Should Irish be an optional subject not a cumpulsory one

SeanW

endacl wrote: »

Let's be realistic. There's not a single subject on lc that prepares a person for the 'real world'. What an education should do is allow a child to develop the ability to think. Doesn't matter a damn if the subject us Irish, maths or nepalese nose whistling. Why not Irish? LC maths won't make an engineer. It only develops a capacity in a particular way if thinking, if of course it is conceptualized properly. Likewise biology. Won't make doctor. Or for that matter, a biologist. Picking on a particular subject is silly. I have seven years of French. Two of those at third level, and Delboy would parlez rings around me. There's not a single LC subject that has been of any use in life, work or further education (halfway through my 3rd post-grad at the moment, just for context). That doesn't mean they weren't of value developmentally, in terms of how I learned to learn. Maths wise, for example... In daily life, my primary school arithmetic serves me just fine, thank you very much. Does that mean that the five years of calculus and theorems were wasted? I'll never use them, but I can certainly think in that direction.

Respectfully, I disagree, I spent time in the education systems of both the U.S. and Ireland. Over in the U.S. there were a lot of electives, and it was there that I got into computers, and still am. I found my calling as direct result of that.

Then I came back to Ireland, and we had some electives in my secondary school, most of us (boys anyway, our class was mostly boys) picked Construction Studies in preference to Home Economics. A lot of my classmates would have gone on into the building trade, or some other semi-skilled trade after graduating.

So while I wouldn't dispute your view generally that we don't use the stuff we learn in secondary school throughout life, I think its a little too simplistic, in a good setup, students can either pick the things that will interest them and/or prepare them for their intended careers, or can use the electives to find something interesting, something perhaps one might not have even thought of.

In short, a system that serves the student.

My point is that this is becomes harder/impossible when the curriculum is dictated from on high by the religious orders and Irish language extremists, and unfortunately, Ireland's current budget situation.

That's why I have such a strong issue with people going on about how Irish must be forced on students no matter how little value it has to them, because teenagers are lazy and need stuff rammed down their throats and the language is supposidly part of "our" culture.

I strongly believe that a student's time, plus limited school funding and resources, could be put to much better use with better results for all concerned.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

WillieFlynn wrote: »

I feel that those calling for Irish to remain compulsory, would be better directing their effort to making the course attractive to students.

Coercion doesn't work very well in Ireland, just look at how may people will drink more on good Friday than on a normal Friday. It's nearly a national sport to break rules / laws you don't agree with.

I also find it weird that Irish is the only compulsory subject......

Em.... it isn't?

Coercian with students doesnt work full stop, regardless of where they're from and what they're beig forced to do. How this has not registered with the pro-Irish camp I will never know.

endacl wrote: »

Let's be realistic. There's not a single subject on lc that prepares a person for the 'real world'. What an education should do is allow a child to develop the ability to think. Doesn't matter a damn if the subject us Irish, maths or nepalese nose whistling. Why not Irish? LC maths won't make an engineer. It only develops a capacity in a particular way if thinking, if of course it is conceptualized properly. Likewise biology. Won't make doctor. Or for that matter, a biologist. Picking on a particular subject is silly. I have seven years of French. Two of those at third level, and Delboy would parlez rings around me. There's not a single LC subject that has been of any use in life, work or further education (halfway through my 3rd post-grad at the moment, just for context). That doesn't mean they weren't of value developmentally, in terms of how I learned to learn. Maths wise, for example... In daily life, my primary school arithmetic serves me just fine, thank you very much. Does that mean that the five years of calculus and theorems were wasted? I'll never use them, but I can certainly think in that direction.

Deends on how you define "real world".

Maths, I agree, but then I don't think Maths should be compulsory either. If they dont hae basic Matks skills required for live, something's goen wrong earlier.

Biology - try becoming a vet or a doctor wth biology
French - depends on whether you go to France or not.
Irish - ???

The pont is, though, neither biology nor French is compolsory.

lividduck

Optional and only available if sufficent numbers in any given school choose to study it.
Recent census figures show that less than 2% of people speak Irish outside school, more people speak Polish than Irish.
IMO it is essentially just a hobby language and we should stop spending hundreds of millions of Euro a year on it.

smash

It's sad, but I don't like the language. It's not a nice sounding language and as a result of it being drilled into me as a child, I hate it. Hating it also lead to the fact that I know more Spanish than Irish and I studies it for less than half the time.

I also really dislike the fact that Gaelgoir's and other people who speak Irish really look down upon those who don't. Massive superiority complexes going on.

endacl

smash wrote: »

It's sad, but I don't like the language. It's not a nice sounding language and as a result of it being drilled into me as a child, I hate it. Hating it also lead to the fact that I know more Spanish than Irish and I studies it for less than half the time.

I also really dislike the fact that Gaelgoir's and other people who speak Irish really look down upon those who don't. Massive superiority complexes going on.

I don't look down on anybody. Maybe you're describing an inferiority complex, only from the other side, so to speak...?

lividduck

endacl wrote: »

I don't look down on anybody. Maybe you're describing an inferiority complex, only from the other side, so to speak...?

Except when you are pointing out their grammar and spelling mistakes!

endacl

lividduck wrote: »

endacl wrote: »

I don't look down on anybody. Maybe you're describing an inferiority complex, only from the other side, so to speak...?

Except when you are pointing out their grammar and spelling mistakes!

Fair cop. Ye have me there.... :-)

Sleepy

There's no argument for it being compulsory beyond "I [want/like/stand to financially gain from] others being forced to learn a language they have no use for so it *HAS* to stay that way".

You can make as many sensible and reasonable arguments as you like and the pro-Irish lobby will ignore them whilst trying to claim your citizenship isn't as valid as theirs or that you're "ignorant of your own culture" or some other such twaddle. Unfortunately, such illogical nonsense is at the heart of how many things are done in Ireland so don't expect it to change any time soon.

C14N

I can't see the point in making it compulsory. If you want people to love their language and their country, why would you use it to stress them out (especially at Leaving Cert) and make them miserable? It's also incredibly hard to care for the language or show any enthusiasm once you get it into your head that it's a waste of time (as I did when I was about 10).

Forcing kids to learn Irish seems tantamount to forcing them to believe Catholicism because "people on this island used to be mad about it" too. If you don't believe in God, no amount of preaching how important it is will make you care. Alternatively, imagine the government started a new initiative where they gave loads of money to people to build wattle and daub houses (instead of our much more advanced, insulated, sturdy etc) houses that we have today just because that's how things were one time and try and find a difference between that and giving funding to teach Irish instead of a language people actually speak.

I have never once felt like it was "my language" based on the fact that I (and my grandparents, who also didn't speak Irish) happened to be born on the same mass of land as some people who spoke it once. If I go back far enough into my ancestry, I'm sure I could find dozens of other dead/comatose languages that are just as much a part of my heritage. Every language has its time and then goes. I hope that 500 years from now, people won't be desperately trying to preserve the type of English that we all speak.

Paparazzo

KeithAFC wrote: »

Surely the language does not need promotion? If people want to learn it, they will. Times move on. People don't need to learn the Irish language or be forced to learn a language which is pretty pointless in the grand scheme of things.

Like I said, it seems to be a more cultural and political thing than it being about the language itself.

I agree.
There was a thread about it before with a load of people saying they wish they could speak it. No one was stopping them going to classes.
What we learn in primary is fine, at least make it optional in secondary

lividduck

Cú Giobach wrote: »

No.
1-2% are native speakers, many more are fluent speakers and many many more again can speak it but wouldn't be considered fluent.
By the way, the number who claim they speak Irish is not 1-2%, but 1-2 million.

The reason it is compulsory is not because of the 1-2% ie native speakers (many of whom don't like compulsion either), but more to do with most of the Irish population wanting it, because they believe it is important. I already said this earlier to you.


What makes you think I am afraid?
Over 50% of the Irish population is hardly a tiny minority.
I already said to you (here) I would like to see it compulsory up to junior cert but if it's removed by popular demand so be it, it still won't die.
Or to put it simply and I'll put it in bold for you, it being optional doesn't bother me. Is that clearer?

Why don't you read what people actually write?

Where did you get your statistics from?
According to the latest Census 1.8% speak Irish outside school, not 50% of the Irish population, not 1-2 million, actually less than 80,000!
That in my opinion makes it a hobby language which should not be a compulsory subject at any point in a childs schooling.

smash

endacl wrote: »

I don't look down on anybody. Maybe you're describing an inferiority complex, only from the other side, so to speak...?

By saying someone has an inferiority complex, you are looking down on them because you are saying they have the fault. It's you who has the problem!

Toby Take a Bow

I think it's important to have at least one language as compulsory in the educational system. I guess it then depends on two factors:
1) Whether you think Irish is a 'pointless' language to learn, and
2) whether we have enough teachers to properly teach a foreign language to everyone in the country.

Being sufficient in two languages helps the person to learn even more languages, which is going to be more and more important in the next couple of years. If we chose to make Irish a proper, working language, we need to completely change how it's taught. I don't know how to make Irish well-taught so people know it and speak it, but maybe we could see how Israel resurrected a dead language. I wonder how proficient Israelis are in other, non-Hebrew languages. I would reckon there's a high rate of dual (or more) language proficiency, and I would also reckon it helps them in terms of trade and investment.

Happyman42

I had a 'road to Damascus' conversion on this when I seen what was ahead of my children if I sent them to Gael Scoil.
The battle to save our indigeous language was lost years ago by inaction on the part of a few generations, just as our economic sovereignty is being lost by this generation. But we, being us, will sarcrifice generations of children in sad and decrepit Gael Scoil portacabins, to some misty eye notion that we are distinct because of the language we use. Is a Polish person here, less a Pole because he/she uses English to get by? We have long since defined ourselves as a distinct culture without the need to speak Irish. Irish as a language spoken by the majority is part of our past just as Celtic Crosses, Round Towers etc are. We have moved on from that and we cherish it as PART OF THE PAST, Irish should be treated in the same way.
How many years have we fought against the under resourcing of education? Now we allow dreamers like the Gael Scoil movement to take money out of the education system to give children an inferior education in inferior conditions, it is nothing short of a scandal and a form of child abuse, if you define abuse as 'depriving a child to placate the whim of an adult'.

The King of Moo

Toby Take a Bow wrote: »

I think it's important to have at least one language as compulsory in the educational system. I guess it then depends on two factors:
1) Whether you think Irish is a 'pointless' language to learn, and
2) whether we have enough teachers to properly teach a foreign language to everyone in the country.

Being sufficient in two languages helps the person to learn even more languages, which is going to be more and more important in the next couple of years. If we chose to make Irish a proper, working language, we need to completely change how it's taught. I don't know how to make Irish well-taught so people know it and speak it, but maybe we could see how Israel resurrected a dead language. I wonder how proficient Israelis are in other, non-Hebrew languages. I would reckon there's a high rate of dual (or more) language proficiency, and I would also reckon it helps them in terms of trade and investment.

This is why I think we should make it compulsory in primary school but have it taught properly like a second language, instead of throwing literature at children at a young age and not actually bothering to teach them the grammar of the language.
I don't want to blame the Department of Education entirely for the way Irish is taught, because it's partly due to us being a monolingual culture. I'm sure language-teaching in other English-speaking countries isn't much better. When you speak English you don't really need to speak another language, so we don't have the experience other non-English speak countries, especially those on the continent, do.
There, especially in the north, young children learn English from a young age, and learn it properly like a second language, starting with the basics and learning the principles of the language first. Every effort is made to make learning the language more interesting and they don't read difficult literature for a long time.
They also encounter English fairly regularly so they get to see it, hear it and practise it a little.

Here we don't do that, we're taught Irish in a half-arsed way where some prior knowledge of the language seems to be assumed and there's little effort to look at the basic principles of the language or make learning it fun (very easy to do for a half-decent language teacher).
I put this down to the fact that we learn very little about the English language as children, because we learn it mostly by hearing.
Schools should put a big emphasis on learning English grammar as early as possible. It would really only take a few lessons for children to know the different tenses (it's sad that most English-speaking adults would look at you blankly if you asked them to give you a present perfect continuous sentence, for example) and rules, and they'd be easy to remember as they would make sense, being the determining factors in how they write and speak. You'd really just be giving them labels for things they already know.
This would give children the same perspective on English as foreign learners of the language have. And when they know the principles of English, that makes learning any other language - no matter how different it is from English, and Irish isn't very different - a lot easier.
Couple this with taking the same approach to learning Irish: assuming no prior knowledge of it and starting from scratch, and the standard would be immeasurably higher. It could still be optional for secondary school, but most students would probably have a high enough level leaving primary school not to need to continue learning it.

This is why it bugs me when people blame the language itself for them not being able to speak it much: it's, objectively, a relatively easy language to learn with a similar structure to English, so blame the way it's taught.

The reason standards of English are poorer in Spain and Italy than in Germany or France is not because English is hard to learn: it's because the language isn't as prioritised or as well-taught in schools in those countries.
In Italy the teacher reads Ulysses and Dickens novels in English to students in secondary school, and at the end of every passage, they translate it and the students write that down.
In Spain, they have "dictionary classes" where the teacher reads out a list of nouns or verbs in Spanish, and after each one gives the English word.
We're not that bad in the way we teach Irish here, but we're not that much better.

Now you might say that's all well and good, but children should learn a useful European language from the start. Personally, I think it'd be easier to convince 4-year olds to learn Irish than German ("but Timmy, you might need it in 25 years time for a job!") and we already have great resources for extra-curricular learning (hugely important in learning any language; you cannot learn it just in the classroom) including dedicated Irish-language tv and radio stations, and Irish on every street sign. Children wouldn't have that advantage with French, German etc and would never be able to advance in them to as high a level as they could with properly-taught Irish.
Someone leaving primary school with a decent level of Irish would have little problem learning two European languages to an acceptable standard in secondary school anyway, so in the long run, compulsory primary-school Irish would lead to those high standards in European languages people love typing about.

I know it's not as attractive as "I had it rammed down my throat for 14 years and I can't speak a word of it! It's a dead crippled language!" but it seems like common sense to me.

Sidenote: I think we should have a moratorium on people seriously suggesting that Irish students should learn Chinese.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

The King of Moo wrote: »

This is why I think we should make it compulsory in primary school but have it taught properly like a second language, instead of throwing literature at children at a young age and not actually bothering to teach them the grammar of the language.
I don't want to blame the Department of Education entirely for the way Irish is taught, because it's partly due to us being a monolingual culture. I'm sure language-teaching in other English-speaking countries isn't much better. When you speak English you don't really need to speak another language, so we don't have the experience other non-English speak countries, especially those on the continent, do.
There, especially in the north, young children learn English from a young age, and learn it properly like a second language, starting with the basics and learning the principles of the language first. Every effort is made to make learning the language more interesting and they don't read difficult literature for a long time.
They also encounter English fairly regularly so they get to see it, hear it and practise it a little.

Here we don't do that, we're taught Irish in a half-arsed way where some prior knowledge of the language seems to be assumed and there's little effort to look at the basic principles of the language or make learning it fun (very easy to do for a half-decent language teacher).
I put this down to the fact that we learn very little about the English language as children, because we learn it mostly by hearing.
Schools should put a big emphasis on learning English grammar as early as possible. It would really only take a few lessons for children to know the different tenses (it's sad that most English-speaking adults would look at you blankly if you asked them to give you a present perfect continuous sentence, for example) and rules, and they'd be easy to remember as they would make sense, being the determining factors in how they write and speak. You'd really just be giving them labels for things they already know.
This would give children the same perspective on English as foreign learners of the language have. And when they know the principles of English, that makes learning any other language - no matter how different it is from English, and Irish isn't very different - a lot easier.
Couple this with taking the same approach to learning Irish: assuming no prior knowledge of it and starting from scratch, and the standard would be immeasurably higher. It could still be optional for secondary school, but most students would probably have a high enough level leaving primary school not to need to continue learning it.

This is why it bugs me when people blame the language itself for them not being able to speak it much: it's, objectively, a relatively easy language to learn with a similar structure to English, so blame the way it's taught.

The reason standards of English are poorer in Spain and Italy than in Germany or France is not because English is hard to learn: it's because the language isn't as prioritised or as well-taught in schools in those countries.
In Italy the teacher reads Ulysses and Dickens novels in English to students in secondary school, and at the end of every passage, they translate it and the students write that down.
In Spain, they have "dictionary classes" where the teacher reads out a list of nouns or verbs in Spanish, and after each one gives the English word.
We're not that bad in the way we teach Irish here, but we're not that much better.

Now you might say that's all well and good, but children should learn a useful European language from the start. Personally, I think it'd be easier to convince 4-year olds to learn Irish than German ("but Timmy, you might need it in 25 years time for a job!") and we already have great resources for extra-curricular learning (hugely important in learning any language; you cannot learn it just in the classroom) including dedicated Irish-language tv and radio stations, and Irish on every street sign. Children wouldn't have that advantage with French, German etc and would never be able to advance in them to as high a level as they could with properly-taught Irish.
Someone leaving primary school with a decent level of Irish would have little problem learning two European levels to an acceptable standard in secondary school anyway, so in the long run, compulsory primary-school Irish would lead to those high standards in European languages people love typing about.

I know it's not as attractive as "I had it rammed down my throat for 14 years and I can't speak a word of it! It's a dead crippled language!" but it seems like common sense to me.

Sidenote: I think we should have a moratorium on people seriously suggesting that Irish students should learn Chinese.

I think (perhaps wrongly, it's a long thread) that the idea of it being optional is that it is optinoal from secondary school or leaving cert onwards, not the entire school career. That in mind, what is wrong with someoen who is 13 or 15 years old saying, "I tried Irish, I don't like it, but I do want to lern French instead?"

The King of Moo

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

I think (perhaps wrongly, it's a long thread) that the idea of it being optional is that it is optinoal from secondary school or leaving cert onwards, not the entire school career. That in mind, what is wrong with someoen who is 13 or 15 years old saying, "I tried Irish, I don't like it, but I do want to lern French instead?"

I'd be fully in support of someone saying that at that age, they'd be old enough to make that choice, and no matter how well a particular language is taught, some people just won't click with it.

You're right, I think the general consensus is that it should be optional in secondary school, which I agree with.
I think I was responding more to the usual people writing hyperbolic posts about how it should be completely done away with, and blaming the language itself for them not being able to speak it, rather than blaming how it's taught and, in some cases, their own hostility towards the language (though in fairness, that usually stems from being it taught poorly to them in the first place).

pirelli

Irish should be compulsory in the school educational system but should be an optional choice in the leaving cert and junior cert. It should be taught at a very basic level to make it more of a fun and leisure activity so as to encourage it's most basic use.


If some people choose to study it as a serious subject then they should be allowed to sit it in their leaving and junior cert. The equivalent of honours irish classes today. The majority should be thought the very very basics of irish and some of it's history and origin as a fun pastime.

It should not be part of state requirements in jobs either.

St.Spodo

I think Gaeilge should be incorporated into lessons in primary schools, so by the time they're 12, students will be able to converse comfortably. After that, those who want to study it in secondary school for the Junior Cert and Leaving Cert should opt in, with the emphasis again on conversation. That way, the language will have a smaller but stronger core of speakers who have a good command of the language, and a passion for it.

smash

pirelli wrote: »

It should not be part of state requirements in jobs either.

And it should in no way entitle you to extra points in state exams when done through Irish.

Caliden

Irish should be taught similar to that of English instead of learning notes/phrases off.
This would have to take place at the primary level and god knows they have it hard enough already :rolleyes:

WillieFlynn

smash wrote: »

And it should in no way entitle you to extra points in state exams when done through Irish.

Currently the situation is even worse.

If you do most leaving cert subject through Irish you get bonus marks*. I think this is very wrong, and would make me question the results of anyone who did their exams through irish.


* http://www.examinations.ie/index.php?l=en&mc=ca&sc=im

smash

WillieFlynn wrote: »

Currently the situation is even worse.

If you do most leaving cert subject through Irish you get bonus marks*. I think this is very wrong, and would make me question the results of anyone who did their exams through irish.


* http://www.examinations.ie/index.php?l=en&mc=ca&sc=im

But that's what I was talking about!

WillieFlynn

pirelli wrote: »

Irish should be compulsory in the school educational system but should be an optional choice in the leaving cert and junior cert.

That is the current situation.

The way compulsion is enforced is by the school not giving a grant any student who doesn't Irish, i.e. no headage payment :-)

pirelli wrote: »

It should not be part of state requirements in jobs either.

Unless Irish is a necessary to be able to carry out the job, then any
extra requirements amount to discrimination.

DDC1990

WillieFlynn wrote: »

Currently the situation is even worse.

If you do most leaving cert subject through Irish you get bonus marks*. I think this is very wrong, and would make me question the results of anyone who did their exams through irish.


* http://www.examinations.ie/index.php?l=en&mc=ca&sc=im

Wait... why?

I did my Leaving Cert through Irish.

Im not from a Gaeltacht, but I went to a Gaelscoil Primary and Secondary.

I did Maths, Geography, French, History, Chemistry all As Gaeilge.

Often, there was no Textbook in Irish, so I had to learn everything through English, and then translate it to Irish. There is extra effort involved, and a reward for the extra effort is a miniscule percentage rise, depending on your overall mark. Its not as if I was at a C grade, and because I did it through Irish I got A's. It only makes a difference if you are right on the edge of one grade.

Irish cannot be made compulsary. If it is, even in Secondary school, students will not take it. They will have their parents telling them its a pointless subject. They will have bad memories of Pages and Pages of Grammer questions and some terrible stories in Primary school.

The language is part of our culture and heritage. I for one would hate to see that die out, because our students are too lazy to get their head down and try with a subject because of their parent's attitude towards the language. One poster here ludacrisly claimed that he/she told their children not to bother working too hard on the Irish, and focus on the French/German.

What use is that? You might think that it is useful to have a decent knowledge of European languages, but You do not get that coming out of school. Try and have a simple conversation in French or German with someone who spent 5/6 years in school "studying". The majority won't have a clue.

Im a primary school teacher, and through college we learned many ways to make Irish interesting for Children. If these methods make it into mainstream teaching then there is hope for Gaeilge yet.
What is interesting is that the Children from outside Ireland are actually far far better then the Irish children at the Irish, because they have no stigma attached to the language from their parents. They are just learning another language, another subject at school. And they are great at it. They also have more then one language already, so it is easier for them to learn a new language.

Anyway. Long story short, question my Leaving Cert results all you want, they don't matter a fúck once you enter college.

lividduck

DDC1990 wrote: »

Wait... why?

I did my Leaving Cert through Irish.

Im not from a Gaeltacht, but I went to a Gaelscoil Primary and Secondary.

I did Maths, Geography, French, History, Chemistry all As Gaeilge.

Often, there was no Textbook in Irish, so I had to learn everything through English, and then translate it to Irish. There is extra effort involved, and a reward for the extra effort is a miniscule percentage rise, depending on your overall mark. Its not as if I was at a C grade, and because I did it through Irish I got A's. It only makes a difference if you are right on the edge of one grade.

Irish cannot be made compulsary. If it is, even in Secondary school, students will not take it. They will have their parents telling them its a pointless subject. They will have bad memories of Pages and Pages of Grammer questions and some terrible stories in Primary school.

The language is part of our culture and heritage. I for one would hate to see that die out, because our students are too lazy to get their head down and try with a subject because of their parent's attitude towards the language. One poster here ludacrisly claimed that he/she told their children not to bother working too hard on the Irish, and focus on the French/German.

What use is that? You might think that it is useful to have a decent knowledge of European languages, but You do not get that coming out of school. Try and have a simple conversation in French or German with someone who spent 5/6 years in school "studying". The majority won't have a clue.

Im a primary school teacher, and through college we learned many ways to make Irish interesting for Children. If these methods make it into mainstream teaching then there is hope for Gaeilge yet.
What is interesting is that the Children from outside Ireland are actually far far better then the Irish children at the Irish, because they have no stigma attached to the language from their parents. They are just learning another language, another subject at school. And they are great at it. They also have more then one language already, so it is easier for them to learn a new language.

Anyway. Long story short, question my Leaving Cert results all you want, they don't matter a fúck once you enter college.

Personally I am glad you dont teach my kids as your grasp of basic english spelling, grammar, and comprehension are abysimal. I'm not trying to be a grammar nazi, but when someone who writes like a semi-illiterate drunk claims to be a primary school teacher I think it is valid to question the voracity of their post.

Mickey Dazzler

I failed Irish in my leaving and have gone on to be incredibly successful. A cunt no doubt but an incredibly successful cunt.

Cú Giobach

lividduck wrote: »

Where did you get your statistics from?

The 2006 census.
People who claim ability to speak Irish 1,587,716, you incorrectly said 1% claim they can speak it.
Number who actually speak daily 85,076.

According to the latest Census 1.8% speak Irish outside school, not 50% of the Irish population, not 1-2 million, actually less than 80,000!
That in my opinion makes it a hobby language which should not be a compulsory subject at any point in a childs schooling.

I see you still don't read what people actually write, you should try it some time it really helps when discussing something on a forum. :rolleyes:
Go back, get you glasses out and have a re-read to see what that 50% refers to,
Hint. It has nothing to do the number of people who speak Irish.

lividduck

Cú Giobach wrote: »

The 2006 census.
People who claim to speak Irish 1,587,716, you incorrectly said 1% claim to speak it.
Number who actually speak daily 85,076.



I see you still don't read what people actually write, you should try it some time it really helps when discussing something on a forum. :rolleyes:
Go back, get you glasses out and have a re-read to see what that 50% refers to,
Hint. It has nothing to do the number of people who speak Irish.

BIG NEWS...We had a census in 2011, so why are you quoting out of date stats?
2011 Census:
Most spoken language? English
Next most spoken language? Polish
Next most spoken language? Irish (approx 79,000 speak it outside of school).
Now , fairs fair people are entitled to speak Irish, no problem. My issue is that it should not be compulsory in schools and we should not be spending huge amounts of money on translating documents etc into it. Thats all, it's my opinion, I see Irish at best as a hobby language of the few and at worst in all practical terms a dead language. I dont think it should be banned, I don't think the people who speak it are evil or bad, I don't mind it being promoted by voluntary groups. I just don't see the justification for it being compulsory in schools and for hundreds of millions of public money being, in my opinion, wasted on it.

WillieFlynn

smash wrote: »

But that's what I was talking about!

Apologies smash, when you said points I was thinking more about CAO bonus points (such as for maths, which I also disagree with). Rather inflating the exam results.