Intensive Irish language courses at Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta
June 20, 2013
Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge, An Cheathrú Rua is running intensive Irish language courses between 1-12 July 2013.
These courses are geared towards adult learners, one of which is for those who learned Irish in school but have not used it for a long time; another is for those who have studied Irish intensively for the last number of years, and the last is for those who have a conversational ability, but wish to improve their grammar and vocabulary.
The Acadamh is running both week-long and fortnight-long courses and due to the location in An Ceathrú Rua, learners will have the opportunity to practice their Irish naturally and in an informal way in the Conamara Gaeltacht.
To register for the courses phone091-595101; e-mail cursaigaeilge@oegaillimh.ie
More information on these courses and on Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta is available on the Acadamh’s website www.oegaillimh.ie/acadamh.
Foilsithe ar Gaelport.com
Intensive Irish Course in Tyrone
June 20, 2013
‘Gaeltacht Thír Eoghain’ will be taking place again this year, running from 1 – 5 July 2013.
This week-long intensive Irish course will take place in the Institute of Irish Leadership, Pomeroy in County Tyrone and is suitable for all levels, from beginners, intermediate to more advanced speakers. The course begins at 09:30 each morning and runs until 15:30 that day.
On Thursday, 4 July a cultural tour to BenBurb, County Tyrone will be incorporated as part of the course. This tour will start at 11:00 in the morning and includes a talk on the history of the area, detailing information about a battle which took place in BenBurb in 1598.
The cost of the course is £60 which includes light refreshments each day. This is a wonderful opportunity to immerse oneself in the Irish language and to learn in a fun and interactive environment.
If you’re interested in the course, further information is available by emailing gaeilge@cookstown.gov.uk or calling : 028 877 5780.
Foilsithe ar Gaelport.com
Coláiste Lurgan has done it again
June 20, 2013
The team at Coláiste Lurgan has gained a reputation over the past few years for their take on modern music, and they’ve done it again with their latest translation of Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’.
Having been online less than 24 hours, the song already received more than 10 thousand hits on Youtube so far, as wellas media coverage on both Joe.ie and TheJournal.ie.
The song has been named ‘An t-Ádh ‘Nocht’ on TGLurgan’s Youtube channel, with the description “Leagan breá d’amhrán ‘Get Lucky’ le Daift Ponc (Daft Punk) á chanadh ag Ian Mac Gabhann agus Megan Ní Dhonncha” running below it. The video can be viewed on www.gaelport.com.
Coláiste Lurgan, based in Indreabhán, Conamara, has risen to fame in recent years as a new-aged Irish language college, and each course now has a project run by both staff and students.
The summer college gained massive coverage last year with the release of ‘Some Nights’ by FUN as Gaeilge, which was broadcast on national radio. From all this work, the band ‘Seo Linn’ has stemmed, with a growing popularity in the Irish language community.
Coláiste Lurgan’s projects to date can be found at www.youtube.com/tglurgan ; and more information on the college can be found on www.lurgan.biz.
Foilsithe ar Gaelport.com
Receive a third level qualification in Irish in 2013/2014
June 18, 2013
Are you looking for a third level qualification in Irish? Whether it’s a diploma, primary or master’s degree you’re looking for, Universities all over the country are accepting applications for the next academic term starting in September.
There has never been a bigger demand in all ranges of work for employees with a qualification in Irish, from TV presenting to teaching and law.
Ionad na dTeangacha, NUI Maynooth is offering a Diploma in Irish Language Teaching (Adult Learners) again this year. This part time yearlong course is suitable for people looking to teach Irish to adult learners and a strong emphasis will be placed on teaching practice in the classroom.
The course will be based in Connemara for the year with support from Údarás na Gaeltachta and the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The application form is available online at http://www.nuim.ie/language/courses/cert-irish.shtml.
A new term for ‘Diploma in Applied Irish’ will begin in UCD in September 2013. This course is aimed at the general public and it would be especially appropriate for civil servants and those looking to improve their language skills. The Dept of Education accepts this ‘Diploma in Applied Irish’ as an Irish qualification for the Postgraduate Programme for Primary School Teaching. More information can be found on the brochure.
If you’re a mature student and would like to begin a BA course in Irish, NUIG is offering an exceptional course which would be very suitable for adults wish to return to University. This BA in Applied Irish meets the requirements set by the Teaching Council to teach Irish as a Leaving Cert subject. The course will cover many elements including literature, folklore, cultural history, translation and journalism. For more information go to www.oegaillimh.ie/acadamh or email www.oegaillimh.ie/gaeilge.
If you would like to specialise in pedagogy and on emersion and bilingual education theory, Coláiste Mhuire Gan Smál, Limerick is providing an ‘M. Ed. In Irish Language Education’. The course aims to promote a high standard of Irish Language teaching in the Gaeltachta and all-Irish schools. All information can be found here http://www.gaelport.com/cursai/MOid-san-Oideachas-Lan-Ghaeilge/ or by e-mail tj.oceallaigh@mic.ul.ie.
Europus will run an intensive training course on the translation of law and state documents in An Cheathrú Rua from August to September 2013. Graduates with a high standard of Irish and English will be considered along with law graduates. The course is free but there is limited space. Contact aine@europus.ie for more information.
Make sure to keep an eye on www.gaelport.com/cursai for a full list of Irish courses in 2013/2014.
Foras na Gaeilge seeks opinions on Irish Language readership
June 18, 2013
Foras na Gaeilge will be undertaking a new strategy for Irish Language readership in 2014 to ensure that the proper infrastructure is in place for all ages in the future.
A public consultation process on Irish Language books has begun, drawing from recommendations which arose at an international conference about readership in Irish, organised by Clár na Leabhar Gaeilge last year.
During the conference, many issues were addressed including the current state of the publication industry and the most effective ways of promoting readership among all age groups. Many recommendations were voiced and they were documented along with other talks on the day.
“The initiatives outlined in the consultation document concern readers, publishers, parents, teachers, librarians, booksellers and book reviewers, as well as arts and literature organisations. We look forward to finding out what they think of the proposed actions.” said Seán Ó Coinn, Deputy CEO of Foras na Gaeilge.
Foras na Gaeilge is now seeking the public’s opinion on this reform. The consultation document may be downloaded from www.gaeilge.ie or a hard copy can be requested from the Clár na Leabhar Gaeilge office. People can comment on all recommendations or they may choose to only comment on specific areas of interest.
The deadline for submissions by post or via e-mail is Friday, 28 June 2013.
For further information: leabhar@forasnagaeilge.ie / 046-9430419
Old criticism of Gaelic
June 18, 2013
Litreacha chuig an eagarthóir:
The only evidence that Gerard O’Regan’s weird attack on Irish speakers (June 15) was written in 2013 and not 1973 is his reference to Facebook.
He’s right to note that the Irish education system has often presented an artificial Irish. But there’s a bright side: the Department of Education has greatly improved the teaching of Irish, to such an extent that Mr O’Regan’s friend ‘Andrea’, who has just done her Leaving Certificate, is now capable of holding basic conversations in Irish.
Mr O’Regan says that Andrea will have no use for her Irish. I’m going to be in Dublin this summer, and my two small Irish-speaking children need a babysitter. Andrea sounds like a fantastic candidate. Perhaps Mr O’Regan could put her in touch with me?
Brian O Broin,
Ph.D. Department of English,
William Paterson University,
New Jersey,
USA
It always amazes me when Irish language cynics have a cut off Gaelscoileanna as part of a whingefest about the pointlessness of preserving our native language. I can never tell if it’s jealousy, lack of patriotism, plain lack of research or a mixture of all three.
‘Lazy Journalism’ might be accountable for Gerard O’Regan’s outlandish assertion that Gaelscoil parents “radiate a sense of cultural superiority, which can be off-putting to say the least for somebody not of their tribe”.
As a principal of a Gaelscoil, I think I can speak with some authority. Parents choose Gaelscoileanna not only for their excellent standard but also because they want their children to read, write and speak fluently in two languages. Many parents want to foster in their children a love of Irish language and culture. This is not a quest for cultural superiority but rather a thirst for cultural identity.
Dominic O Braonain,
Gaelscoil Phortlaoise.
www.independent.ie
Cruinniú eolais i Naíonra Cheatharlach
June 18, 2013
‘My first kiss was with a Gaelgóir from Dublin’
June 17, 2013
Ex-students recount tales of the Gaeltacht, prompting memories of strict cinnirí and first crushes.
School’s out – but across the country, thousands of teens are now packing their bags for Irish college instead. Around 25,000 parents here are preparing to wave ‘slán’ to their offspring as they head off into the Gaeltacht to brush up on their cúpla focal before the new term.
But from scoring at the céilí to dodging the bean an tí, strangely, our native language is the last thing soem of these former Gaelgóirí remember…
Eibhlín Ní Chonghaile, Raidió na Gaeltachta:
“I’m from Casla in Connemara, where there are numerous Irish colleges. Every summer, for 9 weeks, hundreds of young people would descend on the area from all over the country.
“As kids, we loved it, especially when we were allowed go to the céilí at night. My Mum kept 26 students in our house.
“She had a very strict language policy; if you were caught speaking English, you were dead!
“She always kept girls, which I think she hoped would keep us away from the boys!
“But my first kiss was still a Gaelgóir from Dublin!”
‘We sang the national anthem morning, noon and night’
Aoibheann McCaul, Fair City:
“I went to [Irish language summer school] Coláiste Lurgan in Galway about 10 years ago. The one thing I remember is singing the national anthem morning, noon and night, and learning how to stand to attention (and ease).
“As typical teenage girls, we also wrote a song about one of the male cinnires to the tune of Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’, which went something like: ‘Féach ar Fheildlim! Wooo! Daithúil ó bun go barr!’, accompanied by a dance routine. The poor guy was only a year or two older than us, and was completely mortified!”
‘It’s hard not to grow to love the language yourself’
Aisling Quinn, Model:
“I went to [Irish language secondary school] Gael-Choláiste Chill Dara, and every summer I would go to Inis Oírr, one of the Aran Islands, with a few friends.
“Growing up, I was immersed in the language. Even now, I speak Irish to anyone who’ll listen, and work part-time as Irish language affairs manager at my dad’s company. Going to the Gaeltacht is an excellent way to learn Irish.
“When you’re surrounded by people who are passionate about the language, it’s hard not to grow to love it yourself.”
‘It was quite a nationalistic experience’
Sinead Desmond, Ireland AM:
“My father was adamant that I would speak fluent Irish and packed me off to the Gaeltacht every summer. I will be forever grateful that he did. I went to a very strict Irish college, where just one word of ‘Béarla’ would get you sent home.
“In hindsight, it was quite a nationalistic experience, which instilled in me a great sense of pride in being Irish.
“Each morning, we would raise the Irish flag and sing the national anthem.
“While in the afternoon, there was sport, drama and poetry, all through Irish.
“But my lasting memory is being hosed down by a particularly tough bean an tí after she found me kissing a boy on my last day at the Gaeltacht!”
‘I wish I’d made more of an effort’
Donal Skehan, Kitchen Hero:
“I was probably about 12 when I was sent to the Gaeltacht on Achill Island. The idea was that I would come home fluent in Irish. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way.
“One Irish word I will never forget though is: ‘ Tusa!’ During breaks, the cinnire would stand in the middle of the yard and yell ‘ Tusa!’ — as in ‘ You!’ — at anyone caught speaking English, which invariably was me. About halfway through my stay, I got a serious talking to about speaking English. Now I wish I had made more of an effort.
I’d love to have a bit more Irish.”
www.independent.ie
It’s pointless keeping Irish on this sentimental life support
June 17, 2013
ANDREA finished her honours Irish Leaving Cert paper in central Dublin this week – and last night the latest offering in an endless library on what life was like on the Blasket Islands was launched in the depths of Dunquin, Co Kerry.
The common thread linking both events is, of course, the Irish language.
But for Andrea, that linkage is now over and done with forever. Once she put her final full stop on the Irish paper, it marked the end of any kind of active involvement she will have with the language for the rest of her life.
Not that this is something to which she has ever given much thought. Her more immediate and primary concern is to bag enough CAO points to study medicine at Trinity College Dublin.
Given that her teachers had long branded her ‘ linguistic’, she figured it was a no-brainer to include Irish as one of her Leaving Cert heavy-hitters.
As it transpired, she did exceptionally well in both the oral and written examinations and, at the end of it all, could achieve a much-needed A1 result.
But despite having spent more than 12 years studying the subject to such a high level, Andrea would be the first to admit she still cannot speak it with any great degree of ease or fluency. Her Irish conversations are far too stilted and exam-based.
In that sense, she is reflective of a teaching strategy, which for almost 100 years, has been a singular failure by way of ensuring the language is more widely spoken. And she is among the academic elite.
What about all the time, effort, and vast amounts of money spent teaching Irish to hordes of other school leavers of lesser ability who will leave it behind forever come the end of this exam season?
Yet the charade continues. And in the Census returns a few years hence, many of these same school leavers will still insist – for a multiplicity of reasons, including sentiment and emotion – that they have some fluency in a language they never speak.
Maybe it is all part of the self-delusion that has been the backdrop to our attitude to the Irish language since 1922.
Then there was a sort of vague dream shared by so many of the State’s founding fathers that running our own affairs would help make us a bilingual country.
We have battled mightily to preserve as much as possible of the Gaeltacht areas. But even here, anecdotal evidence suggests Irish as a spoken language is in relentless retreat among the Facebook generation – much more so than official Ireland will admit.
However, all is not completely bleak. TG4 produces countless television programmes with flair, imagination and quality.
And the ingenuity of subtitles means the great unwashed, whose knowledge of the language is lost in the distant memory of schooldays, can relate to them just as if they were fluent.
There are also the Gaelscoileanna, with their driving academic focus, now outperforming many of the country’s elite schools in the Leaving Cert examinations.
It is unfortunate that some parents and children – who attend these bastions of the language – radiate a kind of self-righteous cultural superiority, which can be off-putting to say the least for somebody not of their tribe.
In any case, perhaps none of these musings matter very much. Can we not trundle along and continue churning out Leaving Cert Irish As, Bs and Cs year after year? So what if it all seems like an increasingly circular and meaningless merry-goround, by way of having any relevance to spoken Irish?
We can even have our tokenism, such as the endearing and slightly quaint practice of GAA managers, who may be incapable of stringing together even the standard ‘cupla focal’, having ‘Bainisteoir’ tagged on their tracksuits.
But in any case, in Dunquin last night, ‘The Great Blasket – A Photographic Portrait’ was launched by one of the few remaining islanders alive. It follows on from the recently issued paperback translation of ‘The Islandman’ by Tomas O’Crohan.
One is loath to sing the praises of this book, given that another Blasket Islander – Peig Sayers – provided a whinefest for generations of Leaving Cert students with her stories of unremitting rustic gloom.
However, O’Crohan was a very perceptive man and he could see that a way of life on that isolated and mystical island was in its death throes when he gave us his thoughts back in 1923: “I have written minutely of much that we did, for it was my wish that somewhere there should be a memorial of it all.
“And I have done my best to set down the character of the people about me, so that some record of us might live after us.
“For the likes of us will never be again. “No bheidh a leitheid aris ann.” So, perhaps, none of it matters. Let the annual ritual of garnering CAO points – using Irish as a prop wherever necessary – continue unabated.
And so what if O’Crohan wanted to chronicle the beginning of the end for the Gaelic-speaking world? Would modern-day realists not argue that there are only three world languages – methods of communication, if you like – that really matter? And we Irish are fortunate to be reasonably adept at them all.
They are, of course, English, soccer and Google.
www.independent.ie
New Coláiste Ailigh set for November opening
June 14, 2013
The new Coláiste Ailigh, due to open on Nov. 7th, will not only offer students and staff first-class facilities, but will also address all the school’s needs on the same site for the first time.
As well as classrooms, the new school will include a library, outdoor teaching areas, an art room, rooms for woodwork and technical graphics, a music and drama room, science rooms, a special needs room, a computer suite, kitchenette, fitness centre, GAA and soccer pitches, basketball and tennis courts and a gymnasium that can also be used for school events.
The Irish-language secondary school has operated in a very compressed space since opening in 2000, said the school’s principal, Micheál Ó Giobúin. The new school, “is no more than the kids and staff deserve”, he said.
Coláiste Ailigh, housed in Sprackburn House and prefabs on Letterkenny’s High Road, now has 219 students and will have 245 next year. The new school was designed to anticipate growth and will accommodate 350 students. There is also space on the 8.5-acre Carnamuggagh site for the building to expand.
Mr. Ó Giobúin; Pádraig Walsh, contract manager for Bam Contractors; and Brian Moore, safety officer with Bam; toured the site recently with the Donegal Democrat/Donegal People’s Press, and Tonia Kiely, an English and French teacher at the coláiste.
One of the most striking aspects of the design is the way each room has access to natural light, through creative use of space, windows and skylights. Prior to construction, the site was also contoured so that the two-story building will not obstruct the views of those on the upper side of the school.
Construction began last November, and there were 60 Bam staff on site the day of the tour, though there are up to 120 at peak times. Mr. Walsh said Bam endeavours to employ mainly local contractors.
Currently, the school holds physical education classes at the Letterkenny Community Centre and also uses GAA facilities. They have held events at the Mount Errigal Hotel, An Grianán Theatre and the Regional Cultural Centre. Mr. Ó Giobúin said the school was grateful to them all for their assistance over the years.
While touring the building, Ms. Kiely saw the room that will be her classroom. “I think it’s amazing,” she said. “This year I’ve been teaching in a prefab, so it’s going to be very different.”
Mr. Ó Giobúin also wanted to thank the Donegal Vocational Education Committee for their support and credited the cooperation and professionalism of Bam throughout the process.
As the principal walked through the site, pointing out and identifying each of the different rooms, it was easy to imagine the school in a few months’ time, bustling with students, teachers and staff.
Ms. Kiely said the new building will enable the coláiste community “to feel much more connected as a school”.
“It’s going to be much better to have everything here,” Mr. Ó Giobúin said.
www.donegaldemocrat.ie
