Gaelscoils - no "foreigners" need apply.

Steerpike

Hard to know where to post this... if I put it into "languages" I'll be assailed by Gaeilgeoiri - and it's not strictly political. Given that it stems from an article in the local rag, and touches on a previous Sunday Business Post article, I'll put it here.

Gaelscoils - no "foreigners" need apply?

An article in the local rag came to Gombeen Man’s attention the other day. It reported on a campaign to set up a Gaelscoil in nearby Tyrellstown, one of Dublin’s new building boom suburbs.

According to the report, the local populace turned out in their thousands, clamouring for a Gaelscoil in the area. And no, it wasn’t just Irish language enthusiasts and Shinners, according to the piece, the parents of immigrant children were there too.

Sorry, Gombeen Man has no polite way of saying this, but - “bollocks!!!”


Let me give you some background on Tyrellstown, as many will only know it as a name on the map. Like many parts of west Dublin, Tyrellstown was only a townland until a few years ago. In a short time, however, a very sizable high-density urban settlement just shot up. Like many such developments, however, the housing went up with scant regard for infrastructural needs, and everything else - from schooling to transport to safe roads to walk on – was an afterthought.

Gombeen Man does not know what the exact population count is in Tyrellstown, nor does he know the breakdown of indigenous and immigrant people, but confidently assumes that there is a high proportion of children who are - or whose parents are - immigrants. Many of these children, or their parents, will not be native English speakers – so one would have thought it imperative to school them in an environment where they can get up to speed in the spoken language of our country – English – as soon as possible.

Why, then, put a Gaelscoil in this area. Where is the “demand” coming from? The answer is that the well-organised Gaelscoil movement is cynically exploiting the dire need for schools, of any sort, in these areas, to push their own ideological agenda. Gaelic speaking schools – many of which see the teaching of English in any form as an ideological intrusion – are the very last type of schools needed in places such as Tyrellstown. Anyone unhindered by a purely linguistic agenda can see that the best, most inclusive schools, are ones that teach in the spoken medium of our country which is – I’ll say it again – English. This applies, by the way, whether the children at issue are native Irish or from elsewhere.

Another reason for the “surge” in popularity of Irish speaking schools – though few will admit it, is racism. Why should there be a “demand” in a working-class area for a type of schooling, that by its very nature, will limit the number of immigrant children on its books? Go on, you are allowed to think the obvious here. The simple answer is that some of the clamour is from racist Irish parents who feel that their children will be less exposed to foreigners in such an enviroment. The following is an extract from a Sunday Business Post article on Gaelscoileanna, by Nadine O’Regan, that appeared in April of last year

One Dublin parent - we’ll call her Emily, although she wasn’t prepared to give her real name - has told The Sunday Business Post that the local gaelscoil is one she would be happy to have her son attend.

Emily likes this school not just because it’s in a good area. Not just because it gets good results.

And not just because it’s a gaelscoil. No. The reason she would be happy to have her son here is much simpler: at this school, she pointed out, “[her] child wouldn’t have to mix with ‘blacks’.”

For Pat, a former Dublin school principal who also insisted on anonymity, this kind of prejudice is not unfamiliar.

‘‘Parents’ perception would be that gaelscoileanna don’t have a high profile in terms of special learning needs or non-Irish nationals or Traveller enrolment,” he claims.

‘‘So for some parents the perception is that the gaelscoil is a better place for their child.”


No doubt there will be Irish language enthusiasts who will respond by saying “I know the child of an immigrant family that goes to my Oisin’s Gaelscoil”, and other such twaddle, but these exceptions are not the rule. So, if we discount the usual suspects - middle class parents looking at the increased points potential for doing subjects through Irish, Irish Language enthusiasts, and Shinners - where has this “enthusiasm” come from in a relatively deprived working-class area? Why?

The simple answer, and I’ll spell it out (as Bearla) is R-A-C-I-S-M.

There is a societal shift taking place in Ireland now, and this is the shape of the future. Gaelic has been used since the State's inception to exclude hundreds of thousands of ordinary Irish people from further education and career choices (as part of its warped promotion) and will be used to exclude foreign nationals to an even greater extent in the future.


Link to the article is here:
http://gombeennation.blogspot.com/2008/07/gaelscoileanna-gaelscoils-no-foreigners.html

Munya

My gaelscoil of 14 years ago had children of immigrants in it. I can't say I blame the parents though, a lot of the english schools are s*** nowadays.

ojewriej

There is probably some truth to that - some parents prefer to send children to schoolls with less foreign kids, but racism (or xenophobia) doesn;t necessary have to be behind that.

A lot of immigrants children, would have very little, or no English. Therefore teachers have to spend more time with them, so they have less time for local kids. If that's the case, it's not racism, they are simply trying to secure the best education possible for their kids. Which I think is understandable.

flogen

If you want to advertise your blog here you can take out an ad.

Locked.

(There's nothing wrong with the topic so feel free to start a new thread so long as you don't simply use it to draw attention to your website. I'd suggest posting it in AH too as it's not a media issue).