€12m project to turn Loreto into a school again
March 10, 2014
Historical Rathfarnham landmark Loreto Abbey is to be restored and turned into a school once again.
The building – where Mother Teresa studied English in Dublin – is coming under the control of the Department of Education and will become a gaelscoil for the region. The Department has purchased the property from NAMA through estate agent Savills for approximately €2.3m.
However, it will need at least a further €10m to transform the 250-year-old complex into a modern educational facility. The building has a protected listed status and has been empty for 15 years after the 1999 purchase by a company owned by developer Liam Carroll. After Carroll went bankrupt, the site was taken over by NAMA before it was put up for sale last August.
The roof was recently weatherproofed by NAMA and the house was occupied by live-in “guardians” provided by the UK-based property minding company Camelot.
The Department of Education said it would not comment on conversion costs due to “commercial sensitivities”. However they said they are “satisfied” the property meets their needs.
The renovation costs will cost significantly more than the amount needed to build a new school. But considering the fact that the State would have to rescue it anyway and is under pressure to create new schools in Dublin, the move is being described by property sources as “killing two birds with one stone”.
The main building, Rathfarnham House, was constructed in 1725. The architect, Edward Lovett Pearce, was best known for the old Houses of Parliament at College Green.
Closed in the late nineties, Loreto had been a famous boarding school for Catholic girls. Its most famous pupil was Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who went there to learn English in the 1920s, at the age of 18.
www.herald.ie
President Higgins’s remarks on Irish
March 10, 2014
A chara, – It was somewhat ironic that the reception hosted by President Michael D Higgins at Áras an Uachtaráin in honour of Seán Ó Cuirreáin (“Lack of services in Irish dismays Higgins”, Home News, March 6th) took place at exactly the same time as Minister of State for the Gaeltacht Dinny McGinley was being questioned at an Oireachtas subcommittee on the issues raised by Mr Ó Cuirreáin’s decision to retire early from his post as the State’s first coimisinéir teanga.
Speaking “as President of Ireland”, Mr Higgins stated that he was “greatly concerned at the apparent low level of ability to fulfil the rights of citizens who wish to interact through Irish with the State and its agencies”.
Reporting on the big march that took place in Dublin a few weeks ago, your Irish language editor Pól Ó Muirí (Bileog, February 19th) remarked on the gulf which exists between the Irish-speaking community and the general English-speaking public, saying they hardly inhabited the same planet, let alone the same country! As one of the thousands of people who marched down O’Connell Street that day on our way to the Dáil, I have to admit you could not help noticing the puzzled look on the faces of Saturday shoppers as they waited patiently for the buses which were backed up behind us.
A lot of these onlookers, I’d say, were thinking to themselves, have that crowd nothing better to protest about? Haven’t they got recognition for Irish as a core school subject, haven’t they got their own radio and TV stations funded by the Government, haven’t they got the constitutional right to use Irish in their dealings with the state? We Gaeilgeoirí have to acknowledge that the general public would be quite correct on the first two of these propositions – Irish does still hold a central place in our education system, and Raidió na Gaeltachta and TG4 are both excellent stations which punch far above their weight.
Where the general public’s perception falls down is on the third proposition – that we Irish speakers have the right to use Irish in our dealings with the State. In theory and under the Constitution this may be the case, but in practice it is usually impossible or else extremely difficult to use Irish for official purposes. This has long been the weakness in the State’s overall policy on the Irish language. As Mr Ó Cuirreáin put it, the State imposes a duty on students to learn the language and then frequently puts obstacles in their way of using it for official purposes.
I know a section of the public will still say, so what? But the point is that it does not make sense for any of us if one arm of the State is contradicting what another arm of it is trying to facilitate. If, as a country, we want Irish to survive even as a small minority language, the State will have to take the practical steps necessary to provide for the right of Irish speakers to use the language in the public sphere. As a former civil servant myself, I’m convinced that this is above all a question of political and administrative will and does not have to involve any extra resources.
No language can survive if its use is confined to just private and domestic contexts. A lot of us now feel we can only practice the language with other consenting adults behind closed doors. No wonder people look at us as if we had two heads the odd time we muster the courage to march down the main street of our capital city. – Is mise,
JOHN GLENNON,
Bannagroe,
Hollywood, Co Wicklow.
www.irishtimes.com
Protection of Irish language ethos supported by Oireachtas Joint Committee
March 10, 2014
Aisteoirí óga á lorg ag Meangadh Fíbín
March 10, 2014
Lascaine do scoileanna ón Spailpín Fánach
March 6, 2014
Múinteoirí ar Chúrsaí Samhraidh Gaeilge
March 6, 2014
Príomhoide Tánaisteach
March 6, 2014
Futa Fata Newsletter
March 6, 2014
The new crest of Gaelcholáiste an Phiarsaigh
March 6, 2014
The new Crest of Gaelcholáiste an Phiarsaigh with the motto
“Neart inár lámha, fírinne inár dteanga, agus glaine inár gcroí” (Strength in our hands, truth in our words and purity in our hearts)
It is based on the old logo of St Endas School- Pearse’s school in Rathfarnham.
President ‘disappointed’ with level of Irish in the Civil Service
March 6, 2014
At a special event held yesterday in Áras an Uachtaráin, President Micheál D. Ó hUiginn welcomed representatives of the Irish language community to an occasion in honour of former Language Commissioner Seán Ó Cuirreáin.
On 4th December 2013, Ó Cuirreáin announced his resignation with effect from 23 February 2014. Announcing his resignation, Ó Cuirreáin stated that following 10 years in the role, and with two more left in his appointed term, there was little else he could personally achieve in that timeframe in relation to language rights for Irish speakers and Gaeltacht communities. Ó Cuirreáin referenced the lack of implementation and the low standard of the language scheme system, the lack of competence in Irish throughout the stateservice, and the government’s decision to merge the Office of An Coimisinéir Teanga with the Office of the Ombudsman as factors contributing to his decision.
Yesterday’s event was arranged by the President himself, to convey his gratitude to Seán Ó Cuirreáin for all he has done to “foster the everyday use of the Irish language among our citizens, and to vindicate the rights of Irish as our first national language”.
During his speech, President Higgins spoke about his personal disappointment at the lack of Irish language skills within the Civil Service: “As President of Ireland, I want to express not only my disappointment but my concern at the apparent low level of capabilities in the Public Service for engaging with citizens who wish to exercise their right to interact with the State and its agencies in Irish”.
The President also spoke of how the “pernicious myth that learning Irish is a barrier to the acquisition of any other language” must be challenged.
Giving a clear message to the Government and its departments, President Higgins commented on the necessity to carefully consider the “difficulties Seán Ó Cuirreáin faced in the pursuit of his mission, difficulties that were such that he thought it better to step down as An Coimisinéir Teanga”.
At another event in Áras an Uachtaráin next Monday, Ó Cuirreáin’s successor, reporter Rónán Ó Domhnaill, will be officially appointed to the position of An Coimisinéir Teanga.
Gaelport.com
