Globe trotter speaking up for our mother tongue
September 21, 2011
In his TV show No Béarla and in his plays, travel writer Manchán Magan aims to preserve our ‘precious’ Irish, says Pádraic Killeen
FOLLOWING the success of his debut play, Broken Croí/Heart Briste, in 2009, Manchán Magan returns to this year’s Absolut Fringe in Dublin with his second effort, Bás Tongue. Like the earlier play, Bás Tongue is bilingual, playing on the frisson between English and Irish. It examines the strange relationship we Irish have with our beleaguered ‘teanga náisiúnta’. Magan is known for his globe-trotting cultural programmes for TG4 and RTÉ, but he is also a travel writer, novelist, and a provocative commentator on the state of the Irish language. His 2007 TV show, No Béarla, pulled no punches in revealing the frailty of the mother tongue. It was an honest account of how diminished Irish is among the populace. It earned the mercurial Munster-man some “cold shoulders and hostile looks” from many in the gaeilgeoir community. “I was just trying to highlight some of the issues around the language,” he says. The criticism from within the Irish-speaking community both hurt and vexed him. Magan is, after all, a descendant of the famous O’Rahilly clan that was so central in promoting Irish language and culture in the wake of the Gaelic Revival.
Partly as a response to the gaeilgeoirí, then, Magan was inspired to try his hand at producing an Irish language play and – with the assistance of director Tom Creed – brought Broken Croí/Heart Briste to the stage in 2009. The show was a big hit, showered with positive reviews, nominations and awards. Within days of its opening, Magan was approached by the Abbey theatre and BBC Ulster with queries about future work. He is working on a commission for the Abbey. “Broken Croí did ridiculously well – a lot better than I thought it deserved to do,” says Magan. “But it was new. It was someone doing something new with the language. The concept was that it would be 60% in Irish, but 80% understandable to English speakers. “It’s linguistic engineering. You use certain words that the audience will need to understand the play. Everyone has, maybe, 1,500 or 2,000 words that we’ve just picked up from school. So there are things you can do with that.” Whatever the engineering behind it, the show worked. And so Magan now returns with a new effort employing a similar approach.
Again, it’s a two-hander and again Magan performs onstage (despite being, on his own account, “a shite actor”). Bás Tongue takes the form of a comical and fevered debate between a committed scholar of the language and a member of a new generation of young Irish lovers – the graduates of the gaelscoileanna – who now constitute a subculture on the island, complete with their own hipster-gaelic lexicon. “The guy’s an absolute snob about Irish and he loathes this new street-Irish being spoken in Dublin and Cork,” says Magan. “So that’s where the dramatic conflict comes from.” There are gags about “transvestite,” words like ‘talún’, references to the impression that listening to poet Seán Ó Riordáin’s made on traditional Irish speakers (in the words of Máire Mhac an tSaoi: “like chewing sand through your teeth”), and metaphors about how donning another language is like “putting on someone else’s knickers.” Ultimately, however, Magan’s agenda remains an earnest one. “What I want in this play is to give people a visceral sense of what it is to lose a language – to lose something that we’ve had for over four thousand years. There is something vast and precious being lost here,” he says.
Though he can occasionally sound pessimistic or melancholy about the state of the Irish language, Magan’s conversation is chiefly marked by a concrete optimism that insists the future lies in “playing” with the language, and he points to the success of the Welsh rock band Super Furry Animals in engaging with their own native tongue. Magan’s co-star, Roxanna Nic Liam, describes Magan as a “realist.” Nic Liam is a graduate of the gaelscoileanna, and she knows all too well that being realistic about the language inevitably triggers sorrow. “There are some words in Irish that describe things or feelings for which there are no words for in English,” she says. “They only exist in Irish. So there will be some things that will be completely lost. You won’t even have a sense of it. That’s what I find quite sad. The future for spoken Irish, she says, is in forming a “symbiotic” relation with English on the island. One wonders if the theatre of Manchán Magan is not already kick-starting that process.
Bás Tongue runs in Project Cube, September 19 – 24
Irish Examiner – Pádraic Killeen
Méadú ar an líon a rinne béaltriail
September 21, 2011
Ceiliúradh scoile
September 21, 2011
Cruinnithe Poiblí maidir le Gaelscoileanna Nua
September 20, 2011
Students lured by added value of oral Irish exam
September 20, 2011
More and more students are opting to take the oral Irish exam since the introduction in 2010 of a new marking system for Irish at Junior Cert level.
A new marking scheme for Junior and Leaving Certificate Irish was announced back in 2007 by the then Minister for Education Mary Hanafin. In that year, there were as few as 339 students taking the oral Irish test for the Junior Cert – which is an optional component of the overall examination.
The new plan was designed to give more weight to oral Irish in both Junior and Leaving Cert exams. The proportion of marks allocated for the oral component would be raised to 40 per cent of the overall grade in both Junior and Leacing Certs. (Previously, the allocation had been 20 per cent and 25 per cent for Junior and Leaving respectively.)
The new marking scheme, applied for the first time in Junior Cert 2010, saw a significant increase in that year in the number of students opting for the oral – up to 1687, with 54 schools participating.
This figure rose still further in 2011 when 4,276 students from 94 schools took the Junior Cert oral test.
Accodrding to the Department of Education, the increase is due to pressure from parents on schools to use the Junior Cert oral as a dry run for the “high-stakes” Leaving Cert. The 40 per cent allocation for the oral will take effect at Leaving Cert level from 2012 onwards.
Whatever the reasons, Ms Hanafin’s objective of increasing fluency in Irish among young people might just be going to be realised. However, the process of testing for the Junior Cert exam is fraught with issues of its own.
The State Examinations Commission (SEC) does not make any provision for the assessment of oral Irish in the Junior Cert. The schools themselves have to arrange oral Irish assessment for their Junior Cert students, and notify the SEC of the marks attained by each candidate.
This contrasts with the situation at Leaving Cert level where the SEC pays teachers to travel to other schools to conduct the oral exam
In the present situation, it is not fully clear whether teachers are assessing their own Junior Cert students in oral Irish, or if students are being assessed by other teachers in the school, or if schools are paying retired teachers to carry out the task, or if teachers from other schools are being paid to conduct the tests.
But one thing that is clear – the SEC does not pay teachers to carry out the oral Irish test at Junior Cert level.
Last autumn, members of County Cavan VEC called on the Department of Education to place the Junior Cert Oral Irish Exam on the same footing as the Leaving Certificate examination.
Teacher Mona Fitzpatrick said she was appalled that the Department would allow an ad hoc arrangement to exist in relation to a component in a state exam.
“It is a very serious matter… if 40% of the marks… are now going to be based on a 15-minute interview, there will have to be greater emphasis put on the monitoring of the oral Irish exam.
“It just can’t be at the whim of a particular examiner – the stakes are too high.
“Nothing has been made clear about how it will operate.
“Are we going to get training or is there going to be monitoring?” asked Ms Fitzpatrick.
Eighteen months ago, the two second-level teacher unions (ASTI and TUI) instructed their members not to conduct Junior Cert oral Irish exams until acceptable arrangements had been negotiated with the Department and adequate resources agreed, including payment and training.
But this directive has been ignored by a substantial number of schools and teachers.
A spokesperson for the ASTI said that, while she understands that members have not been assessing their own students, the union is concerned about teachers assessing students in other schools on an ad hoc basis.
“There needs to be a standardised measure applied to all elements of the state exams, whether it’s a practical test for woodwork, singing for music, or the written German exam,” she said.
“But it is also reasonable to expect that the same remuneration given to teachers who take part in other state exam assessments would apply to those who assess oral Irish in the Junior Certificate.”
(Sources: Irish Examiner; Anglo-Celt)
Launch of An Traein: a booklet about the transfer of children moving from the naíonra to an Irish medium primary school
September 16, 2011
Since 2009, Forbairt Naíonraí Teo. and Gaelscoileanna Teo. have been working on a research project regarding the transfer from naíonra to gaelscoil, funded by Foras na Gaeilge and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. The result of that research, carried out by Dr. Máire Mhic Mhathúna, Dublin Institute of Technology, is the booklet An Traein as well as a background paper. This booklet contains advice and information for teachers and naíonra leaders and it will be launched in Áras Fhoras na Gaeilge, Dublin 2, Tuesday next, 20 September at 15.00.
A good transfer from naíonra to primary school has a long term effect on the learning capacity of children throughout primary school as a whole. The aim of the booklet, An Traein, is to help naíonra leaders, gaelscoil teachers, and through them, to help children and parents/guardians to facilitate an easy, calm, happy transfer from naíonra to gaelscoil.
Discussed are the main changes in the physical environment, social changes, changes in the sense of identity and the educational changes which children deal with when moving from naíonra/preschool to primary school. An account is given on the specific characteristics related to early-immersion education and language issues in the naíonraí and gaelscoileanna. The work of the naíonra and play as a method of learning for young children is also reviewed.
According to Máire Uí Bhriain, Chairperson of Forbairt Naíonraí Teoranta, “the developmental stage between the ages of 0-6 years is highly important in the life of the child. This period spans the time children spend in naíonraí and in infant classes in primary school. This new booklet will be of great help for the two levels and we hope that it will benefit the children.”
Referring to the booklet, Mícheál Ó Broin, President of Gaelscoileanna Teo. said, “The similarity is becoming more apparent regarding the working methods in infant classes and the naíonra. This is shown in the curriculum frame-work for early years, Aistear, and in the curriculum for infants in primary school. The background paper that is available for this booklet illustrates this similarity, as well as looking at the national standards frame-work which relate to high standards in early years care and education, Síolta, standards which directly refer to the transfer from preschool to primary school. The availability to schools and naíonraí of this kind of booklet is innovative and we are looking forward to seeing the results in the coming years.”
To get the utmost benefit from this research, the two organisations hope to begin a pilot scheme during 2012 to ensure good practice based on results and evidence. The scheme will be a huge help to naíonraí and gaelscoileanna in the future, in identifying the best and most useful practice, and in ensuring the most effective and easiest implementation for children.
GAELSCOILEANNA TEO. is the national coordinating body for Irish-medium schools at primary and post-primary level. It provides assistance and support to parents and local communities who wish to found a school and it supports existing Irish-medium schools in their development. More information about the organisation is available at www.gaelscoileanna.ie
Forbairt Naíonraí Teoranta is an all-Ireland voluntary organisation that supports the promotion of care and education services through Irish, for children from an early age. Forbairt Naíonraí Teoranta provides support for the establishment, development and administration of the following services through Irish: naíolanna, naíonraí, school age services, summer camps and parent/guardian and toddler groups. For further information visit www.naionrai.ie.
FNT is grant aided by Foras na Gaeilge and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.
Further Information:
Forbairt Naíonraí Teoranta
Clíona Frost 086-0403709
Gaelscoileanna Teo.
Nóra Ní Loingsigh 01-8535191/ 087-6737560
Cruinnithe Poiblí á eagrú chun Gaelscoileanna Nua a Bhunú
September 16, 2011
Irish language youth club
September 16, 2011
Cumann na bhFiann, Ireland’s largest Irish language youth organisation, has opened a new club in Caisleán an Bharraigh.
It will run on Tuesday evenings in Gaelscoil Raifteirí between 5pm and 6.30pm. This club will be run by Barra MacThiarnáin and promises to be a fun filled, enjoyable, club run in a safe environment. It is open to all students from fifth class in primary school right through to Leaving Cert classes, regardless of the level of Irish the student may have. For more information call Barra on 087 988 2180 or by email to barra@cnb.ie
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