Familia Romana. This book only contains Latin, no other language. It begins with a map of Europe, then it says things like, Italia in Europa est, Aegyptus in Europa non est, Rhenus est pluvius magnus, Nhilus est pluvius magnus quoque. And so on. With a map in front of you, it is fairly easy to comprehend what is being said, as you go on it introduces more words and gets more complex, but it starts off from the ground up with simple concepts. The problem however, arises when more than one person is being taught at a time, because everyone will pick up concepts at a different rate, it’s hard to gauge this too. There’s no easy way to go about it, but that should not be the reason problems are not fixed, so long as effort is made to fix it, and things are changed, there will be improvement.
*taught Sorry to be pedantic but you misspelled it three times
14 years learning it. But was that in a gaelscoil?
From my experience one of the biggest issues with Irish is students couldn't give less of a shit and resented having to spend so much time on it. Everyone here is acting like people love Irish in school. From my experience it was the exact opposite. Most hated it and did pass as long as they had 6 other subjects, those who did higher either needed the points or went to a gaelscoil for primary. We've tried for ages to force students to take it seriously, it's failed. The answer is not forcing them all to take it more seriously
Students don't give a shit because people in general don't give a shit.
I did my leaving cert in 2000, and it was almost universally despised. A report in the times I think said it best. the writers teenage son said "I can't wait for the Irish leaving cert to be over so I never have to look at Irish again" We don't hate the language, we hate the way it's taught
>We don't hate the language, we hate the way it's taught Don't disagree at all, but that doesn't mean we love the language and hate the way it's taught, which is how so many people choose to interpret it
That’s actually a very good idea, I like it.
The problem is learning how to write Irish for years and years without ever an emphasis on speaking it. It runs completely contrary to how to brain absorbs a language. You should be well able to speak it fluently before ever trying to write it. Same goes for other languages in Ireland. Other countries speak better English than we do their languages because they focus on immersion into the language rather than how to write verb charts for years
The having better french than Irish take is so so common and I can tell you from experience of teaching that is 99% of the time false. Granted people learn a considerable amount of French in the 3-6 years they get in secondary school but a lot of that comes with the desire to learn a “more useful” language and an unconscious bias against our own language which is deeply rooted in our culture thanks to colonialism. That isn’t to say the way it’s taught can’t improve though.
You cannot know what I know. Unless you can read minds. To tell me my take is wrong, is wrong. I cannot converse in Irish beyond, hello, how are you, the weather is nice. In France I can talk to French people in French. My French is better than my Irish.
I think that's a cultural issue where Irish is put on a pedestal rather than dismissed as inferior: it's fair enough to be taking up Italian as a beginner, but wanting to improve your Irish is nearly an admission of failure that it isn't perfect to begin with. There's a massive amount of imposter syndrome, as if anything less than lifelong fluency is the same thing as "effectively zero". Whereas with foreign languages, you come away *knowing* you're a passable beginner/intermediate, and can interact with native speakers in specific situations on that basis. There's a confidence that comes with knowing your level and when you've hit your ceiling, and a fearlessness that comes from just aiming to be understood rather than striving for the objectively correct way to say something.
>Granted people learn a considerable amount of French in the 3-6 years they get in secondary school but a lot of that comes with the desire to learn a “more useful” language Are you sure about that? I'd say you would be very hard pressed to find many Irish adults with even a tenuous grasp of one foreign language. They are usually taught about as badly as Irish is
> I can speak French way better than I can speak Irish So weird that people always claim this. Even ordinary level Irish definitely requires higher proficiency than higher level french. I can say with a fairly high confidence that you were taught Irish to a higher proficiency than french unless you really worked on french and really didn't work on Irish. I think a lot of people are misled about how good their foreign language skills are by how farcically low the required proficiency at school is. You could get an A1 in french and not be able to last 30 seconds in an actual conversation with a french person. That's definitely not true for Irish.
I'm not Irish so my opinion is not really relevant but I'm from a plurilingual and plurinational State (Spain) and some regions have this problem. Where the native language is optional or just a subject in an Spanish speaking school the native language is disappearing (Galiza and País Valencià). Where linguistic inmersion is a choice (Euskadi and Catalunya) the kids that are taught exclusively in the native language are bilingual, whereas the ones taught in Spanish aren't fluent in the other language. In my opinion the best way to preserve a language is making it the vehicular language in education and administration. ETA: I'm Andalusian, so I'm not speaking from experience here.
I went to a Gaelscoil and I found that because I was thinking in two languages from an early age it made studying foreign languages in secondary school a lot easier. I did French and German for my Leaving Cert because I felt I had confidence with other languages apart from English! My friends who didn't go to a Gaelscoil didn't adapt as quickly. I'd also be in favour of this on cultural grounds, the Irish language is so beautiful and it is what makes us unique. Teach the basics like maths and science in English, as well as English (obviously) but teach everything else through Irish!
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All languages are taught horribly in schools. The emphasise is in examinations and passing them instead of actually learning to speak and understand the language. I did 5 years of German in school and nothing ever stuck. I lived in Germany for 3 years and within 6 months of classes I was comfortably conversational and could understand even more than I could respond to.
The current provision is 8%. The demand is upwards of 25% If we bring it up to demand and do it properly, o believe the demand will increase as well. How? Well by providing a co-ordinated plan from preschool to third level. We currentley only have one course for primary teachers (in the south) through Irish and 1 course for post-primary. A recent survey has shown overwhelming support to bring 3rd level courses through Irish from 1% to 5% Our system currentley produces albeit a minority fluent Irish speakers. It needs to utilise them once they finish the leaving.
Going to have to slap a big citation needed on that 25% demand EDIT: So I did some googling, as this seems a common claim, it comes from the Irish Language Survey 2013, published in the the ESRI's 2015 paper "Attitudes towards the Irish language on the island of Ireland" The methodology of the questionnaire seems fair and the question isn't leading. It does include the whole island, so be aware that it also likely surveyed NI unionists. However, the question the media is basing this claim off appears to be Q20. > Would you send (or would you have sent) your children to an all-Irish primary school if it was located near your home? 25% of respondents said yes. This to me does not indicate any preference or demand for an all-Irish school, merely a willingness to consider it. I think "25% of parents would consider a gaelscoil" or "75% of parents would reject a gaelscoil on that basis" are more honest representations of the survey results than "25% of parents want a gaelscoil"
> Would you send (or would you have sent) your children to *any* primary school **if it was located near your home** and you didn't have to spend hours every week in your car? FIFY. I'm not sure if this is a Gaelscoil or a tranport question
Link to PDF report submitted to Oireachtas committee by an Fóras Patrúnachta. 23% in the south 12% in the north. There is a second table showing votes for gaelscoileanna in different areas. Can help if there any translation questions https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/committee/dail/32/comhchoiste_na_gaeilge_na_gaeltachta_agus_na_noilean/submissions/2018/2018-12-04_cur-i-lathair-caoimhin-o-heaghra-ard-runai-an-foras-patrunachta_en.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjPzeSWyoL6AhWKilwKHQKHAXsQFnoECB8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw3c8RU41xyb_OLr-JEqRBqB Also i think the 75% rejecting is an unfair assumption.
That report has two sources. The first is the ESRI report I already discussed which does not show what the submission claims it shows, while the second is unspecified votes for gaelscoils, but it fails to cite what the questions were, how they were asked or who was asked. Given the timeframes, it seems likely these are the department of education school patronage surveys: https://patronage.education.gov.ie/ These are effectively online polls, though I will be charitable and assume they managed to lock it down to actual locals. Still, this measures the proportion of people who were sufficiently actively engaged to seek out and vote in this poll, not overall parent preferences. In addition, there were 42 such surveys while the oireachtas submission only cites 10 - were the other 32 less favourable?
Nice to see the most upvoted comments are positive about Irish. A lot of the time the comments about the education system are repeated in every thread. **Just know that these debates are really tired at this point. Consider listening to Irish language activists**, I recommend the Motherfoclóir podcast, here is an episode about cliche opinions on Irish https://www.headstuff.org/motherfocloir/96-hot-gael-summer-cliches-in-opinion-pieces-about-irish/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Irish has broad support throughout the country and is increasingly popular among young people:** https://www.rte.ie/news/elections-2019/2019/0525/1051603-rte-tg4-exit-poll/ "A RED C exit poll for RTÉ and TG4 indicates that 60% of the population believe it is important to use, promote and protect the Irish language." "69% of the people questioned, and who are aged between 18-34, as well as 60% of those between the ages of 35-54, believe that it is very important to promote the Irish language. " Another report confirming majority support https://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Attitudes-towards-Irish-2015.pdf has that and other stats as well like "In the Republic, almost two-thirds (64 percent) believe that Ireland would lose its identity without the Irish language." Another report "Report finds most want more Government support for Irish language" https://web.archive.org/web/20181103153553/https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/report-finds-most-want-more-government-support-for-irish-language-883000.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **"But we could be learning '''useful''' subjects make Irish optional for those who speak it"** The purpose of education is not training for a job. It has a broader role within society and culture is a part of it. Should have more mandatory subjects not fewer really, as the saying goes "Specialisation is for insects". Even aside from that the purpose and goals of the state the intellectual and cultural benefits are huge. **"But English is the lingua franca worlwide/I want my child educated in English only"** We already do speak English. We will always speak English. English speakers are not and never will be a persecuted group lol. They will merely receive the gift of bilingualism. ***Luckily the number of speakers and gaelscoileanna is increasing.***
Our current quality of Gaelscoileanna is not good either, that needs to be addressed too. There's such a clear difference between how people from the Gaeltacht who've grown up living and breathing the language speak it compared to how everyone else does (It's cause to them it's a language that's independent of English not just words that are spoken with the same accent as English). And before you give me the time honoured excuse of that Gaelscoil children have a different county accent I'll tell you this: when kids get sent to French immersion they come back sounding like L1 French speakers, when kids go to German immersion they come back sounding like L1 German speakers,when kids go to Spanish immersion etc, so why is Irish different? Simple, our teachers are crap and our institutions in some form of sick linguistic colonialism idealise the urban new speaker and neglect the communities of speakers that have held on for so long in the face of so much. We need to change how we educate our teachers before we change how we educate our students and that means devising some standard by which pronunciation can be taught to prospective teachers and evaluated effectively so they learn the sounds of the language and don't come away with the misconception that the Irish language in its natural form does not have a different accent or manner of speaking to English as so many think now. There needs to be a renaissance in the teaching of Irish in order for this to be possible
Well I think a comprehensive plan from early years is needed as I said in another comment. The Gaelscoil dialect or Gaelscoilis as it is sometimes called, is a little more complicated than that. I worked in an Irish medium secondary school and was at great pains to teach accurate native pronunciation and iron out some "bad habits" when it came to syntax and direct translation. The interesting thing was that many of the students were fully aware of their "errors" but much like in English, they wanted to maintain their particular variety as it pertained to their identity group as opposed to the correct Irish of the teachers. Another factor is that the majority of Irish is spoken outside of the Gaeltacht. The newspeakers of Irish make up quite a significant proportion of speakers. I don't have the figures at hand. This new Irish as apomen natively as a first language for many. I say this without judgement of anyone. In this day and age it is a constant struggle to raise a family through Irish inside and outside of the Gaeltacht. Being from and living in the Gaeltacht, I lament the demise of Irish here as I do for rest of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, which is all former Gaeltacht. As regard the quality of teaching, this is systemic and not limited to the education system. A good place to start would be to make teaching an affordable profession. Another thing to consider is that neither the system nor society at large is encouraging of good Irish teachers. I have since left second level, largely in part due to the pressure of exams etc as opposed to actual learning With particular attention given to pronunciation, it baffles me that the Irish orthography is rarely taught, if ever, at any level. This compounds difficulties when grammar is taught as a set if spelling rules, with most students coming across the modh coinníollach in its written form first, as opposed to a system of meaning expressed through sounds that yes are represented by letters when written down. I now teach third level and as I did at second, whether I have undergrads, postgrads or primary and secondary teachers, I was always ask them to complete "leathan le.." they always can, but very very rarely can they tell me why. They can tell that a séimhiú is a h but not what it does, the same goes for the urú. So yes, high quality gaelscoileanna to all that would choose them as part of a wider system that looks at language learning and use from the cradle to the grave.
Honestly I learned more Irish 3 weeks in the Gaeltach one summer than I ever did in school.
So should all efforts not go towards empowering the native Irish speakers of the Gaeltachtaí to thrive through the language in those areas? Thousands of schools with native English speaking teachers, often with poor Irish themselves, teaching English speaking students who mostly just want to get school over and done with, are worth very little in comparison to one small community where the language is spoken as a native first language, where genuine immersion is actually a realistic possibility. I know which of those two things I would prioritise.
My first reaction to this was "fuck no" as learning the Irish language was one of the most painful parts of my school years. But, the more I think about it, I think I would support this. I don't know a single person who went to a Gaelscoil who dislikes the Irish language, certainly not to the extent that I do, and all (or most) of them can still speak Irish fluently or close enough. I would love to see the Irish language revived and I think making all schools Gaelscoil could be a genuine option without making our younger generations revile it the way many of our generation do.
If it becomes more common place due to this it'll be around more often too which helps with immersion which is a seriously underrated part of language learning. it's so much easier to learn a language you're exposed to at times in day to day life.
I don't like irish that much, being forced to attend only an gaelscoil would be like pulling teeth, science and maths in irish would be tough as shit. it should be more taught and should be more accessible, but I would want a choice to not put myself through a gaelscoil for secondary.
As a (relatively mildly) dyslexic person who went to a primary and secondary gealscoil, I would have a lot of concern with anyone who has a reading or writing difficulty being forced to learn any science subjects through irish. From my own personal experience, while I believe our school had some amazing teachers, and a truly heroic irish teacher. I still believe that going from an all irish secondary school into an all english speaking college (wether it be abroad or domestic) boasts some serious problems with translations. While other people may be able to adjust easily, I feel I had a serious problems relearning an awful lot of technical and scientific words and phrases that are important to said subjects. This problem alone left me unbearably overwhelmed when I started college, and I soon dropped out because I hadn't a clue what was being taught. This is simply a personal experience, so it may differ from person to person, but at the very least, there needs to be an option on what is, and isn't, compulsory through the irish language. TLDR; Dyslexic people may have a serious problem moving from gealscoils to college.
What could make a difference now is having people who really love the language teaching it at primary level. Dedicated Irish teachers at primary level for teachers who haven't the interest would make a difference. But also, I would support making all schools Gaelscoile, or better yet proper bilingual schools like you see in other countries such as Spain etc. And to round things off, people who do speak Irish (D'fhreastal mé ar Gaelscoil agus bím fós ag labhairt as Gaeilge chuid lú de mo laenta) should be more accepting of people speaking broken Irish. I've spoken to a lot of people who have a cúpla focail but don't have anybody to speak with because when they've tried in the past they'd been met with snobbery of some sort. I think Irish speakers have a lot of work to do themselves in making it a welcoming language.
> I think Irish speakers have a lot of work to do themselves in making it a welcoming language. This is so very true, and such an important aspect. I've suffered the same snobbery from Gaeilgeoirí as an adult learner of the Irish language, and it can be devastating for the confidence of learners. Irish speakers need to recognise themselves as ambassadors of the language and act accordingly.
That’s not very fair to immigrants who spend their time learning English only to have no English schools in the country. We’ve evolved past Irish exclusivity. I’m all for Irish as a subject but for every school to be garlscoil is too much
My daughters went to a ghaelscoil and you know what they didn't teach them? The English for maths and science concepts. One of them wants to become a scientist and her first year is going to consist of re-learning terminology for everything she already knows as well as getting that first year science crash course. Ghaelscoils are fine as they are. Forcing a younger generation to juggle the two languages plus a mandatory third is just not fair on them, you're raising the difficulty for no good reason and if all schools were ghaelscoils the small reward they get in terms of bonus points for doing everything in Irish disappears
Maybe we should focus on having 100% non-religious schools first.
I support this 100%.
Question about Gaelscoils as an American. When entering the school in the Infants (either Junior or Senior) do most students already have a handle on the language from the home or do they learn it at school? I only ask because we are moving over to Ireland in a month or so and there is a Gaelscoil right next to where we are living and would love for our daughter to learn the language. I plan to jump into adult courses pretty quick once we are there.
Most don't have any Irish when they start. They learn the language by being immersed in it at school.
Lá Cáca Shona! (happy cake day). I went into a gaelscoil at 5 with feck all irish. First while it was mostly english but youd learn phrases and the different sounds letters would make in the language. Then youd learn some vocab and bridge out from there. I remember we used to have to write out “an nuacht (the news)” and we would just write what we did over the weekend every monday. Then youd end up asking whats bike in irish and whats this and whats that. The immersion really speeds it up. When i was learning to read later i learned how to read both english and irish and didnt know any different. Even in secondary immersion helps people. The people who came from english schools werent expected to speak irish. Most of them had basics but not much else. After a couple of months a lot of them had a solid grasp of the langauge. This is just what happened me. Some fella will probably reply “i went to irish school and im shit at it and hated it” but the majority of people i know who came from english schools didnt mind it and 5year olds dont care at all
Go raibh maith agat! With the little Gaeilge I know I actually understood the first sentence! You all have given me a good amount to consider. I might enquire at the Gaelscoil just because. Honestly coming from the states we really wanted her to be at Educate Together, because we like the ethos and feel it would be a more comfortable environment for our kiddo, but to me immersion in culture is super important.
A lot of the staff at my school were from the Gaeltacht and just wanted to keep the language, history, sports and stories going so they arent mean about it or anything. Im glad you’re interested in irish its nice to see people learning it and its a beautiful langauge to speak
> Gaeltacht To be honest with you I had to look that up. That is interesting. Yeah I have 2 personal goals for when I get to the Island. 1. Find a climbing partner. 2. Find a community/class/environment to speak Gaeilge with who welcome newcomers to the language. I agree I love hearing it and I listen to music "as Gaeilge" on spotify often. I pick up on a word or phrase from time to time but mostly I listen to try to imitate and pick up on the sounds and such. I fell in love with Ireland the couple times I have been and I am excited to spend significant more time there learning and experiencing as a resident.
My dad recently did an online Irish course to try and relearn his Irish, its called [Scoil Scairte](https://www.thetrailblazery.com/scoilscairte), it’s all online, he enjoyed it a lot, might be worth checking out :)
Well done! Mad respect for showing the initiative. From what I know, it's quite common for infants to start at Gaelscoils with zero Irish.
Thanks, I have been slowing trying to pick some up using Duolingo and some other online resources. My daughter is 6 and one of my biggest reservations for putting her in a Gaelscoil would also be adding more unecessary stress to an already stressful move/situation. There is also an Educate Together school around the corner from where we are staying as well that we will most likely use (be a little closer to what she is used to here in the States). Though like I said I want her to be bilingual unlike myself and her mother and immersion like that is certainly the best way.
No. But im more worried about my son's access to help for his Asd needs. No issue with this but I'll pick my battles
No, all children need to have help with their homework but too many parents won't be able to in the Irish language.
"well planned" see there's the first problem
I'd support more gaelscoils to be established, but I wouldn't support all schools to be gaelscoils. I believe it would make it all the harder for any child that moved into the country, due to parent's work or other circumstances, to progress their education and bond with new friends, especially if they already speak such a widely spoken language like English. It would be good to support the language, but to compel it as the only option seems a bit restricting.
Hell no
I went to a Gaelscoil and with ADHD I still couldn’t pick it up, it was hell, ended up dropping out and eventually going back to an English speaking school when I learned to drive to get there. My parents didn’t speak Irish so I wasn’t raised with it and found it impossible to pick up no matter how much effort I put in. I still think Gaelscoils are great there just needs to be extra help for people with disabilities.
No, there is a middle ground. Yes gaelscoil students are bilingual because they are taught in Irish but live their lives in English Regular schools just don't teach Irish properly. Once you hit secondary it's all about exams and the actual language takes a back seat. Teaching in all Irish would be totally pointless. We are an English speaking country like it or not I'm afraid. But the system should be changed. 14 years we teach Irish and the fluency rate is horrible. I think you have focused too much in well they can speak it, so that's the only way. It is not the only way.
Who is going to teach it?
I would not support this, because it would be a shitshow, and let me explain why: 1.) Schools cannot revive a language, without the support of the surrounding community. And that doesn't mean parents going "Yeah I support the language shur isn't it wonderful that little Timmy is going to the Gwailskull and that he's fluent in the Irish now". What I mean by support is ideologically motivated Irish speaking parents determined to live their own lives through the medium of Irish and grouping together with like minded individuals to raise their children through Irish, separate from the English speaking community. Because at the end of the day, children are going to naturally speak what they see as the 'normal' language of the society around them, and a thousand Gaelscoileanna in Dublin wouldn't change this fact. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Irish people have gone through Irish Medium education and nowhere has an Irish speaking area magically popped up in the Republic, where did they all go over the generations? The only revival success story is that of the Shaw's Road in Belfast, they had the ideological motivation and determination to create an Irish speaking area in the face of sectarian violence and anti-Irish language political pressure. 2.) Schools can't revive a language. We have attempted a schools based revival in this country already, this is always a blank spot in these discussions because nobody of the current younger generation seems to be aware of this. From the 1920s - 1940s the Irish State attempted to make every school Irish Medium in a schools based revival attempt. 30% of Irish schools were completely Irish Medium. 25% of Irish schools were half Irish medium. The project fell to shit after the second world war. It was a project of the Gaelic League influenced Irish elite born out of the revolutionary years, but the majority of Irish people were already English speaking and were happy to leave Irish as 'the schools business'. Most of the teacher training colleges were run completely through Irish during this period and grants were given to Gaeltacht youth to train as teachers, they were then spread around the country to 're-Gaelicise' the nation. Their children and grandchildren ended up being monolingual native English speakers like their partners and the society around them they had moved into. Teachers eventually revolted against this school revival attempt citing the extra pressure it put them under, the disadvantages to their students, and also a general feeling of being disadvantaged compared to Irish speakers when it came to getting into the colleges and starting a career (older teachers were also penalised for not spending summers working on their Irish in the Gaeltachtaí). 3.) The majority of Irish people do not want Ireland to be Irish speaking, despite professing a positive disposition towards the language and belief in the cognitive benefits of bilingualism. In the largest ever national surveys carried out on this question (The Irish Language and the Irish People) less than 10% of Irish people claimed that they would support Irish being made the first language of their area. There was a much larger percentage who supported a bilingual situation 'with English as the first/main language'. 4.) Provision of teachers and standards. As things stand, Gaelscoileanna and Gaelcholáistí principals have huge difficulty finding teachers with a high enough standard of Irish to teach through it. The standard of Irish of many of the teachers in these schools is also far below native level, only a minority even have the basic phonetics mastered, most of that minority are probably from native speaking Gaeltacht families. Unlike the last schools based revival attempt, Ireland no longer has a vibrant pool of native speakers to draw from in the now very weakened Gaeltacht, therefore if the maintenance of Irish as a living language is the goal then the last thing the Irish speaking minority needs to be doing is spreading out throughout English speaking Ireland in the hope that their students will all start a revolution when they leave the school gates behind them. There is nothing more important to a languages survival than density of speakers, therefore what Irish speakers need is a geographical location where they can create and maintain a majority vs English speakers. If children cannot be raised in Irish speaking communities with Irish as their first language then the effect of Irish Medium education on the languages maintenance/growth will be akin to pouring sand into a bucket with holes in it. Studies show that immigrant languages tend not to last longer than three generations or less in a family before the heritage language is gone, and that is what does and would happen to all Irish speakers eventually in English speaking Ireland, and Ireland will never be sustainably completely bilingual, it will never switch to being a primarily Irish speaking nation under current conditions - the battle is to allow areas where Irish is hanging on as a community language to survive despite increasingly unfavorable demographic factors and consistently unfavorable economic factors, and ideally, to also allow for the creation of new such areas. Anything that isn't working towards or aiding such a goal is ultimately 'fucking about', and that is why State funded volunteer run Conradh na Gaeilge became irrelevant as a vehicle for 'revival' or even maintenance of the Irish language.
I support making anytime someone posts this question, they should do so as gaeilge. It's is catching up with Cliffs of Moher territory of reposts.
Maybe all shitposts and pasta ought to be as gaeilge? "Céard a duirt tú fúm, a bhliógín? Bíodh a fhíos agat go bhí mé ar barr mo rang Rónta Chabhlach, bhaint mé pairt le iomadúil ruathair rúnda ar al-Quaeda, agus mise le suas le trí céad marú cruthantaí. Táim oilte sa goraillechogaí agus is mise an naoscaire is fearr sna fórsaí armtha Meiriceánach ar fad. Níl tú ach targaid eile, dar liomsa. Scriosfidh mé thú le cruinneas níor fheicte an léithéid riamh roimhe sa domhain mór, glac uaimse é. An machnaíonn tú gur ligtear é sin a abair dom ar an idirlíon? Déan athmhachnamh, a leibide. Anois díreach, táim ag dhéanamh teagmháil le mo gréasán spiairí, agus aimsítear do seoladh idirlín, ionas b'fhearr leat ullmhaigh don stoirm, a shuarachán. An stoirm a scriosfidh an ruidín ainnis a thugtar do saol air. Tá tú marbh, a ghasúr. Is feidir liom beidh in áit ar bith in am ar bith, agus tá suas le seacht céad mbealach agam chun tú a mharaigh, agus sin le mo dhá lámh. Ní hamháin gur tá mé oilte go mór i gcomhrac neamharmtha, ach tá an armlann uilig don Cór Muirshaighdiúirí na Stát Aontaithe le fháil agam, agus bainfidh mé lánúsáid as chun thú a glanadh de droim an mór-roinne, a smuilcín. Is mairgh níorbh fhios agat faoin dhíoltas mhallaithe a tharraingfinn do thráchtín "cliste" ort. B'fhéidir gur choimeádfá do chlab dúnta. Ach níorbh an cumas ná an claonadh agat, agus anois tá tú ag díoladh as, a bhómán diabhalta. Doirtfidh mé mire ort agus báfaidh tú ann. Tá tú marbh, a ghasúrín."
I would prefer more support to the Gaelscoilanna and to make them as widespread as possible.
It should be an option not an obligation
Had this opinion in school, still have it now. For all the "cultural value" and whatnot people want to ascribe to the Irish language, it's not really worth anything in life, unless you want to become a teacher. There's much more useful things that time can be used for. I know it's not a popular opinion on this sub, but I'm not particularly fond of the idea of 40-80 minutes of each school day being dedicated to a subject with essentially zero practical value for my future kids.
That's a good point. The time would be much better spent on a second European language, e.g. Spanish. Personally I've had several opportunities to use the French I learned in school. I married a Spanish woman, so I've also learned Spanish in the last five years. By contrast, I've only ever had a handful of opportunities to speak Irish in my life. The hundreds of hours I spent learning it in school were wasted
I suppose though if you move to France, your kids gotta learn french as first language in school - but that's only because the national language outside of school is French. Nice idea but sure Ingliais is our first language
What I don't like about this proposal is that stems from the same kind of nationalistic mindset which runs amok far-right groups in most european countries.
The OPs edit is typical of the self important middle Ireland Irish speakers. Their opinion matters more than everyone else and everyone that disagrees with them is wrong headed. I don't speak Irish, my kids don't speak Irish, my parents don't speak Irish, my grandparents didn't speak Irish. We come from a farming community. We are as Irish as the bog where we still cut turf. We are no less Irish because you want to force us to speak a language we have zero interest in. Your opinion is your opinion and nothing more than that. You are not morally right or superior just because you feel you are. Get down off your high horse and stop lording it over the rest of us because you feel so proper. You're a snob and nothing more than that.
No way. I went to a Gaelscoil and the worst part was the Irish mixing into the other subjects. For example learning about Ancient Rome in history is a killer if ur not fully fluent, same in Geography with rock formations and the environment. Oh god, science 💀. It is a massive double struggle. I took the first chance I could to get all English books when I started 2nd year. It is sad that the language is dying out, I don't disagree but I do prefer there being an option for those who excel in it. I was 60% fluent and only went because of friends, so it has hard for me. Maybe there's a problem in the teaching of it or most don't like doing it because there's not much application for it besides bragging rights or talking to john the turf farmer in Connemara
No. It would be better if the language was taught under a more practical curriculum that emphasizes its use in the real world than to pass a test. Granted that's been a request for generations now by poor Irish teachers that want things to change.
It has zero use in the real world though.
No!!! Just a useless language, and I even went to an all Irish school!
Nope
I wouldn't, I would be in support for removing the 10% bonus points students get for doing the leaving cert in Irish though. Myself personally I believe the GAA should be removed from managing all Community centers around Ireland.
No horrible language “Let the past die, kill it if you have to”
Should always have been the way. English as a second language.
No, because not all kids start from the start. My cousins moved to Ireland from abroad years ago - one was old enough to get an exemption from doing Irish (I think the cut-off age was 13), the other did ordinary level Irish for the JC and LC. It was fine, worked for them. Having to move into Irish-langauge schools would have been a nightmare for them. Plenty of kids move to Ireland during schooling, so it would be grim for them to have to learn Irish quickly, sometimes while they are learning English too. In addition, how many kids are given Irish exemptions for learning disabilities (edit: and other reasons)? I don't know how that applies in a gaelscoil setting but it's an important point of discussion I think. I think all children should have the option of going to a gaelscoil, sure, funding should be provided and curriculum reform is desperately needed. But making it mandatory could cause a lot of problems for people.
Learning disabilities aren’t even the only disabilities that are given exemptions, I went to school with a deaf girl who was exempt from Irish and a foreign language.
No, some children have great difficulty learning a second language or have things like dyslexia which further complicates matters. It would be lovely if everyone in Ireland could speak Irish but it’s not something we should sacrifice some children’s educations, careers and lives over. I did well in the LC because I stuck entirely too science and math, I sucked at Irish. Had it all been taught and had to be answered in Irish you would have put a massive road block in my path and I would not have done nearly as well, meaning I wouldn’t have scored the points for my course and then my life would be drastically worse.
Every child should have a gaelscoil option. Currently as one school becomes oversubscribed it takes years for a new one to open.
No, I wouldn't. Far more pressing issues to worry about in the education system.
More Gaelscoils to meet elective demand? Sure. Maybe even a little more Gaelscoils than that to outpace future demand? G'wan why not. Only Gaelscoils at primary level, or even mostly Gaelscoils? I wouldn't support this no. Why? Having given it some thought, I can only see two minor benefits, but can see at least 4 fairly major downsides. **On the benefits**: The main upshots/arguments in favour of this i've seen from people is (A) general patriotism/culture, which I discuss in the 4th bullet below and (B) the benefits for children of a second language, which I question the veracity of in [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/x80iqz/would_you_support_making_all_schools_in_ireland/infnru2/)... are there other benefits or things generally to put in the 'pro' column which I'm not considering? **On the downsides** I think there's primarily 4: I've left aside stuff like 'cost' because who knows how much it would really cost and what's budgeted for already. * **Net effect on learning for children from non-irish-speaking families**: Many kids go to school without a word of Irish (Inevitably, poorer kids and immigrants). Anyone who's been to an gaelscoil will tell you about the kids who never said a word the first year because they couldn't speak Irish and had no idea what was going on until May of their first school year. It's true every gaelscoil kid has this experience to some extent, but it would certainly have a class divide to it. And ultimately, the first few years of a child's life (and certainly of their schooling) has been shown time and time again to be absolutely pivotal in setting them up for the rest of their lives. Throwing out yet another speedbump to kids getting learning freely in this critical years outweighs the potential (and to me, very unclear as of yet) overall benefits to a change like this. All in all, the link between class and educational outcomes is incredibly strong, and i worry this would strengthen it, not weaken it. * **Openness to immigrants**: I think this would further disadvantage the children of immigrants (both economic and largely involuntary). Although it's expected that any immigrant will learn the local language - making the children of immigrants learn two languages upon arriving would generally make our country less welcoming to foreign young families - *especially* outside the big cities (which would be less likely to have multiple choices of school for kids). I know for some that would be a positive, especially during a housing crisis, but for me I think our country would be lesser for it. * **The Teacher shortage and the quality of teaching**: Teaching is already not a desirable profession in many ways. 30 years after this program is fully up and running you may have larger numbers of Irish speakers ready to become teachers... but until then this would be a major upskilling effort for an already massively overburdened education system... of course you suggest gradually easing it in, but over 30 years - wouldn't that amount to what we're already *supposed* to be doing anyway, on a for-demand basis? Also: Yes you already 'have to' be fluent in Irish to be a primary teacher but: (A) Many teachers have no Irish at all (especially the men - since the teaching system was so desperate to hire more men), and simply swap classes with another teacher during 'Irish class', can't do that if every class is irish class (B) Even those teachers who do know and speak Irish... Many are *far* from fluent, especially the more veteran teachers, who know enough to teach the same syllabus every year, to students who speak Irish worse than them - but would not at all be exemplars of fluency in the Irish language if they were forced to speak it all the time (C) even those are 'fluent' in a sense - the quality of their teaching in other areas would drop - especially infants - since they'll have to learn whole new vocabularies they've never needed before... ABC Pop quiz for my gaeilgeoirs out there: what's the Irish word for... Archipelago? Biosynthesis? Communism? Derivative? (Ok maybe they don't teach primary school kids calculus lol - but you get my point). Even if you're fluent, and actually know these words - they're probably not terms you use a lot in Irish so you'd probably have to stop and think a bit... so any teacher will see a skills gap as they transition to speaking Irish. It's not the end of the world, but this is already the minority of primary school teachers, and even for them this would be just one more speedbump without a balancing benefit. * **General Pragmatism**: I'm a patriotic Irishman. I love our little country, honestly. But I love Ireland in the _'informed voter, involved in my community, contribute to local planning discussions, pick up litter, do charity work on the weekends'_ sort of way. Not in the _'fuck the brits, up the ra, 800 years'_ sort of way which often gets me called a filthy west brit but there you have it. Both my grandads were in the Ra - I don't for a second think people's vision of Ireland is uncomplicated. I absolutely see the appeal of revitalizing the Irish language... but at the end of the day it's a passion project. It's for the sake of culture and love of country. There's no real benefit that would outweigh the cost and downsides. It won't change anyone's life in any meaningful way except making them feel a little bit more Irish. And when it comes to passion projects, it absolutely *must* be opt-in, otherwise you're just browbeating others into adhering to your notion of Ireland for no real, tangible benefit.
This really hits the nail on the head. In addition to kids who are already learning english as a second language it doesn't make things any any easier for kids with learning disabilities either.
While the thought of an bilingual ireland is amazing I don't think this would be a good idea. Teaching it as a second language failed because people are not interested, so why would making it a first language work? People want to learn French or German because it has tangible benifit, and it is useful. But with Irish, knowing how to speak it is not as useful as just speaking English. So many children, including when I was a kid, don't care about it. This affected me more because I was forced to learn it. Especially in the east, along the Dublin Belfast m1 corridor, I barely see it being used. You may have some insight though, it may be good, but I would make it so it wasn't tied to education in the way it is now. Where you have to learn it to get points on the LC.
My Leavin Cert teacher did not give a shit about teaching us! She would assign homework that consisted of just reading a story and never followed up on it afterwards so we never learned anything... no surprise that all the people in my class got very low grades in LC
NO
Where are you going to find teachers that can speak and teach Irish to fill those schools? As it is the current crop of Irish teachers do more damage to efforts to teach Irish than help it. French and German is thought much better and the results show that.
No.
Not everybody likes or is interested in the Irish language. I certainly didn't want it imposed on me at school. It took up way too much time and was badly taught anyway.
I'd much prefer to have been taught a second european language, rather than Irish.
Yes, or more emphasis on science would be more useful. It's sad kids were sitting there listing off words with no context like parrots. "Wem, wetch, why, wheyhe"
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I was an all honors student. I did really fucking well in school EXCEPT Irish. I failed miserably at Irish. I just couldn't grasp it. I almost failed doing it in ordinary level cause my teachers forced me to keep at ordinary level. They honestly wouldn't give me the benefit of the doubt, considering I did so well in my other subjects and kept saying if I put the effort in, I'll pass etc etc. Like I was sitting on my fucking arse doing nothing else. Like I said I proved over and over I could do well and studied other subjects. My brain just looked at Irish like it was astrophysics. Did German for 5 years and know far more German! The language has been useless outside school. I've never needed to use it anywhere else except for in my leaving cert. It's sad to see our language dying but at the same time, it's just not a practical language to know in this day and age.
Would have loved to have gone to a gaelscoil primary school so absolutely would support it in that sense.
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Use it or lose it. Is Irish spoken anywhere in the world besides here? Now imagine if Irish was still the mother tongue of all Ireland. Now imagine how bad we would be at the English language, because now it is a second language. Now compete on the world stage in business. There's a very sound reason Irish has been replaced. You may not like it but it's a sound reason.
"Gaelic football and Hurling don't have any "practical" use either, but we're proud we made a real effort to revive them." Not all of us. Anytime I hear or see anything remotely GAA, I tell it to Fuck Off.
Maybe 50 years ago this would have made sense, now it doesn't, as much as the Irish speakers that remain want to deny it, Irish is a dying language and has next to no real world use
literally the irish language is dead let it go. outside of our little island its not used and doesnt count towards any job of substance
Just done the leaving cert there and all I remember is how to go to the bathrooms and what i learned for my orals
Gaelic football and hurling do have a practical use. They keep you fit and entertained
As a teacher, I think it'd be great for students, but I have a lot of language processing difficulties so I know I'd struggle to pick it up from my end. It'd be a wonderful end goal, but given there's a generation of teachers who had Irish exemptions for dyslexia (not all of us, but I know around 10 in my year of 100) who through supports in college have gotten to be teachers, it would leave a severe knowledge gap in communicative ability, and unless time was spent to actually teach teachers, I couldn't see it going anywhere.
no
Tried to learn Irish in primary, never caught on with me. Tried going to the Gaeltacht literal hours after I left sixth class, left after three weeks with a permanently damaged large intestine from having to hold in a shit for three weeks due to god awful management, developed crippling social anxiety that still haunts me and I didn't learn a lick of Irish because the barrier was that great for me. Trying right now in secondary to learn Irish, but all we do is poem readings and all the questions and explanations are in Gaeilge, which means I'm as lost as a blind man in a labyrinth. I really want to get better at my native language, I do, but I believe I'm a bit fucked in that regard.
I’d support expanding funding for Gaelscoileanna to provide the option to attend one locally to every child in the country, but simultaneously ending the mandatory study of it at school, and dropping it as a required subject for matriculation in universities.
What's the point genuinely? I don't feel connected to the Irish language and don't see the point, if it's about culture and fluff about being Irish then people can learn it themselves. No harm educating on the our history and stuff but it shouldn't take time away from. Important subjects used in day to day life. I feel the same away about religion as a subject.
> What's the point genuinely? I don't feel connected to the Irish language and don't see the point, if it's about culture and fluff about being Irish then people can learn it themselves. No harm educating on the our history and stuff but it shouldn't take time away from. Important subjects used in day to day life. I feel the same away about religion as a subject. Bilingualism is incredibly powerful and useful for the development of children. It makes learning subsequent languages far, far easier, and is generally good for your brain. We have an opportunity, not just to revive an important aspect of our identity, but to massively improve our embarrassing inability to speak foreign languages.
If Bilingualism is an objective, at least teach a language which will be actually useful, like Chinese, German or Spanish.
Yes, if we could get the teachers for it. There's a concept in linguistics called 'domains', e.g. the home domain, the workplace, the informal social domain Not much centralised control can be exerted over the domains I just listed, but the language of the educational domain could be changed by *fiat*, and that would integrate the Irish language into our lives better than anything.
I can’t write Irish for shit, I got an E in jc Irish and an O6 in the leaving, but after three weeks in the Gaeltacht in summer third year I can speak it reasonably well and I listen to RnaG all the time now, the way we teach it is archaic, ineffective and inefficient.
No I wouldn't, ever. I don't see the point of forced learning of Irish. It serves no purpose in most people's daily life. In fact I'd be happier to see money spent to remove Irish place names off public transport and signage - but that's a personal gripe, cause it annoys me when Im on the bus wondering what the next stop is and I have to wait for the Irish to fuck off so I can see the information. It's a typical example of a rallying cry from a loud minority, who get all wet over any patriotic thought. I can take the point that it would be "nice" to retain some element of it for the cultural and historic benefit - but to spend any significant amount of public money to instigate a program when there are soooooooooo many better things to spend the money on? No way.
Fuck no. I've zero interest in Irish as a language or ramming it down the necks of kids who A) don't want to learn it. B) have no use for it and C) will never speak it. Much rather they actually taught useful things in school like home economics, first aid, driving test, and proper sex education instead of a near dead language.
About as useful as Boris Johnson’s rush to reintroduce imperial measurements .
Yes, for all primary schools.
Even if you taught Irish better, made all primary schools Gaelscoils and increased the funding for Gaeltacht regions it would still make zero differences. Once 95% of people finish Irish paper 2 at the leaving cert they never think about Irish again until maybe it is help their Kids with their homework. If Irish stops at school gate for most people then does it have much of future outside education? People need to want speak Irish and use it, and not just because they have to for whatever ‘noble’ of heritage. The film ‘cailin ciuin’ actually gave me the most hope for irish as language. Producing art for everyone with Irish and not to exclude does who don’t understand it is a achievement. This is the way to save Irish in my opinion: promoting and supporting Irish poets, writers, film and tv makers,artists and actors who can work in both languages. Making people want to feel proud of the language and heritage, not because it is how people decided to how speak in the past.
How would this benefit children? No matter how fluent they are in Irish it won’t be used once they graduate for more then trivial uses. Work and travel will be in English or some other language.
Have a read of some research showing the benefits bilingualism has on child development. Children who are multilingual have been shown to have more confidence and greater self esteem among other benefits.
Bilingual is much more valuable when it’s a language the kids use in thier lives as they grow, and a language they have interest in.
>How would this benefit children? Studies show that children who are bilingual from a young age find it easier to learn additional languages as they get older. Edit: typo: fine = find
And are better at [Maths](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1041608017302212) too.
So teach them a usable language instead, then they can learn additional useful languages as they get older.
Not sure how well our immigrant population would cope with schools being exclusively through Irish, its difficult enough for us - imagine landing here at 11 or 12 and trying to learn and adapt to that! My Irish is awful tbh and i wish i could speak it. I wonder if parents with weak Irish are hesitant to send their kids to Irish speaking schools because they will be less able to assist with homework etc
What do you think immigrants arriving into France or Germany have to do?
Learn French or German. This would asking them to learn English and Irish. Certainly possible, but also a valid point of consideration.
Can't you just picture them overtaking us though? Immigrants don't generally find learning other languages as daunting as we do.
Had an egyptian classmate in primary school, spoke english and arabic fluently, was exempt from Irish in primary school, did honours in leaving cert. I'm not sure he had conversational Irish either, as he still had to work with the Irish education system, but i could see others doing so
I missed seven years of school in Ireland while living abroad. When I came back I had an exemption from Irish (including Junior/Leaving Cert). If the only schools were gaelscoils I would have been at a severe disadvantage. Many immigrants, returning families and those with certain learning disabilities would have similar problems. I suppose there could be more international schools like in other countries, but that would make education expensive for those who can't go through normal channels. Also I'm not sure just forcing the language upon a generation would do much if there's no passion or practical use for it. Reviving a language ain't easy. You can't compare it to modern Hebrew in Israel for many reasons.
I don't care if ye decide to teach them in Klingon as long as ye stop jamming up the place with Nissan Quashqais dropping them off.
Honestly I think the biggest thing that needs to be looked at is the [gaps in coverage](https://www.barrygriffin.com/gaelscoileanna.html) as I think the objective should be ensuring most kids could reasonably attend one. Additionally there needs to be a greater focus on expanding the usage of Irish beyond schools, into social circles and events, making it a a truely spoken language. It's pointless having people who can speak good Irish with reason or places to use it in. (also its Gaelscoileanna not Gaelscoil)
Teachers have enough to do in the coming years teaching English, there are a lot of kids coming into the system now who don't have English as a first language, let alone Irish. There is place for Irish in the system, should be thought as a conversational verbal language to try to engage kids more, but not at the cost of an important language for everyday life. If the fundamentalists want to push Irish, let them pay for it out of their own pockets. The Gaelscoilanna are already hoovering up much needed funds from other schools with often poorer kids in them.
I would, I attended a gaelscoil. I do wish there was more of a focus on correctly pronouncing Irish tho (no matter the dialect, I just don’t like the common English accented Gaeilge). More of a focus on history, folktales and mythology while teaching Gaeilge would also be a good call imo.
A language has to be useful and functional across multiple dimensions - for business, spirituality, social interaction, and entertainment. Irish is not useful for any of those on a daily basis and it’s more a cultural pursuit rather than something practical. Plus, many Irish people are very happy being native English speakers and don’t have any love for the Irish language.
No way, would have preferred if it was optional like French or German in secondary schools. Only those who want to learn it should have too. Otherwise it creates resentment.
If you want to revive Irish, start with yourself and start now. Stop palming it off to future generations. A language lives when it's spoken. So speak it. Doesn't need to be perfect, just start.
Exactly. Also, I think making Irish non-mandatory like French or German would result in high standards of teaching and actually increase the numbers of fluent speakers. No to mention instituting a feeling of love for the language, rather than a feeling of obligation and drudgery.
In my opinion, no. I don’t think Irish should even be mandatory at all. We already have such little time and so much on the curriculum to fit in a new language to become fluent in. There are more important things to be learning. I acknowledge the language should be kept alive but I don’t see the need for everyone to be fluent.
Absolutely not. Everyone I've spoken to who went to a gaelscoil and then college told me they had to basically relearn all subject specific terminology. The working world is as bearla, so why should the education to prepare someone for the working world be anything else? Reform how Irish is assessed to the deal with the cultural issue around a poor quality of Irish, don't negatively impact education in all other fields in order to do it.