Can I drop Irish or is it compulsory?

merlie

I tried searching but I was getting conflicting answers so I'm just confused, I hope someone knows for sure...

I did foundation Irish in the JC and I did pretty well considering I barely had any Irish beforehand and had only less than a year to learn it for the JC exam. But now as I'm doing the LC I had my first Irish class today and I didn't enjoy it at all. My LC teacher's accent is much more difficult for me to understand than my previous Irish teacher, so in part I feel like I'm trying to learn it all over again...

I've never taken French before but I'm really enjoying it, my teacher is great and the teaching method/atmosphere in her classroom is better than it is in Irish. I feel if I'm able to drop Irish I will be able to put my full attention into learning French as well as it being more useful for me in the future.

Would it be possible to drop Irish?

Trevor451

Hi, I am pretty sure you can't quit Irish unless you have an exemption from the subject

Superbus

Were you born outside Ireland? I presume if you only took up Irish for the JC you were out of the country.

There are several guys in my year who are exempt from Irish due to being born outside the country, even if they moved back when they were small.

merlie

Trevor451 wrote: »

Hi, I am pretty sure you can't quit Irish unless you have an exemption from the subject

How do you go about getting an exemption? Is it something you can request or do you need a particular reason behind it? Even if you don't know for sure, thanks for responding.

@Superbus ~ No, I'm from Dublin, born and raised. But I only got back into education last year after a long time out due to difficult circumstances. I'm 22 now.

Superbus

merlie wrote: »

How do you go about getting an exemption? Is it something you can request or do you need a particular reason behind it? Even if you don't know for sure, thanks for responding.

@Superbus ~ No, I'm from Dublin, born and raised. But I only got back into education last year after a long time out due to difficult circumstances. I'm 22 now.

Ah right. That's more difficult.

Only other people I know of who don't do it are those with learning difficulties - dyslexia and all that.

angela1711

Okey so here is the answer, as far as I know you can only be exempt from Irish if you were born outside the country and come to Ireland after your were eleven. I'm exempt from Irish because of the above reason.
The second reason why you could be exempt is if you have any learning difficulties.
I'm not sure how it could be in your situation.
The best thing would be to talk with either your year head or your principal they would know what you can and can't do. If they would tell you that you can get an exemption than the school would probably do all the files work.
At least for me that was the case.

gaeilgegrinds1

I'm fairly sure you can't. Do you have a good teacher or would it make a difference to change teacher perhaps? I'm a teacher and without good relations it can make it difficult.

Nic Neptune

I think schools do allow you to drop Irish (I know three girls who have done it in my year throughout the six years I've been there) but you do need Irish to get into Universities....although, certain courses in U.L. (the ones I was looking at, in my case, arts subjects) they require Irish OR another language, so you wouldn't be completely limiting yourself if you dropped Irish and had another language, in your case French. Before making your final decision I'd look at courses you want to do, and see if dropping Irish wouldn't affect you.

I would say speak to your Guidance Counsellor too, but considering some of them are beyond annoying and basically tell you what to do, I'll just say that if you do have an approachable guidance counsellor then to talk to them.

Daniel S

Depends on your college course. I shouldn't have bothered with pass irish, but I thought I had to do it. I'm doing Mech Eng in UL and it wasn't a requirement as I had HL German.

merlie

I don't have any learning difficulties. Though today I found out my friend has an exemption from Irish, she doesn't have any learning difficulties either and she is Irish. I wasn't able to get into more detail about it... as I had to go to my Irish class, ha.

Also I'm still very unsure about university and what I want to do. In my head I have so many things I would love to do, many things I could be passionate about. I would hate to start something and find what I really want lies elsewhere.

gaeilgegrinds1 wrote: »

I'm fairly sure you can't. Do you have a good teacher or would it make a difference to change teacher perhaps? I'm a teacher and without good relations it can make it difficult.

Unfortunately it wouldn't be possible for me to change teacher as it would conflict with other classes on my schedule.

See, both my previous Irish teacher and my current French teacher seem to love what they do, in a way that feeling projects out into the rest of the class which makes it an enjoyable environment to be in and I felt more enthusiastic to participate in the class and try to do my best.

With this Irish teacher I have now, she isn't a bad teacher at all and I have no problem with her as a person. She just seems to make everything feel like a chore. It's almost as if she's teaching with the belief that everyone in her class hates Irish. Her pronunciation is also difficult for me (I found that 'ta me go maith' was nearly unrecognisable until she wrote it on the board). Sometimes it sounds like she's saying one long word. She's from up north, while my previous teacher was from down south so there was a significant difference.

I think I will have to stick with it for now and hope for the best. Maybe I will adjust. My previous Irish teacher said he will speak to me tomorrow about it if he sees me (my mother happened to bump into him today and mentioned my predicament) He would be the best for me to go to instead of the guidance counsellor.

sdiff

I don't think Trinners (who acknowledge that Ireland's rightful place is at the heart of the British Empire) require Irish.

spalpinfanach

No offence but if you're havin trouble with foundation Gaeilge there has to be something wrong with you.. Have you tried opening an Irish book
Gaeilge, is leatsa í! níl an Fraincís..

AKS

angela1711 wrote: »

Okey so here is the answer, as far as I know you can only be exempt from Irish if you were born outside the country and come to Ireland after your were eleven. I'm exempt from Irish because of the above reason.
The second reason why you could be exempt is if you have any learning difficulties.
I'm not sure how it could be in your situation.
The best thing would be to talk with either your year head or your principal they would know what you can and can't do. If they would tell you that you can get an exemption than the school would probably do all the files work.
At least for me that was the case.

But i think you can get individual exemptions from colleges. I got NUI exemption even though I was here when I was 8.