Irish and ‘language snobs’
March 27, 2014
Sir, – The historical gaelteachtóir bias in Irish language policy has meant that other gaeilgeoirí such as myself, a third generation Dublin Irish speaker, are formally – and ridiculously – deemed not to have a native accent.
I and my many peers’ existence is seen as an inconvenience, the cure for which is a prescribed trip to a Gaeltacht to learn to mimic an accent not native to us.
Is mise mar dhea,
CLÍONA SAIDLÉAR,
Ballymoneen Road,
Knocknacarra,
Galway
A Chara, – I was interested to read Heber Rowan’s comments (March 26th) comparing the continuity of the Catalan language with Irish. However I should point out that Catalan always remained the vernacular language of the region, despite the efforts of the Franco regime to suppress its use, whereas this unfortunately cannot be said for Irish, which was evidently suppressed more successfully.
I myself very much regret that, growing up in Co Down and attending state schools in the 1960s, we were totally oblivious of our national language.
Is mise,
STEPHEN CONN,
Dantestrasse,
Heidelberg,
Germany
Sir, – Heber Rowan (March 26th) suggested that the best way to promote the use of Irish would be to dramatically increase the production of Irish language broadcasts. This letter was then followed by another from a Mr O’Cuinn which I could not read because it was in Irish. If Mr Rowan’s suggestion were to be transposed to print media and then enacted, I would have to stop reading your newspaper.
Yours, etc,
DANIEL STANFORD,
Upper Leeson Street,
Dublin 4
The Irish Times – Litir chuig an Eagarthóir
There is a new commissioner in town
March 26, 2014
Rónán Ó Domhnaill starts his stint as language lawman
So, we have a new Comish in the form of Rónán Ó Domhnaill and he is already dipping his toes in the waters by attending an international gathering of language commissioners in Barcelona. (What is the collective noun for a gathering of language commissioners? Gaggle? School? Brigade?) (Yes, other countries have more than one language and many offer those languages some measure of protection under the law.)
It was undoubtedly smart of the Government to give Ó Domhnaill the nod as new Coimisinéir Teanga/Language Commissioner; he is young, intelligent and able and his appointment goes someway to removing the sting from the departure of Seán Ó Cuirreáin in protest as what he saw as the Government’s failure to protect Irish-language services.
Still, there is no doubt that Ó Cuirreáin’s shock resignation in December set the linguistic fur flying and that the shock still lingers. The row over his resignation was understandable. Ó Cuirreáin was a popular figure, committed to his duties under the Official Languages Act and was well able to navigate the political currents that coursed around the language question during his 10 years in office.
Nonetheless, it would be a shame if his resignation obscured what he had to say in his annual report for 2012. 2012 was, he dryly informed the Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions (Wednesday 04 Dec, 2013), “not a vintage year for the promotion of the Irish language in the public sector, and for every one step forward there appeared to have been two steps backwards”.
He dealt with 756 complaints from people who had difficulties in accessing a state service through Irish and three quarters of the statutory language plans with state bodies had expired without renewal by the end of 2012. New schemes had been introduced but he was concerned about the quality of some of them and he was worried that state bodies were unable to deliver effective services in Irish.
This want was particularly troubling in the Gaeltacht where, too often, compulsory English (my term) was the order of the day. In his 30 years working in the Irish language, Ó Cuirreáin said he had never seen confidence and morale so low. It would be a “travesty” he said were Ireland to lose its “linguistic sovereignty – a cornerstone of our cultural identity…”
Many Irish speaker believe that the Government has not been overly active in fulfilling its duties – and a cúpla focal from the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, while always welcome, does not disguise that fact. A little meaningful political leadership could do so much to address the issues Ó Cuirreáin raised. Indeed, some worthwhile political direction would do much to challenge the cynicism amongst those who speak the language and those who don’t.
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Irish and ‘language snobs’
March 26, 2014
No reply Sir, – On the subject of the Irish language, which has been featuring in these columns over the last few days, I feel I must express some pent-up feelings that have been with me for decades.
Going to school in Dublin 4 during the 1950s, at all times during Irish class I was reminded that I was not a “fíor gaeilgeoir”. Terms like “seonín” were used liberally and frequently. I was good at Irish and got more than 90 per cent in my Leaving Cert and I have retained a strong affection for the language. But that did not matter during class time.
The school did not have a GAA team – neither did it have a soccer team. It had a rugby team, and I was its captain at several age levels. No opportunity was ever missed to remind me of “garrison towns”.
Some of my classmates were from rural Ireland. The favouritism shown to them by the teacher was little short of sectarian.
Needless to say, most of the rest in the class were completely demotivated from ever having any interest in speaking or having a strong feeling for the retention of the language.
How wonderful now to have TG4 showing Rugbaí Beo . I don’t care if Jerry Flannery’s Irish isn’t perfect (his rugby was very nearly). Can we get on with preserving the language by making it living and not an academic exercise? Yours, etc,
FINTAN GIBNEY
Glasnevin Hill,
Dublin i9
Sir, – The only meaningful way to ensure the continuity of the Irish language in Ireland is if we mandate a high percentage of all broadcasting to be made in Irish. This would allow people the ability to think of the language outside of school. A similar policy has worked wonders for Catalan. So why not in Ireland? Yours, etc,
HEBER ROWAN
Annagh lodge,
Geevagh,
Co Sligo
A Chara,- Tá go leor scríofa, agas cainte déanta, faoi “Ceist na Gaeilge”. Is trua gur i mBéarla a bhíonn sé! Tá sé in am dúinn anois ár dteanga Ghaeilge a úsáid, a bheag nó a mhór de atá againn. Mar a deir an seanfhocal, “Beatha teanga í a úsáid”. Use it or lose it! Is Mise,
SÉAN O’CUINN,
Gleann na Smól,
An Charraig Dhubh,
Átha Cliath
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Dlí de réir briathair
March 26, 2014
Location, location, location
March 25, 2014
The school run could be minimised and fitness improved if new schools weren’t built in the wrong places.
Given his training as an architect, the Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn was bound to raise the profile of school design, as indeed he has done with architectural competitions for both primary and post-primary schools. But what if some of these fine new schools end up being built in the wrong places?
Far too often, sites are chosen for new schools with only scant consideration for how pupils are going to travel to and from these inspiring centres of learning. Will it be possible for them to walk or cycle – getting some useful exercise on the way – or will they have to be dropped off and collected by car? A key underlying issue in all of this is the rise in obesity among children and the importance of having well-located schools to help reverse this trend. All the research shows that factoring in the opportunity to walk or cycle to and from school is the best way to ensure a “floor level” of daily exercise.
But An Taisce, the National Trust for Ireland, has found that a “significant proportion” of the school projects that cross its desk are not addressing the official guidance on school travel issued by the Department of Education and Skills, the Department of Transport and the National Transport Authority (NTA). The Department of Education’s technical guidance document on site selection for new schools stresses the need for “safe access for all” and says “all traffic management and mobility issues should be considered during site identification and assessment” – in other words before a school site is chosen.
“This will include appropriate provision for school buses, pedestrian and bicycle access, staff and visitor parking, car set-down and pick-up provision. The site should accommodate, where possible, approaches from a number of directions to facilitate and promote diversity of modes of transport,” it says. The Department of Transport’s Smarter Travel programme pledges that schools and other community facilities would be accessible primarily by walking, cycling and publc transport. And the NTA’s Toolkit for School Travel seeks to reduce the number of children being chauffeured to school by car.
Given that the “school run” aggravates traffic congestion, many local authorities have similar policies. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Co Council says: “School provision should be an integral part of the evolution of compact sustainable urban development where the opportunities to walk or cycle to school are maximised.” Yet the same council approved plans for a new Gaelscoil for the Ballyogan-Stepaside area, to be built on a relatively remote site that actually lies outside the catchment area it’s intended to serve. According to two parents of prospective pupils, this would result in children having to be driven to and from school every day.
In an appeal to An Bord Pleanála against the council’s decision, Brian Leeson and Helen O’Leary estimated that the additional private car trip demand generated by the 16-classroom school “may well exceed 220,000 trips” per year, with some parents doing two 14km round-trips per day, or 5,600km per year.
They say this “flies in the face” of the Smarter Travel programme as well as Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown’s policy that new schools should be located “close to the areas of greatest residential expansion,” in this case, “clusters of high-density ‘Celtic-Tiger’ era housing developments” in Ballyogan-Stepaside.
At present, Gaelscoil Sliabh Rua is housed in pre-fab buildings in Kiltiernan, to which most pupils are driven by car. But Leeson and O’Leary say relocating it to Carrickmines contradicts the council’s policy “to reduce reliance on car-based travel and to ensure more sustainable patterns of travel, transportation and development”.
A “mobility management plan” to encourage walking, cycling and the use of public transport has been drawn up for the relocated school. But the appellants say these options wouldn’t work for most children and the plan included one bus route that “ceased operation in 2009 and another bus route that does not serve the feeder area”. However, a spokeswoman for the county council insists that the site, which the council owned and was now providing for Gaelscoil Sliabh Rua, “while not at the heart of Stepaside, has good pedestrian, cycle and public transport access. It is also adjacent to existing homes and adjoining a major proposed public recreational facility.”
She notes that the catchment area extends from Rathfarnham to Ballyogan Avenue, with the “vast bulk” of junior infants coming from an area south of the M50 corridor, centred on Ballyogan, Belarmine and Kilgobbin. “The actual school site lies only 150m outside the defined catchment but very close to these clusters”. Given that Gaelscoileanna are bound to have larger catchment areas than standard primary schools, one might expect the department to have a “sustainable travel” policy geared towards their needs. But it doesn’t. Rural children have their school buses, but urban children must depend on public transport – or their parents’ cars.
Another Gaelscoil in Co Wicklow is facing a very disruptive move that could also result in children having to be driven to school by car. Gaelscoil an Inbhir Mhóir has been operating for 15 years on a temporary site to the south of Arklow, Co Wicklow, in the midst of new suburbs built during the boom period.
The Department of Education now proposes to relocate the school to a permanent site north of the town, some 4.5km away, even though more than 86 per cent of the families with children being educated there actually live on the south side. Thus, almost none of them are likely to walk or cycle to school. Such “smarter travel” options wouldn’t be feasible because of the distance involved, the fact that the road approach to the school has no pavements or cycle paths and the only viable route from the south to the north side is congested, incorporating a busy bridge dangerous for cyclists, according to one parent, Conall O’Connor.
“Parents, teachers and the school board have overwhelmingly voted to reject this proposed move on account of the accessibility issues and intend to actively resist it,” says O’Connor. “Needless to say, there was no consultation with any of these stakeholders.” There’s another row in Co Limerick over plans to relocate Coláiste Chiaráin in Croom, with a projected 1,000 post-primary students, to an unzoned site, beyond the village’s development boundary and with “clear deficiencies in terms of footpaths, lighting, drainage and road infrastructure,” according to An Taisce.
Limerick Co Council, which is now considering the proposal, has a policy that schools should be built “in tandem with residential development [and] located where possible, in close proximity to other community services, and accessible by various modes of transport and have regard to the principles of social integration”.
The existing school on a six-acre site in Croom would be replaced by the proposed new school on a 20-acre site at Skagh. The principal, Noel Malone, has said that it “just wouldn’t work” to extend the existing premises: “For a school of 1,000, I don’t think that you could put a bottleneck [such as this] in the middle of a fairly built-up area.”
An Taisce maintains that the board of management has “not provided any evidence that the current site is not suitable” for expansion, rather than opting for a location 1.5km away in a “rural, unzoned area with no services”, based on a mobility management plan which it describes as “deficient” and warns of an appeal if it’s approved.
Niall Cussen, senior planner in the Department of the Environment, said some of these site selection problems had arisen “as we move from essentially an emergency response to a schools accommodation crisis to a more integrated plan-driven approach”.
A new manual on sustainable travel, due out soon from the Department of the Environment, should help to clarify matters.
www.Irishtimes.com
Irish and ‘language snobs’
March 25, 2014
Sir, – Brian Ó Broin (Letters, March 22nd) suggests that the target of 250,000 Irish speakers by 2030 is an achievable one, but only “if non-Gaeltacht Irish speakers begin to shoulder the burden that Gaeltacht people have been predominantly carrying since the foundation of the State – using the language at home”.
How strange to think that speaking to one’s family in what is considered to be one’s native tongue should be termed a burden. Communicating in either one’s first or second language at home should be (largely) a pleasure, not a burden; and I would imagine that for the vast majority of Irish-speakers it is.
If indeed the Irish language is such a heavy load to carry, then it should be ditched without delay. A language that is a burden is worthless.
Yours, etc,
JEREMY CASTLE,
Ballinderry,
Nenagh,
Co Tipperary
Sir, – An Coimisinéir Teanga, Rónán Ó Domhnaill, does not advance his cause by using the slur “linguistic Darwinists” (Opinion & Analysis, March 24th). The survival of the 2,000-year-old Irish language is a tribute to its evolution, not a refutation of it.
Yours, etc,
DR JOHN DOHERTY,
Cnoc an Stollaire,
Gaoth Dobhair,
Co Donegal
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Why minding our language is a priority
March 24, 2014
Opinion: Irish speakers assert the right to conduct business with the State in Irish because it is key to survival of the language
The thousands of Irish speakers who marched in Dublin last month for their rights weren’t looking for any special treatment.
The rights of Irish speakers are recognised in article eight of the Constitution and in the Official Languages Act 2003, while the rights of linguistic minorities are provided for in a number of important international documents including the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Unesco’s Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights.
Increasingly, it is accepted that the rights of linguistic minorities are basic human rights.
As someone who was raised through Irish in the Gaeltacht and is now trying to raise his own children through Irish, I understand the difficulties faced by Irish speakers.
While many bodies fulfil their obligations willingly and conscientiously, the reality is that basic services in Irish are often made available as the exception rather than the rule.
Indeed, the notion that Irish speakers are somehow arguing for their rights from a position of privilege is one of the many absurdities that feature in the debate about our national language. Speaking Irish or raising a family through Irish is not an easy option.
Irish speakers live, after all, in a country where the majority speak English, and in the battle to save a minority language, the odds are always stacked in favour of the majority language, especially when the majority language is one of the world’s dominant means of communication.
The provision of language rights helps make the fight for the survival of a vulnerable or endangered language that little bit fairer, as languages often live or die depending on their perceived status and the level of prestige they are accorded.
Powerful message
When the rights of a linguistic minority to interact with the State in their own language are recognised, it sends a powerful message from the powerful.
In a review of Nicholas Ostler’s Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World a number of years ago, the author Jane Stevenson suggested it might be time to adapt the old joke that a language is a dialect with an army, when “the real key to survival is for a language to be a dialect with a civil service”.
Stevenson wrote: “A class of bureaucrats with the power to defend its monopoly can keep a language going for centuries, as can a set of scriptures, while conquerors come and go.”
This is why Irish speakers, including my predecessor as Coimisinéir Teanga, Seán Ó Cuirreáin, have been calling for the recruitment of more civil servants with Irish.
Irish speakers are asking for the right to conduct their business with the State in Irish because the provision of such services is key to the survival of the language, and not because they take a perverse joy in ringing up public bodies only to be put on hold and then told that “the Irish speaker is on holidays”.
These demands are being made by parents struggling against the odds to pass a 2,000-year-old language onto their children in order to preserve what is an important part of both our cultural identity and global linguistic diversity.
Is it too much to ask that children in the Gaeltacht should enjoy the right to basic services, such as healthcare, in their first language, which also happens to be the first official language of the State, according to the Constitution?
While governments since 1922 have made more positive interventions on behalf of Irish than is sometimes acknowledged, official language policy has sometimes consisted of no more than pieties and plámás.
By indulging in empty rhetoric about the importance of Irish, while failing to grant it anything like the status promised by all the lip service, the Irish State, since its foundation, has sent out mixed messages about the value of the language.
The Official Languages Act 2003 and the establishment of Oifig an Choimisinéara Teanga, were important milestones in that they marked a break from the tokenism of the past by giving practical effect to the rights of Irish speakers. The full implementation of this legislation and the continued independence of the Office of the Language Commissioner are crucial to the future of Irish.
There will always be those who view all Irish speakers as fanatics, and there will always be, as the current President of Ireland once put it, “people for whom Irish is not half-dead enough”. These negative views about Irish don’t represent the attitude of the vast majority of the people of Ireland.
On the contrary, research shows that more than 90 per cent of Irish people have a favourable attitude to the promotion and protection of Irish. This continued support is cause for hope, as is the success of our Gaelscoileanna, the vibrancy of TG4 and RTÉ RnaG, and the modest increase in the number of daily Irish speakers outside the education system reported in the last census.
Increasingly vulnerable
Irish, however, is in an increasingly vulnerable position in the Gaeltacht, and experts predict that its days as the main language of the home and community are numbered unless radical remedial action is taken.
Such radical action will require a will that has not always been apparent in the State’s approach to Irish.
In the meantime, only linguistic Darwinists would regard as radical the call for basic rights made by those who marched in Dublin last month.
Rónán Ó Domhnaill is An Coimisinéir Teanga
From Belfast to Belfearg
March 24, 2014
Irish speakers in Belfast are to follow Dublin’s lead and hold their own “Lá Dearg” (“Red Day”) march to highlight their concerns over the language.
Spokeswoman, Miss Caoimhe Ní Chathail, said that Irish speakers in the North had decided to build on the “energy that grew from the Irish-language day in Dublin. The Irish language community, North and South, are “red with anger” about the current circumstances in which our limited resources are being put in danger by state cut-backs and our language rights are being denied to us on a systemic level”.
She said that the European Commission had shown that the Northern Ireland Executive was failing Irish and that some politicians had a “hostile outlook”. In addition, there was “a lack of support for the use of the language in the courts, in the media, in public signage and in the education sector”.
The event was to highlight three demands: a comprehensive rights-based Irish Language Act for the North; the need to develop a comprehensive Irish-medium education system and to ensure that adequate resources be provided for the language.
The march will leave Cultúrlann MacAdam-Ó Fiaich, Falls Road, Saturday 12 April at 2pm and go to Belfast city centre.
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Imní ar iriseoirí RTÉ faoi ‘easpa clúdaigh’
March 19, 2014
Changes to junior cycle education
March 13, 2014
A chara, – I think it is necessary to remind the Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn,
regarding his plans for the Junior Cycle Student Award programme, that the substantial changes and improvements that have taken place in Irish education over the past 20 years were all implemented and delivered by teachers – the introduction of transition year, the Leaving Certificate vocational programme and the Leaving Certificate applied programme (the last of which is probably the reason that Ireland has the highest student retention rate in Europe).
We have welcomed greater integration of children with special educational needs and learning difficulties into mainstream education, adapting our educational provision and methodologies to their needs. Social, personal and health education (SPHE) and civic, social and political education (CSPE) have come on stream at Junior Cert level. Practical examinations and project work form part of the assessment of almost all practical subjects, and many schools have also introduced the oral Irish exam at Junior Certificate level. All schools have embraced technology in the classroom, and numerous changes to syllabuses, the latest being Project Maths.
All these changes have been embraced by teachers in an effort to improve the suitability and quality of the education we provide on a daily basis to students all over this country. Teachers are not opposed to change. We welcome it. We are at the coal face of education, seeing the changing needs of our students every day, and yet Mr Quinn refuses to listen to us. Not a very good example for the children of the country, and nor would their teachers be if we sat back and were bullied into introducing a flawed educational programme rather than standing up to protect the rights of the students in our care. – Is mise,
GEAROIDÍN O’DWYER,
Abberley,
Killiney, Co Dublin.
Sir, – This is a plea to Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn to speak to the Welsh minister for education Huw Lewis before he changes the Junior Cert. On Newsnight recently he was asked why Wales had plummeted in international school rankings. The reply – they had changed from state exams to individual school assessments. We need to up our game here, not drop it. – Yours,
MAURA McSWEENEY,
Mount Albany,
Blackrock, Co Dublin.
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