The poetry, prose and history of the Irish language should be taken out of the current course and put into a separate, optional subject for advanced students – while “Irish Language” should be taught to every student as a core subject, writes Aodhán Ó Deá.
An absence of staff with competence in both official languages of the State is one of the main factors restricting state bodies in their delivery of services to the public in Irish, according to a report.
There were no social situations where Irish speakers could use the language. Na Gaeil Óga – an all-Irish GAA club – could change that, writes Ciarán Mac Fhearghusa.
We have a love/hate relationship with Irish – but the only way to get young people speaking it is to take it out of the classroom, writes Traic Ó Braonáin.
ON HIS HOLIDAYS in Galway recently, Spectator columnist and native of Scotland Alex Massie was less than bowled over to encounter a sign instructing all visitors to Galway cricket club that the only acceptable language was the native tongue.
The new rules applies “even to non-national members”, a sign affixed to the walls of the club states.
Massie points out that this perturbing policy may have something to do with the fact that the club was recently the beneficiary of a significant grant from the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, adding perhaps not unreasonably:
If ACG had sufficient largesse to be supporting cricket clubs in the west of Ireland it just might be that there were other, more significant, areas of government spending – and indeed an entire political and economic culture – that were out of control.
In return for this money from the ministry, the deal was that Irish would be promoted as the language of cricket. As Massie puts it in his Speccie column: “This, no matter what language you put it in, seems a sticky wicket.”
He points out that there are some practical issues that may have been overlooked when it was decided to introduce the policy (not least the fact that only half the Irish national team are actually, er, Irish):
Needless to say, in two visits to Galway’s pleasant ground I’ve yet to hear a single word of Irish spoken … there’s a limit to how much the business of the club can be conducted “through the medium of Irish”. What, in the name of the lord, is the Irish for “googly”? Keen eyes will also notice that the club’s Irish language policy is written in English.
That might have something to do with a further practical issue that Massie himself seems to have overlooked.
