Promotion of Irish in North ‘blocked by hostile attitudes’
January 17, 2014
Growth and promotion of the Irish language in Northern Ireland is being blocked by hostile attitudes in Stormont and a lack of support for its use in the courts and in education, according to the Council of Europe.
The body has warned authorities they may also be in breach of a charter of rights because of delays and attempts to block requests for bilingual street names.
The review of minority languages in the UK said the government had not been able to justify banning the use of Irish in the courts or allowing people to take citizenship tests through the language.
The Council of Europe criticised the Assembly’s “persisting hostile climate”.
Minister for Culture Caral Ni Chuilin, said she would bring in legislation during the current Assembly term.
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Secondary-school management is at breaking point
January 15, 2014
The most challenging issue for voluntary secondary schools is their management structure.
It is often noted that Ireland is very fortunate to have more than 30,000 wonderful volunteers who, in their roles as members of boards of management, govern our 4,000 primary and post-primary schools.
It is the very existence of this voluntary, community-based governance model that should create the impetus for complementing it with a well-resourced and appropriate school-management structure. Sadly, the reality is quite different.
Historically, the voluntary secondary-school management system evolved from a time when professed religious managed schools in their roles as principal and manager. In addition, the local community of religious in the convent or monastery provided much-needed support, free of charge, to the principal or manager and to the school community.
Today’s picture is much different, with a lay principal, supported only by a deputy principal and a group of teachers with “posts of responsibility”, whose numbers are shrinking due to a moratorium on filling such posts that was introduced in March 2009.
However, even if the previous system existed today, I would be making a case for the overhaul of the management system in voluntary secondary schools.
Before 2009, more than 50 per cent of teachers in voluntary secondary schools held posts of responsibility. Unfortunately, the title “posts of responsibility” is a misnomer as these roles represent discrete functions and all responsibility still ultimately rests with the principal.
Principals are therefore carrying a growing and impossible workload as they try to cope with running schools that aresuffering not just the impact of the moratorium, but a multitude of other cutbacks that have resulted in the principal being forced to become a guidance counsellor, year head, building-project manager, classroom teacher, and so on. In addition, the introduction of new legislation, regulations, top-down policies and disconnected educational initiatives such as a literacy and numeracy strategy, school self-evaluation and junior-cycle reform have all been added to the principal’s to-do list.
The ever-increasing workload has forced many principals to retire from the job at the earliest opportunity. Research conducted by the Joint Managerial Body (JMB) last summer indicated that 61 per cent of principals in voluntary secondary schools have been replaced within the past five years.
A consequence of this increase in workload and worry-load has been the emergence of high degrees of stress among principals. This has taken both a personal form, such as chronic fatigue and anxiety, as well as having an impact on working style. For example, many principals speak of the difficulties of prioritising their students and teachers in the face of an overload of administrative demands.
Their main vocation lies in teaching and learning but their main workload is increasingly concerned with compliance and the struggle for resources.
We need to reimagine the role of the principal in our schools in order to provide her or him with greater flexibility and autonomy to lead and manage in the local context. In particular, a structure must be created in which middle management responds to the real needs of each school and includes real responsibility for those undertaking such roles. To this end, the JMB and the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools have embarked on a project to develop a management structure in post-primary schools that is fit for purpose.
Many principals protest that decisions made at national level often ignore the real-time, real-life impact at school level.
It is essential that principals receive more practical supports, both nationally and locally, as well as experiencing much clearer channels of communication.
Ferdia Kelly is general secretary of the Joint Managerial Body, which provides advice and support and negotiates on behalf of school management in 400 voluntary secondary schools.
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Anger over State’s treatment of Irish language
January 13, 2014
Public meeting hears of crisis in State provision of services for Irish speakers
A nationwide campaign to address the Government’s failure to provide ongoing support for the Irish language is due to be launched in the coming weeks. Over 200 people attended a public meeting in Dublin on Saturday organised by Conradh na Gaeilge in response to the resignation last month of an Commisineir Teanga Seán Ó Cuirreáin. The meeting heard that Mr Ó Cuirreáin resigned his position in protest at the failure by Government to implement legislation designed to improve services to the public through Irish. The Liberty Hall meeting saw speakers debate and suggest different forms of protest that might feature in the forthcoming campaign. The campaign will seek the implementation by Government of measures to ensure language rights and equality for Irish speakers.
The Government’s refusal to implement recommendations made by an Commisineir Teanga was roundly criticised at the meeting. Several speakers also said they were disappointed at the level of media coverage of Mr Ó Cuirreáin’s resignation from his ombudsman’s role. In contrast to the airtime allocated to the recent controversy surrounding the Limerick City of Culture project, the meeting heard that Mr Ó Cuirreáin’s resignation barely made the mainstream headlines.
“Sean Ó Cuirreáin’s resignation has really galvanised people – there is a real sense of crisis that needs to be addressed,” said Conradh na Gaeilge general secretary Julian de Spáinn. Speakers included Capt Aralt Mac Giolla Chainnigh founder of the Canada Gaeltacht who was visiting Ireland with former astronaut Chris Hadfield, Seán Mag Leannáin, former principle officer in the civil service and Caoimhín Ó hEaghra, director of An Foras Pátrúnachta. Mr Ó Cuirreáin announced his resignation at a sitting of the Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions in December. He told the committee that he believed the language was being marginalised and that the State was quickly moving towards a situation where the use of English would become compulsory for citizens wishing to interact with public bodies.
Mr Ó Cuirreáin told the committee that the Government’s failure to implement the legislation represents a “significant risk” to the language. While details of the upcoming campaign have not yet been finalised, Mr de Spáinn said a major demonstration is being considered and support could be sought from candidates in the European and local elections next May.
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Loyalists line up to learn cúpla focail at language classes in heart of east Belfast
January 10, 2014
An Irish language centre has opened its doors, offering a sincere fáilte romhaibh to the people in loyalist east Belfast.
It is on the Newtownards Road. That is Bóthar Nua na hArda.
In response to keen local demand, the Turas (journey) project offers conversation-style language classes to young and old, says development officer Linda Ervine, sister-in-law of the late David Ervine.
A former UVF prisoner, he was a significant voice at the peace talks which led to the Belfast Agreement of 1998 and leader of the loyalist Progressive Unionist Party (PUP).
“People ring me on a weekly, even daily basis,” said Ms Ervine. “All we are doing is opening the door.” A former English teacher at the local Ashfield school for girls, Ms Ervine developed her love of the language which grew alongside her interest in what she calls the “hidden history” of her part of Belfast.
“I tell people Irish is all around us – it’s in our placenames, it’s everywhere,” she said. “There’s a Gaelic language here, in Scotland, in Wales and in Cornwall. It’s not just an Irish thing, it’s British as well.”
Three years ago, an Irish class began on the strongly loyalist Newtownards Road where the fada and fáinne are rarely seen. About 20 people turned up, and now there are eight classes at various levels. Provision has expanded into one of the local schools.
Housed in the Skainos centre, a community facility linked to the East Belfast Mission church, Turas offers classroom facilities, offices and a social space.
Mural
A large indoor mural depicts the twin cranes of Harland and Wolff casting their shadows over a map of the working class streets below. “The mural was painted by David’s son Mark, my nephew. There is no peace line on the map, no politics. There is no agenda.”
That’s a reference to the inclusion of the republican enclave of Short Strand and the main electoral base of local Sinn Féin councillor Niall Ó Donghaille, who attended the opening ceremony along with party colleague, bilingual Belfast Lord Mayor Máirtín Ó Muilleoir.
The opening honours went to Sam Evans, a founder member of the PUP, in the presence of unionists of all varieties and the Alliance Party. Some 120 learners have signed up for the free courses which are supported by Foras na Gaeilge and the Stormont Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure.
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Ainm in airde agus ar líne
January 8, 2014
Government ‘worst since foundation of State’ for supporting Irish
December 16, 2013
The Coalition may have been successful in exiting the economic bailout but it is the worst Government at promoting the Irish language since the foundation of the State, protestors have claimed.
Members of Conradh na Gaeilge and the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) held a vocal and colourful demonstration outside Leinster House today demanding that the Government act on its legal obligations to give Irish language speakers equality in their right to engage with the State through Irish. Some demonstrators wore Santa outfits, all wore Santa hats, with red T-shirts bearing the legend: “Níl uaim ach mo teanga féin a labhairt” (All I want is to speak my own language). Red tape across their mouths represented the failure of the State to allow them to speak their own language. During the protest they shouted slogans including “Enda Kenny, end of Gaeilge” and “Cearta teanga, cearta daonna” (language rights, human rights).
Posters included “Act now on Irish language” and “Fine GAEL??? Tribe of the IRISH???” Feidhlim Seoige, USI vice president for the Irish language, said the resignation of the Irish language commissioner showed how unsupportive the Government had been. Previous governments had been “half successful” in their attempts at resurrecting the language. But “this is the worst Government towards promotion of the Irish language since the beginning of the State”. The campaigners said they had only two requests for Christmas – language rights and the language commissioner. They want the Government to meet Irish language commissioner Seán Ó Cuirreáin before he leaves office in February, after the surprise announcement of his resignation last week over the State’s failure to act on its legal obligations to the first national language. Conradh na Gaeilge general secretary Julian de Spáinn highlighted the commissioner’s warning about the Government’s plans for a maximum of 6 per cent of new public service recruits to have Irish.
It would take 28 years to increase the 1.5 per cent of people in the Department of Education who provide a service in Irish to 3 per cent and 3 per cent “would still be woefully inadequate”.
And he praised the Garda Síochána as a role model for all Government departments to follow for Irish language development. Mr de Spáinn said the Garda Commissioner met the Irish language commissioner to work out how they would recruit additional people with Irish “to come to a point where 100 per cent of gardaí in Gaeltacht areas will have Irish in a number of years”. Niamh Ní Chróinín, a Trinity College Irish student said Irish has not been treated as fairly as English even though both are our national languages. Ms Ní Chroinin is also president of the 1,200-member Trinity Irish language society, one of the largest student societies in the college. “The language commissioner is the person you go to if you have a complaint about the Irish language and without him we’ve nowhere else to go,” she said.
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Coimisinéir an choinsiasa
December 11, 2013
Fudge, farce, falsehood
December 9, 2013
It speaks volumes about the Government’s apparent lack of interest in its own policies towards the Irish language that the State’s first ever Language Commissioner, Seán Ó Cuirreáin, has chosen to resign his post early rather than carry on watching while the Government continues to shirk its obligations towards Irish speakers.
Mr Ó Cuirreáin has been measured and constructive in his duties as Language Commissioner and his concerns for the language are well-merited. His blunt assessment is that the Government’s lack of action in providing services in Irish for the Gaeltacht and adequate capacity in public administration may be seen as “a fudge, a farce or a falsehood”.
It is widely accepted, by both Gaeltacht communities and academics, that the language is in dire straits in its traditional strongholds. It will not survive unless people are given adequate reason and encouragement to speak it. Yet it seems that the Government expects the people of the Gaeltacht to save the language simply because they have just about managed to do so until now.
The truth is that the people of the Gaeltacht cannot keep Irish alive simply by dint of being native speakers. They need and are entitled to services in their own language from their own State. Mr Ó Cuirreáin has rightly noted they have been obliged to use English in their dealings with State agencies and that this should not be allowed to continue. That it has gone on for so long is not only an affront to the people of the Gaeltacht but a damning indictment of so many governments over so many decades.
That there are people in Ireland who wish to speak Irish, both in the Gaeltacht and in urban areas, is not in doubt. That they have rights in this regard too is not in doubt, particularly since the enactment of the Official Languages Act in 2003.
That it takes the resignation of the Language Commissioner to remind the Government about those wishes and rights is simply shameful.
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Commissioner resigns
December 6, 2013
A chara, –
It is a cause of shame that the greatest threat to the Irish language is and always has been the ruling State of the day.
As Coimisinéir Teanga, Seán Ó Cuireáin has made great strides in supporting our constitutional right to use Irish in public life despite the immense obstacles in our State bureaucracy.
It is the same bureaucracy that has made the role of an Coimisinéir Teanga both vital and impossible.
– Is mise,
Maitiú de Hál,
Páirc na Canálach Ríoga,
Baile an Ásaigh,
Baile Átha Cliath 15
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Quinn rejects claims over Irish language
December 6, 2013
