I'm Irish, I live in the Republic Ireland (South), and like almost every other person who went to school in Ireland, we have been forced to learn Irish, throughout our schooling (Primary and Secondary). Compulsory learning of Irish was brought into all Republic of Ireland (Free State) schools 100 years ago this year, and to call it a waste of money is me being generous.
Now the South and the North are two separate issues.
Firstly the South...
So for 100 years, there have been 3 compulsory subjects in Irish schools from age 4/5 to 18/19, Irish, English and Mathematics. 14 years of education and the only time it is needed is to pass a Government exam for the Civil and Public Service (like the Police etc). The frequency that you would then use it is almost but not quite, zero. And even then you would deflect it to someone who actually has fluency in Irish. The Government have essentially been keeping it alive on a respirator for many decades, requiring Government publications to translate documents into Irish, in case someone should ask for it in Irish. They also give grant money to support an Irish language TV and radio station, while those living in Gaeltacht (Irish speaking) areas further grants. Thus it is all artificially being kept alive, and whenever there's a suggestion that they might remove the compulsory Irish, all the vested interests come out of the woodwork as they see their gravy train under threat.
Now, before I continue, and in case you're thinking that I am making stuff up, let me ask you how many people do you think speak Irish every day ?
Out of 4.8 million people in the Republic of Ireland ?
This is from the 2016 census in Ireland
https://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/population/2017/7._The_Irish_language.pdf
Gaeltacht areas
Of the 73,803 daily Irish speakers (outside the education system), 20,586 (27.9%) lived in Gaeltacht areas. The total population of all Gaeltacht areas in April 2016 was 96,090, down 0.6 per cent from 96,628 in 2011. Of these, 63,664 or 66.3 per cent, indicated they could speak Irish, while 20,586 (21.4 % of the total) indicated they spoke Irish daily outside the education system. This represents a fall of 11.2 per cent on the 2011 daily Irish speakers figure of 23,175.
74,000 daily speakers in Irish ! Out of 4.8 million people, and 21,000 of those living in Irish speaking areas where it is made even easier to be able to speak the language !
By any measurement, that is an horrific return on investment, after 100 years of Compulsory Irish. And bear in mind that many of those are adults who teach Irish !!!
My 15 year old son is currently learning Irish in secondary school, and apart from one or two of his classmates, they all hate being forced to learn it (and would bin it if they could). It is an irrelevancy to them.
I have long held the belief that the Irish speaking "industry" fear that removing the compulsory requirement would put their cozy cash cartel in danger, and that is the biggest stumbling block to being honest about Irish in this country. The census figures don't lie, and 74,000 is an indictment of a failed system. In my opinion, if you wanted to help it, I would
- get the truth out there, face the hard facts of how bad the situation is now.
- remove the Compulsory requirement for Secondary schools (ages 13-19)
- no harm in keeping it for Primary Schools ( 5-13), but the Government need to start teaching a modern European language like (French, German, Spanish etc) side by side, which I think will actually help the situation.
To paraphrase Stuart Stevens, "It was all a lie".
Secondly, the North
This is an entirely different issue. Obviously the Nationalists were badly treated for decades within an British Protestant state, and hung onto what they would see as "Irish" identity objects, the Irish language being one of them. The biggest issue is that it is being seen as a Sinn Fein weapon, against which the Unionists fight. In fact it became a stumbling block in trying to get the NI Assembly back working again, where the Unionists refused to bring in the Irish Language Act. It's most an effort in paying lip service to the language.
It's not compulsory in the North and there are only a small minority taking it as a subject in schools.
= new reply since forum marked as read
