Don’t force students to study Irish
March 3, 2011
FORCING students to “study” Irish up to Leaving Cert level is unfair and does little to revive the language in so far as the majority of the students are involved.
In the majority of mainstream primary and second-level schools the standard of written and spoken Irish has declined. I know this from my own experience in education for the past 40 years and from my experience in dealing with children and young people outside the school environment. The all-Irish schools and the gaeltacht schools are doing well principally because the parents and families are engaged with Irish and support their children in learning the language. They deserve to get every support possible and they do a great job.
However, in the other schools the interest may be there but the engagement of parents and the general population certainly is not . Could we not have an honest debate about how we might best hope to revive the language The pious aspirations of politicians will not bring about change and it is unfair to impose a subject on young people who do not choose it and have little interest in it and see little active support from adults, including the politicians. The Leader’s Debate does not reflect the situation in the Dáil and Senate. We need to respect our students and let them decide in the present unsatisfactory situation. By the way, I love and I am fluent in the language. I have written poetry and prose in Irish which has received some acclaim, I even promote the language where I get the opportunity, but I will not impose it on others.
Can we not have a national debate on where Irish is at, where we want it to go and draw up a realistic plan on how we can get there. There are many of us who would involve ourselves in this debate as we would dearly love to work with others in improving the situation.
David J Fitzgerald
Dun Laoghaire
Co Dublin
