(Gaeilge) ‘Stádas dátheangach’ fógartha do Chathair na Gaillimhe
January 13, 2016
(Gaeilge) Scéim d’fhostaíocht in earnáil na Gaeilge seolta ag Ollscoil Uladh
January 13, 2016
Exciting Year Ahead At Gaelscoil Na Laochra Birr
January 13, 2016
2016 is going to be an exciting year for the children, parents and staff of Gaelscoil na Laochra who recently received the go ahead for their new school building on Wilmer Road in the heart of Birr town.
The news was met with relief and excitement by all and everyone is looking forward to work beginning on the building this month. It is a big job renovating and restoring the building that was originally the old convent. While many of the traditional external features will remain, the inside will be completely renovated into four bright and spacious classrooms, one multi-purpose hall, toilets and office. Work will also be completed on the walled garden. The children are excited to keep an eye on the building progress when they are in the town park or at the library.
When the planning was approved, there was a real sense of excitement about the new premises. That being said the school has been looked after so well by the Birr Town Soccer Club, the clubhouse was transformed back in August and the location has provided the school with a great start. The kids will surely miss the spacious pitches and Astro pitch! They provided great opportunities for PE, outdoor learning and nature walks.
As we launch into 2016, the school has really had a wonderful first term. Gaelscoil na Laochra was delighted to welcome the armed forces to meet the 22 gaeilgeoirí and three teachers as they delivered the Proclamation and Irish Flag. The school’s oldest pupil Luke Lally read from the Proclamation, a very proud moment for all. The children have also dipped their toes into many other projects too – chess lessons, tin whistle, Science Week, Math Weeks, MS Readathon, Goal Jersey Day. The children also collected food for the St Vincent de Paul Christmas appeal. Never a dull moment!
The Gaelscoil is opening the doors with an Enrolment Week and Open Day in the coming weeks (date to be confirmed) allowing prospective parents the opportunity to call out and meet the staff and hear all about the school and its morning and afterschool homework club. In the meantime, anyone interested in finding out more can contact the school on (087) 4394549 or gaelscoilnalaochra@outlook.com . Tús maith leath na hoibre! 2016 is off to a great start!
www.midlandtribune.ie
Fermoy school finally gets go-ahead for new premises
January 13, 2016
A school’s long-running campaign for a new home is coming closer to a conclusion after Cork County Council granted planning permission to a significant new school development in Fermoy.
The local authority has granted permission for a three-storey, 24-classroom Gaelscoil on a two-hectare site in Fermoy. The move would bring to an end years of complaints over conditions in the existing school.
Concerns of overcrowding at Gaelscoil de hÍde on Fermoy’s main street prompted petitions, letter-writing campaigns and a march that brought the town’s traffic to a standstill.
It is now estimated that the approximately 400 pupils of the school will move into the new premises on the outskirts of the town by December, barring any objections to the development.
“Initially sanctioned by the Department of Education in 2011 the wait to get to this stage has been unacceptably long and the process, at times, vague and unwieldy”, the Gaelscoil de hÍde New School Action Group said in a statement yesterday.
“Today we celebrate progress on this project but our frustration that it has taken so long to come about is not concealed,” the statement added. Gaelscoil de hÍde principal Sean Mac Gearailt described the latest development as a relief and thanked politicians for supporting the work of parents and staff.
“Unfortunately some of our older pupils won’t see the fruits of their parents’ labours,” Mr Mac Gearailt said.
He also said the new site will provide children with a proper playground, and remove the school from Fermoy’s main street. This would prove beneficial for children’s safety and for the town’s traffic, he said,.
Cork East minister Seán Sherlock said the school will be built using the Department of Education’s Rapid Design and Build Programme.
He said the programme is no different to traditional builds, except that it utilises a different form of contract and has a faster build programme. Mr Sherlock said parents who might have concerns about the build should view the Gaelscoil in Midleton, which is being built using the same programme.
“This is an important milestone that will secure Gaelscoileanna in Mainisitir Fhear Maí for a very long time to come,” he said.
www.irishexaminer.com
Renua’s Irish-language roadmap to nowhere
January 13, 2016
Last week, Lucinda Creighton’s Renua, a party unique in the history of Irish politics in that its name makes no sense in either official language of the State, launched its first election manifesto. I made straight for the Irish-language policy section like it was the next episode of Netflix’s Making a Murderer.
I had been waiting over a year for this.
You see, last January, on a rare slow news day in the dog-eat-dog world of online Irish-language journalism, I sent an email to Renua Ireland (then known, equally preposterously, as Reboot Ireland) enquiring about their language policy.
I received a prompt and cheery reply informing me that “all policies were being formulated at present” and that contributions were being sought “from interested individuals and groups in this process”. My details, I was told, would be kept “for future information on Irish language policy and initiatives”.
Impressed by the new political movement’s brazen ‘I dunno! You tell us!’ approach to policy development, I sat back and waited for the latest updates as promised.
They never arrived, and, in a way, I was glad that they didn’t, as last Monday, when Renua finally unveiled their Irish-language policy, I got to enjoy the same spoiler-free sense of excitement as everybody else.
“Our language, Our Heritage,” section 18.3 of Renua’s Rewarding Work, Rebuilding Trust, began auspiciously enough by pointing out that though Irish “is at a crossroads” we have the power to arrest “its slow downward trend towards extinction”.
A little dramatic maybe, but a bracing, matter-of-fact start nonetheless.
That sharp shot of realism was followed nicely by a defiant Obamaesque call to action: “Ireland can and will rediscover the pride it has for its native tongue and the great cultural and artistic history that goes with it.”
Is féidir linn, mar sin, but only if we look to the modern revival of the Welsh language, which, according to Renua, “provides a roadmap for a revitalisation of the Irish language”.
This was disappointing.
The ‘What Would Wales Do?’ approach to the Irish language question is a familiar and tiresome one, especially when its advocates refuse to answer their own question.
It’s true that the Welsh-speaking community have a better-funded television station than us and, in general, they appear to have fewer hang-ups about their language than we do about Irish, but apart from the Super Furry Animals, Gwenno and a more sensible approach to implementing language schemes in the public service, is there really that much to learn from the Welsh that we don’t already know?
What we call the Gaeltacht doesn’t exist in Wales, for example, so it’s unlikely that Renua’s Welsh ‘roadmap’ could offer much guidance in relation to the greatest existential crisis facing Irish – its decline in those areas where it is still the primary language of the community.
At this stage, the lack of detail about the Welsh solution was a cause for concern, along with my instinctive aversion to any talk of ‘roadmaps’ that don’t pertain to actual roads.
Next up was Renua’s “path” to restoring pride in our national language. Apparently the Welsh ‘roadmap’ was no more than a false start, and what the “first step” on this voyage of rediscovery really requires is “a fundamental rethinking of how we teach Irish in our schools”.
It is an old argument, but a valid one, and it is difficult not to share the party’s indignation about the generations of Irish teenagers who leave school “with little more than a smattering of vocabulary and grammar”.
The solution to this “appalling indictment” of our education system?
“To achieve real change, we must blend the traditional and immersive ‘living language’ elements of education with a renewed focus on grammar and accuracy.”
This was a little fuzzy (‘real change’, like ‘roadmap’, is one for the ‘bladar bingo’ card), but I found it interesting, nonetheless.
At a time when it is considered unfashionable, foolish and even dangerous, to use words like “grammar” and “accuracy” when discussing the teaching of Irish, the indifference to conventional wisdom was refreshing.
Were Renua about to surprise us with a proposal for a second, more challenging, Leaving Cert syllabus, one designed to meet the needs of native and fluent speakers, who are currently forced to debase themselves before the Sraith Pictiúr?
Sadly, it was not to be, and just a few ripe paragraphs and 169 words after it began, that’s where section 18.3 of Renua’s manifesto, “Our language, Our Heritage,” became Section 19 of Renua’s manifesto, “Foreign Policy and Defence”.
More a sketch of an idea for a policy than a policy, “Our language, Our Heritage” left us none the wiser about Renua’s views on any of the issues facing the Irish language.
Do they have a policy in relation to Irish?
Well, we know they’re ‘for it’, and ‘more of it’, if possible.
In their favour, Renua can’t be accused of promising anything they can’t deliver.
‘Real change’, whatever else it might be, is difficult to quantify.
Seán Tadhg Ó Gairbhí
www.irishtimes.ie
Preparations for ‘‘Proclamation Day” in full swing in schools across the country
January 12, 2016
Minister for Education and Skills, Jan O’Sullivan, TD, today welcomed the tremendous effort that schools across the country are putting into preparations for Proclamation Day, 15 March next.
A key part of the educational programme for the Ireland 2016 commemoration, Proclamation Day will see schools and classes throughout the country unveil their own “Proclamation for a New Generation”. Based on reflection on the 1916 Proclamation students across Ireland are currently involved in drafting their own Proclamations that outline their vision for Ireland in the 21st Century and the values they want to see our communities.
According to Minister O’Sullivan, “Today my Department issued information to all schools outlining some of the activities they may consider as part of Proclamation Day. Of course the Proclamation for a New Generation project will form the cornerstone of the day in all schools but there is also a great opportunity for students and teachers to showcase the range of other activities schools have engaged in to commemorate and reflect on the events of 1916 and to look forward to the future.”
“By early March all primary and post-primary schools will have received their own national flag, either from the Defence Forces or from the Thomas F. Meagher Foundation and it is proposed that raising the national flag is an appropriate way to begin Proclamation Day.”
Among the activities that schools are engaging with as part of the Ireland 2016 Education Programme are:
- Ancestry projects – where students trace the life and times of a relative or local people in 1916
- All-Island schools history essay competition
- Ireland 2016 drama, art, poetry, film and song competitions
- In addition students have been invited to design a “Doodle 4 Google” piece to mark the centenary, while recordings of the Proclamation for a New Generation will be hosted on a special YouTube site.
- As Proclamation Day falls within Seachtain na Gaeilge, schools are also asked to consider involvement in Féile na Físe, organised by Conradh na Gaeilge.
“March 15th promises to be a truly memorable day for students, teachers and other school staff. I know at first hand some of the remarkable work that has been underway in classrooms and schools this year and Proclamation Day will allow schools to display that talent and energy through a variety of avenues. I would like to record my appreciation for how school communities have embraced the many projects included in the Ireland 2016 Education Programme and wish them the very best as the year’s events come to fruition.”
Ends.
For more information on the Ireland 2016 Education Programme see:
– See more at: http://www.education.ie/en/Press-Events/Press-Releases/2016-Press-Releases/PR2016-12-01.html#sthash.SOZ3DdCB.dpuf
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