Keeping Irish as a core subject
February 24, 2011
A chara, – Congratulations to the three party leaders who took part in the debate in Irish on TG4.
Comhghairdeas also to newscaster Eimear Ní Chonaola who chaired the proceedings with style and aplomb. The debate was historic in that it was the first ever of its kind in Irish. Indeed it was the first time such an event was even possible with all three party leaders having fluency in the language. Given that none of the three comes from a Gaeltacht or Irish-speaking background it was all the more remarkable.
This bilingual ability in our three candidates for taoiseach is a credit to the individuals themselves. But it has to be said that it also reflects favourably on the school system they came through. For all its faults, our education system with Irish as a core subject to Leaving Certificate level has ensured the survival of the language for our generation. It would be an awful shame if we failed to ensure its survival for the next generation. It is, after all, one of the few things that is uniquely our own. – Is mise,
JOHN GLENNON,
Hollywood,
Co Wicklow.
Madam, – Apart from some exceptions, every Leaving Cert student has both the obligation and the right to follow an approved course in Irish. It is difficult to see how, in practice, one could remove the obligation while maintaining the right in all cases. The National University of Ireland (NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, UCC, UCD) has Irish as an essential entry requirement while TCD, DCU, the University of Limerick and other third-level institutions do not. It is quite conceivable that at some future date the NUI will abolish this universal requirement. It has the statutory power to do so and could argue, with some justification, that it should not impose a restriction on prospective students not imposed by its competitors. If this were to happen in addition to the implementation of the Fine Gael policy, the consequences for Irish would be very serious.
Indeed, there is every likelihood that the adoption of the Fine Gael policy would hasten a change in the NUI requirement. –
Yours, etc,
JAMES N FLAVIN,
Taylor’s Hill,
Galway.
Madam, – Our would-be taoisigh have been applauded for their fluency in the Irish language following the TG4 debate. However, would it be possible to hold a similar debate in German or even in French before the election? Considering our country’s current situation, a leader who could converse with Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy in their own languages would impress me a lot more than a fluent Irish speaker. – Yours, etc,
Dr JACK DOWNEY,
Old Cratloe Road,
Limerick.
Madam, – Irish is not a core subject. It is a coerced subject. – Yours, etc,
IVOR SHORTS,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.
Madam, – None of the politicians debating the current de facto compulsory teaching of Irish for the Leaving Certificate have been secondary students for quite some time. They would do well to seek the opinions of current secondary and tertiary students. Those with most experience of the curriculum rather than any special Irish language interest group or dinosaur politicians, should shape this debate. – Yours, etc,
DAVID CARROLL,
Bishopstown Avenue West,
Cork.
The Irish Times – Litireacha chuig an Eagarthóir
Irish language: not just a Gaeltacht issue
February 24, 2011
Is Fine Gael’s proposal to make Irish an optional Leaving Cert subject a liberation from schoolroom misery or a fast track to oblivion for the national language? Either way, it provokes strong views
IF FINE Gael’s proposals for the Irish language have done nothing else, they have at least caused a temporary diversion from the endless debates about roasting the bondholders. The idea of ending Irish as a compulsory Leaving Certificate subject provokes strong views. For those who carry vague, if dreaded, memories of swotting up on the modh coinníollach the proposal sounds like a liberation from years of unnecessary misery. But for others the Fine Gael policy would bring about the certain extinction of the national language. In Galway, for example, the prevalence of Gaeltacht areas and the tradition of the Irish summer schools have led to a belief that such a policy would have disastrous consequences.
“Enda Kenny’s position was very clear in the original interview: that they would make Irish optional no matter what research was carried out afterwards,” says Caitlin Neachtain of Concos, the co-ordinating body for summer schools. “It was a shocking bulldozing of one policy which may sit well with some people. It will be detrimental to the language. It is as simple as this: if you don’t have to do a subject for your Leaving Cert, you aren’t going to study it. And Irish is a subject where some parents can’t help. “So the language is going to suffer. This is not solely a Gaeltacht issue. People look at the economic implications, the 672 houses in the country, but Irish has a huge economic impact: the colleges bring EUR60 million per annum into one of the most economically deprived areas in the country. And it supports a way of living in the country. We do feel that this is central to our own national identity. A lot of people who come to the Gaeltacht are very enthusiastic about the language. We call them ‘repeat offenders’. But most of these kids come with a real grá for the language from home. Gaeltacht kids come there for the summer, too.”
It is such an emotive issue that Fine Gael candidates in Galway West have agreed to ask Kenny to meet representatives from concerned organisations. Wednesday’s TG4 leaders’ debate was instantly acknowledged as one of the surprise highlights of the election campaign to date. All three main party leaders spoke Irish with clarity and, in a welcome departure from normal practice, did not cut across one another. When Caitlin Neachtain watched the debate she was struck by the irony that the three potential taoisigh were debating the flaws of Irish in schools while speaking excellent Irish that they had been taught at school, “so it can’t be a total failure”. But there is a growing acknowledgement that the teaching methodology for Irish has left large sections of the population with negative feelings about the language. Furthermore, recent studies suggest that the language is declining in the very Gaeltacht areas where it supposedly flourishes.
Pádraic Breathnach is well known as an actor in both Irish- and English-language productions. Raised in Carna, Breathnach recognises the importance of Irish but has become fed up with what he sees as the preservation of a system that does not work. “I find myself half agreeing with the Fine Gael proposals because we have to stop paying lip service to the Irish language,” he says. “I think I would be a lot happier if people learned it because they liked to learn it rather than being forced to learn it. There is a lot of hypocrisy and cant associated with the Irish language. There are a lot of articles saying it would threaten jobs and industry in Connemara, that it would affect the Irish colleges. There is significant benefit to the private companies that run these schools and get public facilities at a cheap price. And it negates a proper development of tourism infrastructure because they are all geared up to the colleges and catering to bourgeois children from Dublin.”
Breathnach points out that he has two small children living in Brussels, and that he and his partner talk to them in French and Irish. He was told by local teachers that his children spoke Irish as well, if not better, than local kids, a view which reinforced his belief that the Gaeltacht system of summer colleges just doesn’t work. “The Irish language is doomed, because even people in the Gaeltacht areas don’t speak it,” he says. “Any sensible person will agree on that. Kids living there can speak passable Irish but they use English diction and pick up words from television. So I think we need immediate help for Irish in the Gaeltacht areas.” Do the summer colleges work? And is learning Irish even the main goal for students who go there? Máire Denvir has taught Irish in several towns in Co Galway and now works at Coláiste Chamuis in Ros a’ Mhil. As part of a thesis she wrote four years ago she charted the progress of a group of students during a three-week programme of total immersion. Their Irish ranged from weak to reasonably good.
“If I had a group of Europeans or Americans coming here, it wouldn’t have been possible to do the study,” she says. “Irish students come here with a degree of residual knowledge of the language that they learned at school. The summer college develops that. What it gave them was the confidence to go back and face the subject. And the time they spent speaking the language for those weeks with us was the equivalent of a full year at school.”Caitlin Neachtain, also an experienced teacher, agrees that the schools work. “By the end of week one, most kids said they were dreaming in Irish,” she says. The Gaeltacht community clearly fears that making Irish optional will fast-track the language into academic insignificance and will mean that parents and students no longer see the point of attending Gaeltacht colleges. As it is, a 2007 linguistic study for the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs found that once the proportion of Irish spoken in the area falls below 67 per cent, “Irish as a community language becomes unsustainable.”
The report also found the number of Gaeltacht families raising their children through Irish to be “very low”. Even in households where this was attempted, children became vulnerable, as they moved from primary to post-primary school, to “the pervasive English language-oriented socialisation process occurring in the education system in the Gaeltacht in general”. The flipside was that the report found very positive attitudes towards the language to be intact. Neachtain believes this is one of the key elements in approaching the teaching of Irish. Having taught the language to adults, she is constantly surprised by the number of people who realise in their 40s and 50s that they want to “come back” to the language.
In the meantime the move to lighten and refresh the Irish-language syllabus has already taken place. “There can be no doubt that there were problems with the course,” Maire Denvir says. “It was hard to follow and too broad. But it has become easier. And the new syllabus which comes in next year has 10 poems to study and 22 pages of literature. I showed it to some Irish teachers and they wondered where the rest of it was. “I think a key to promoting Irish, if they are serious about it, is to reintroduce an oral exam for primary-school teaching. Irish should be of a certain standard at that level, and that will set the foundation.” It will take five years before the results of the new syllabus come in. Opponents of the Fine Gael strategy wonder why the party can’t at least wait that long to see if the situation is improving. Neachtain felt that Enda Kenny was ambivalent about this matter in the television debate. “He seemed to suggest that the party would do more research into the issue before anything was decided,” she says. “I thought he looked uncomfortable and it was difficult to make out what he was saying. But not because of his Irish – that was very good.”
What the main parties say
Fianna Fáil
Says strong commitment to language is key policy cornerstone. Claims removal of compulsion at Leaving Cert would be disastrous
Fine Gael
Committed to overhauling the way Irish is taught at primary and second levels of education. Removal of Irish as a compulsory Leaving Cert subject will apply only following consultations on curriculum and teaching methods.
Labour
Committed to the retention of Irish as core compulsory subject for the Leaving Cert. Believes the teaching of Irish “needs significant reform” and students leaving school should be able to hold a conversation in Irish.
The Irish Times – Keith Duggan
It’s still there, but barely alive
February 24, 2011
SOMETHING UNUSUAL happened this week
Courtesy of the leaders’ debate on TG4 the Irish language was the centre of the national discourse. The three party leaders were eloquent in the national language, happy to discuss subordinated debt and the like as Gaeilge. But many viewers were, no doubt, grateful for the subtitles. For them, Irish is not a living language. In the 2006 census more than 1.6 million people said they “have” Irish but more than one million of these admitted they rarely, if ever, spoke it. About 72,000 people, fewer than 5 per cent of us, use the language daily outside education. But if Irish has a marginal presence outside schools, it has a leading, some would say dominant, role inside them.
In most primary schools children will spend more than three hours per week learning the subject, about 15 per cent of teaching time. By comparison, the teaching of science accounts for only 4 per cent of instruction time. Despite this investment few teachers believe we are making progress. One senior figure says:”“Kids have a genuine grá for the language in infant classes but most lose their love of the language by the end of second class. They want to speak the language, not focus on grammar and reading.” At second level an army of teachers provide Irish-language instruction for the Junior and Leaving Cert exams. Overall, An Coimisinéir Teanga, who functions as an ombudsman service in relation to State services through Irish, estimates that a student will receive almost 1,500 hours of tuition in the Irish language over 13 years of primary and secondary education.The most up-to-date figures (from 2004) indicate that Irish-language education was costing up to EUR500 million a year. Despite this, many young people cannot conduct a conversation in Irish.
Languages expert Dr Kevin Williams, of the Mater Dei Institute, says the official policy of ensuring that people are able to use the language has been a “manifest failure”. “As an enthusiastic Irish-speaker, both professionally and socially, I agree with making Irish as visible as English in the public space. This enthusiasm for speaking Irish is not widely shared and I have ceased to be surprised at the lack of knowledge of the language among many people,” he says. “I have come across young people who, after 11 or 12 years of being forced to learn the language, hardly know one single word of it. Young people have a right and entitlement to learn Irish, but the essence of rights and entitlements is the freedom not to exercise them. Therefore, after the Junior Certificate Irish should no longer be compulsory.”
Last year, at 82 per cent, the percentage of students taking the Leaving Cert Irish exam was at its lowest level since records began.Increasing numbers of students are seeking an exemption from Irish. While many of these are genuine cases (special needs, immigrants, and so on), others are simply trying to sidestep the exam. In 2008 there was controversy when it was revealed that many of those who secured an exemption from Irish were taking other foreign languages. One Irish teacher says: “For those of us who love the language there is this awful sense that the Irish language is on a life-support machine in schools – still there, but barely alive … I sense a growing resentment, particularly among middle-class parents, about their children being forced to learn Irish.”
Ireland is the only European country where study of a foreign language is not compulsory at any stage of education. Only 8 per cent of Irish secondary-school students learn two or more foreign languages, compared with the European average of 60 per cent. In pushing for the abolition of compulsory Irish in the Leaving Cert, Fine Gael has tapped into negative feelings about the language. Its policy has raised awkward questions about our true commitment to the language.
The Irish Times – Seán Flynn
Downgrading Irish ‘an act of cultural vandalism’
February 24, 2011
IRISH LANGUAGE : THE IRISH language is one of the few aspects of identity that makes sure Irish people are not branded as “East Americans or the West British”, Minister for Arts Mary Hanafin has contended.
Ms Hanafin accused Enda Kenny of an act of political opportunism in adopting a populist position on compulsory Irish in the Leaving Cert. “Downgrading the status of Irish would amount to an act of cultural vandalism,” she said. Ms Hanafin was speaking at a Fianna Fáil news conference on the Irish language, during which the Minister for the Gaeltacht, Pat Carey, also spoke.
Both Ministers said Fianna Fáil stood squarely behind the preservation of the Irish language. They said it fully supported a recently-published 20-year strategic plan which aims to bring the number of daily speakers from about 85,000 to about 250,000. Mr Carey said if the plan was not implemented Irish would not survive as a first language for more than another 15 years. He said if this happened it would be a disaster. “The Irish language is an important part of what we are. Some 80 per cent are in favour of its promotion.”
The Irish Times – Harry McGee
Plan for optional Irish in Leaving Cert
February 24, 2011
A chara, – Piaras Béaslaí, in the biography of his friend Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland,
Dublin 1926, wrote “That ideal, the ideal of Michael Collins, was, as his latest writings show as unequivocally as his earliest, a free, united, un-partitioned, Irish-speaking Ireland, proudly preserving its historic culture and its national integrity … in short, an Ireland as Irish as Denmark is Danish.” Should Fine Gael in government put paid to the status of Irish as a core Leaving Cert subject, I hope that it would have the decency to discontinue any reference to Collins in its party publicity. – Is mise,
DÁITHÍ Mac CÁRTHAIGH BL,
An Leabharlann Dlí,
Na Ceithre Cúirteanna,
Baile Átha Cliath 7.
A chara, – David Carroll makes the entirely valid point that students should have an input into the debate on the teaching of Irish in secondary school (February 19th). As a fifth-year student, it is my firm opinion that our education system does not facilitate learning purely out of love for a subject. Students become so blinded by the tunnel vision of seeking results, objectives and future employment in the midst of a vicious points race that we are not granted the luxury of pursuing a subject for its own sake, however much we might like to.
Yet Irish isn’t merely a subject: it is a means of communication and a manner of thinking which constitutes an intrinsic part of our national identity, and it is paramount that we keep its high status to motivate students to study it. To adopt Fine Gael’s vision appears to me like the certain route to a dystopian future where the “English is enough” attitude will prevail. Why can’t they improve the teaching of language and at the same time keep it obligatory? We can import teachers of foreign languages if necessary, but we need to produce Irish teachers to a high standard here in Ireland, because nowhere else can. Those who vote for Irish becoming optional aren’t seeking the right to choose, but conversely, the right to reject, our first language. – Is mise,
EIMEAR DUFF,
Swords Road, Dublin 9.
Madam, – If Fine Gael makes the Irish language an optional subject at Leaving Certificate, will it also make it an optional entry requirement into teacher training colleges? I believe the current requirement for an honour in higher-level Irish is proving to be a barrier to many of our students entering the teaching profession.
How can we justify this requirement when a similar standard is not required, for instance, in mathematics? A significant number of our past pupils do very well in the Leaving Certificate and they gain enough points to go to third level.
Some are post-primary teachers, but we have strong anecdotal evidence that it is the Irish language requirement in Leaving Cert that is proving to be an impediment to some young people becoming primary teachers. We need positive role models from our school community, as teachers and would dearly love to see more of our past pupils coming back to teach in our school. I believe that the Irish language requirement should be an exit requirement from the training colleges and not an entry requirement. When young people decided that primary teaching is the profession they wish to pursue, three years of intensive tuition in Irish in college, added to their school-level Irish, should allow students to meet the necessary standard.
Teachers who are trained abroad are currently allowed a number of years to upskill in the Irish language. Why are we putting an impediment in the way of otherwise excellent candidates to the profession? In a similar vein, we recruited a new special needs assistant in our school in recent months and were astounded to discover that an Irish language requirement has also been mandated for this position. We have little or no role models in the teaching profession for the newcomer children in our schools. The position of SNA might have been an opportunity to introduce some diversity in the school staff if a suitable candidate had been successful at interview. Unfortunately the Irish language requirement made this an impossibility. Schools should have complete discretion in this matter and should be able to decide if a qualification in the Irish language for SNAs is necessary for their own particular context. – Yours, etc,
KATHRYN CROWLEY,
Principal,
St Louise de Marillac Junior School,
Ballyfermot, Dublin 10.
The Irish Times – Litireacha chuig an Eagarthóir
Plan for optional leaving Cert Irish
February 24, 2011
Madam, – Seán Flynn’s article on the Irish language (February 19th) mentions that the State spends about EUR500 million a year on (second-level) Irish language education.
According to a recent statement by Prof Ed Walsh, the total spend on promoting Irish is closer to EUR1.2 billion a year, however. Yet as Dr Kevin Williams says, the result of this spend is the ability of people to use Irish is “a manifest failure”. Fine Gael’s policy is surely based on the reality that after almost 90 years of force-feeding Irish to our children, at high cost to the taxpayer, the result is “a manifest failure”. It is questionable whether new life can be breathed into it through continued compulsion, as Micheál Martin proposes.
Fewer than 20,000 people are native speakers today and that number is decreasing. Choice, not force, may prove to be a more sensible approach, as well as spending some of the EUR1.2 billion on teaching another language, such as Chinese, as suggested recently by Prof Walsh. – Yours, etc,
ROBIN BURY,
Military Road,
Killiney, Co Dublin.
Madam, – All of the comment on the above issue misses the the point. If we are to get jobs back into our country we must start to prioritise and learn a European language or Mandarin at an early age in order to attract companies to our so-called well-educated workforce. Are we seriously to believe that a graduate of any discipline with fluent Spanish or Mandarin cannot get a job? Would we not prefer a taoiseach who could speak one of these useful languages over one who has fluent Irish? Without focusing on these languages we may all be fluent Irish speakers, but will be for the most part unemployed ones. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL A O’CONNOR,
Kiltoom, Co Roscommon.
Madam, – As a secondary school student, I believe it is an outrage that Fine Gael plan to remove Irish as a core subject. I feel Irish is an important subject, for it is part of our culture and heritage. The Irish language is one of the things that makes Ireland unique. Many of my family members outside Ireland are jealous that I get the chance to study Irish in school. Considering this and Fine Gael’s desire to make Irish non-compulsory, I think that we in Ireland are ungrateful for the chance to speak and learn our native tongue. – Yours, etc,
NICOLA ARMSTRONG,
Dale Drive,
Stillorgan, Co Dublin.
The Irish Times – Litreacha chuig an Eagarthóir
Cur agus cúiteamh agus an t-olltoghchán ag teacht chun deiridh
February 24, 2011
Plan for optional leaving Cert
February 24, 2011
Madam, – As a secondary school student, it is my firm belief that students should not be forced to study the Irish language for the Leaving Certificate.
It may well be our national language, but preserving our heritage has little to do with the creation of jobs. Instead, I propose that the next government abolish compulsory Irish after the Junior Certificate, and in its place make it mandatory for the student to study at least one foreign language. Currently, the majority of students studying for their Leaving Certificate will be learning at least two languages – Irish and another European one. Though the latter is optional, many third-level educators require that you have another language, besides English and Irish. Thus, the current system is forcing us to study at least two languages. This is clearly unfair on the many people who find languages hard, but might have a natural flair for other subjects.
Abolishing compulsory Irish at Leaving Certificate level would not result in the loss of our heritage, as many would still choose to study the language (and be more willing to since it would not be enforced upon them). It would, however, let students focus on what they are good at, as opposed to struggling with a subject that they will more than likely not use in the future. – Yours, etc,
LAURA BRENNAN,
Home Farm Road,
Drumcondra, Dublin 9.
A chara, – Robin Bury’s contention that in terms of cost to the taxpayer, the compulsory study of the Irish language is “a manifest failure” (February 23rd) could equally be applied to Maths and English, the other two “core” subjects. Compulsory study does not guarantee learning and is far more likely to create an aversion to a subject than an interest in it. The case in favour of non-coercive education needs to be investigated, but such lack of control over the thoughts and actions of others is anathema to the establishment, ensuring that this will not happen any time soon. – Is mise,
GREG SCANLON,
Ballycasey Manor,
Shannon,
Co Clare.
The Irish Times – Litireacha chuig an Eagarthóir
Ceist na teanga ag teacht chun cinn san olltoghchán
February 16, 2011
Ó bhéal leanaí imirceach
February 15, 2011
