Irish Language, important or not.

lollsangel

Growing up to me irish couldnt die a fast enough death. I hated going to the classes etc, bcis it was too hard, tere was no point and frankly boring!

we moved to dingle almost 4 years ago, and moved back west of dingle. Here practically everyone speaks irish as a first language, so I started to learn it as a language as my neighbour used to say to me speak it as you think it, and the grammer will follow. My 5 year old twins will answer you faster in irish than they will in englush.

if I could change one thing it would be to take the focus from verbs and grammer that is taught in non gael scoile schools, and have it taught as a language same as we all learned to speak english.

GaelMise

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

But you're still focusing in on it as a school subject: I trade you 15 minutes of conversation with an Irish-speaking friend or family member for every hour spent in a classroom and we'll see which produces the more efficient (and more enthusiastic) Irish speaker.

The school subject is important, and we have several option of how we proceed with it, what reforms we implement and what aims we have for it.

The extracurricular use of Irish is of paramount importance, and encouraging this inside and outside of schools is an important aspect of any reform in my opinion.

My point is that there is no single simple solution to the problem, and focusing on the subject itself, and the standards of Irish amongst teachers in particular as tends to happen, will only limit the improvements that could be made.

Thoie

I'd break the discussion into a few parts.

Is the language important as a language?
I'd say no. Discuss what makes a language "important" - is it number of speakers? Number of people from other countries who speak it? Primacy of the language within a given group?

Is the language important culturally?
I'd say yes. From a cultural perspective, language can shape how people think/interact. For example, in some of the Asian languages, where the verbs come at the end, you kind of have to listen to the full sentence before you know how it's going to turn out. With English, and the verbs coming at the start, it's easier to second guess what the speaker is about to say.
Then you have the cultural history part - are there things people can express in Irish that they can't express in another language? Look at some examples - does an English version of Trasna na dTonnta (or something else they're familiar with) convey the same feelings? Why/why not?

The influence of the language
How do we speak today in English that is shaped by Irish? (I'm after coming home, Don't be leaving the door open, etc) Does that lead to a feeling of cultural inclusivity amongst Hiberno-English speakers? Is that a good thing/bad thing?

How the language is taught
It's been a long time since I was in school, so things may have changed, but my experience of learning Irish in school was that the curriculum was quite like English - you learned poems/stories off by heart, analysed them, and from this rote learning you were magically supposed to absorb the language. French and Spanish were taught as a foreign language - the aim was to make sure you could communicate with other people.

The problem with teaching Irish like English, was that with English there was an assumption you could already speak the language. Your vocabulary increased as you aged just through common usage. If you came across a word you didn't know, it was explained to you in English. What's a sparrow? It's the little fat brown bird about this size that you see in the garden. Cad é an gealbhan? It's the little fat brown bird....

While English/Irish dictionaries were useful if you were at home where no-one could explain it to you, teachers were also inclined to tell you the word in English, so you were back to memorising a translation, rather than expanding your communication skills.

I find it very telling that with 13 years of Irish, 5 years of French and 2 years of Spanish, I can read a newspaper/magazine in French or Spanish (or get the gist of an article at least), but I can't do the same with Irish.

Using Aoife's earlier response as an example, what I gather she's saying is:

I'm somethinging an Irish club once a week and I was ... morning...morning with the language.
Because people did ....
..... people learning the language were ... and ... understanding the language
I was ... this morning the language.

It's embarrassing, but all I can gather is that she runs/attends? a weekly Irish club, and has some thoughts about people learning and understanding the language.

Paz-CCFC

Thoie wrote: »

How the language is taught
It's been a long time since I was in school, so things may have changed, but my experience of learning Irish in school was that the curriculum was quite like English - you learned poems/stories off by heart, analysed them, and from this rote learning you were magically supposed to absorb the language. French and Spanish were taught as a foreign language - the aim was to make sure you could communicate with other people.

The problem with teaching Irish like English, was that with English there was an assumption you could already speak the language. Your vocabulary increased as you aged just through common usage. If you came across a word you didn't know, it was explained to you in English. What's a sparrow? It's the little fat brown bird about this size that you see in the garden. Cad é an gealbhan? It's the little fat brown bird....

While English/Irish dictionaries were useful if you were at home where no-one could explain it to you, teachers were also inclined to tell you the word in English, so you were back to memorising a translation, rather than expanding your communication skills.

I find it very telling that with 13 years of Irish, 5 years of French and 2 years of Spanish, I can read a newspaper/magazine in French or Spanish (or get the gist of an article at least), but I can't do the same with Irish.

Would I be correct in saying that you were more interested in French and Spanish and you involved yourself more with the languages? I studied French for 9 years and got a B2 honours in the Leaving - I tried speaking to a girl from France the other day, and I struggled to string a sentence together. After 9 years of Irish, I was more than fluent. That's because I chose not to immerse myself in French as I was in Irish. I think that what you're taught in school is merely a steeping stone - it's up to the person to build on that.

What we've said also brings up another point - learning languages is "in years". Most people who have just completed the Leaving Cert haven't done 13/14 years of Irish - they began learning Irish 13/14 years ago. If you only do Irish in the classroom, and not at weekends, during the summer, Christmas etc., then you can't say that you've been doing it for 13/14 years. Those who don't go to a gaelscoil and don't engage in the language outside of school hours will have a contact time of about 1,400 hours. Based on a 16 hour waking day, that equates to about two months. Two months spread over 14 years is about 1% of that time - in my opinion, that's a miniscule amount of contact time. Is two months enough time to become fluent in a language?

Using Aoife's earlier response as an example, what I gather she's saying is:

I'm somethinging an Irish club once a week and I was ... morning...morning with the language.
Because people did ....
..... people learning the language were ... and ... understanding the language
I was ... this morning the language.

It's embarrassing,

It's not embarrassing. It should never be embarrassing to make a mistake whilst learning a language. This is a reason that puts off English speakers, I think. In classes for various languages, I've found that people are very quiet and meek, for fear of being wrong. If you're too afraid to make a mistake, you'll never learn. If everyone were shy like this as a baby, they'd never have any language!

but all I can gather is that she runs/attends? a weekly Irish club, and has some thoughts about people learning and understanding the language.

To be fair, you understood a fair bit of what Aoife wrote.

Thoie

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

Would I be correct in saying that you were more interested in French and Spanish and you involved yourself more with the languages? I studied French for 9 years and got a B2 honours in the Leaving - I tried speaking to a girl from France the other day, and I struggled to string a sentence together. After 9 years of Irish, I was more than fluent. That's because I chose not to immerse myself in French as I was in Irish. I think that what you're taught in school is merely a steeping stone - it's up to the person to build on that.

I honestly don't think so - I badgered my parents into letting me go to the Gaeltacht, but never took part in a French exchange. In my school, French and Irish were taught in two completely different ways. Irish was rote learning of poems and essays and regurgitation, French was conversational. We learned grammar in both, but never had any conversation in Irish. It's a long time ago now, so I may be mistaken, but I don't think I ever had a "chat" in Irish in school until the day of my oral.

To this day I can still natter away in French on the rare occasion I run into French people.

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

What we've said also brings up another point - learning languages is "in years". Most people who have just completed the Leaving Cert haven't done 13/14 years of Irish - they began learning Irish 13/14 years ago. If you only do Irish in the classroom, and not at weekends, during the summer, Christmas etc., then you can't say that you've been doing it for 13/14 years. Those who don't go to a gaelscoil and don't engage in the language outside of school hours will have a contact time of about 1,400 hours. Based on a 16 hour waking day, that equates to about two months. Two months spread over 14 years is about 1% of that time - in my opinion, that's a miniscule amount of contact time. Is two months enough time to become fluent in a language?

For me the years are a comparative thing. If my 13 years of Irish distils into 2 months, then my 5 years of French condenses to about 3 weeks. Yet I have enough French still to easily read an Agatha Christie book, and I can't get a decent sense of what's being said in the Irish articles in the Irish Times.

Picking the first one at random: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/r%C3%B3n%C3%A1n-%C3%B3-domhnaill-le-bheith-ina-choimisin%C3%A9ir-nua-teanga-1.1687611

I gather that O'Donnell has been named commissioner of other languages (mostly because Choimisinéir sounds liked commissioner). He's worked for TG4 since 1998 and possibly presented The Week In Politics. Irene is taking over from him. Dinny, the something of Gaeltacht is happy about the appointment. I recognise a quote "ar buille" solely from An Poc Ar Buille (but

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

It's not embarrassing. It should never be embarrassing to make a mistake whilst learning a language. This is a reason that puts off English speakers, I think. In classes for various languages, I've found that people are very quiet and meek, for fear of being wrong. If you're too afraid to make a mistake, you'll never learn. If everyone were shy like this as a baby, they'd never have any language!

I'm not embarrassed to make mistakes (as any French person I've spoken to will tell you ). I'm embarrassed that after 13 years (or 2 months) of learning Irish that I can't just sit down and read a newspaper article, let alone a book.

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

To be fair, you understood a fair bit of what Aoife wrote.

Woohoo! The problem is, while I got the overall gist of what she was talking about, I don't know what her thoughts were (only that she has an opinion). It's a bit like seeing that something is important to you, but I've no idea whether I agree or disagree with you, or whether agreement is expected - maybe I should laugh? Or cry? I don't know!

dubhthach

Thoie wrote: »

I gather that O'Donnell has been named commissioner of other languages (mostly because Choimisinéir sounds liked commissioner).

I don't know why you are Anglicising his surname, that's as rude as someone Gaelicising your surname without your consent.

As an aside I love the word "buile" (buille as used in article is different word, similiar meaning -- think you've spotted an editorial mistake) particularly when you consider it's meaning in context of Old Irish literature.

In Old Irish it's written as "Baile" and in sense of "frenzy" has meaning of vision quest/trance and two great examples of literature been:

Baile In Scáil ("The Phantom's Ecstatic Vision")
Baile Chuinn Chétchathaig (The "ecstatic vision" of Conn of Hundred Battles)

eDIL (electronic Dictionary of Irish Language -- covering old/middle period of language) has following for it:

2 baile
Forms: buile; boile; bhuile;
Meaning: vision; frenzy, madness (originally arising out of super- natural revelations):; subject or inspiration of poets:;

Paz-CCFC

Thoie wrote: »

I honestly don't think so - I badgered my parents into letting me go to the Gaeltacht, but never took part in a French exchange. In my school, French and Irish were taught in two completely different ways. Irish was rote learning of poems and essays and regurgitation, French was conversational. We learned grammar in both, but never had any conversation in Irish. It's a long time ago now, so I may be mistaken, but I don't think I ever had a "chat" in Irish in school until the day of my oral.

Wouldn't you have learnt Irish in the manner as French for your 8 years in primary school?

Didn't your Irish teacher ever make small talk as Gaeilge?

To this day I can still natter away in French on the rare occasion I run into French people.

I think that people generally underestimate their level of Irish more than other languages, particularly spoken. I'd say if you were put in a position where you'd have to speak Irish, then you'd be able to manage it. It wouldn't be perfect, it might be rusty due to disuse alright, but it's always there, especially for someone who went to Gaeltachtaí a bit, as you said.

For me the years are a comparative thing. If my 13 years of Irish distils into 2 months, then my 5 years of French condenses to about 3 weeks. Yet I have enough French still to easily read an Agatha Christie book, and I can't get a decent sense of what's being said in the Irish articles in the Irish Times.

Is that not simply because you read French articles/books, but don't with Irish, so you're having more continuous contact time with it? And even at that, you've done a decent job with the two bits of Irish you've read so far.

Picking the first one at random: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/r%C3%B3n%C3%A1n-%C3%B3-domhnaill-le-bheith-ina-choimisin%C3%A9ir-nua-teanga-1.1687611

I gather that O'Donnell has been named commissioner of other languages (mostly because Choimisinéir sounds liked commissioner). He's worked for TG4 since 1998 and possibly presented The Week In Politics. Irene is taking over from him. Dinny, the something of Gaeltacht is happy about the appointment. I recognise a quote "ar buille" solely from An Poc Ar Buille (but

He became the next language commissioner. "Eile" means other, alright, but "an chéad _____ eile" means "the next _____" (literally meaning "the first other ____" - I didn't realise this until just now. Thank you, Thoie!). Yeah, he presented it, alright. Irene is his wife. Dinny is the state minister for the Gaeltacht.

Re commissioner/coimisinéir, plenty of these kind of things exist in languages. It's usually indicative of them coming from the same root (in this case, the Latin "commissionem", meaning "delegation of business"). Plenty exist between French and English - beef/beouf, poulty/poulet, partisan, even English (Anglais). These exist between Irish and other languages, too. A speaker of French/Italian/Spanish would see some similarities between the days of the week. Eg, Luan - lundi/lunedì/lunes, Máirt - Mardi/Martedì/Martes etc.

That's a great way that you learned "ar buile". It's a very effective method of learning a language (or anything else terminology-heavy) to link it back with things you already know. I don't speak German, but I know the word for table (tische) because it sounds like tissue. It shows how effective it is, by the fact that it twigged with you straight away.

I'm not embarrassed to make mistakes (as any French person I've spoken to will tell you ). I'm embarrassed that after 13 years (or 2 months) of learning Irish that I can't just sit down and read a newspaper article, let alone a book.

Give another few articles a lash, you're doing pretty well so far.

Woohoo! The problem is, while I got the overall gist of what she was talking about, I don't know what her thoughts were (only that she has an opinion). It's a bit like seeing that something is important to you, but I've no idea whether I agree or disagree with you, or whether agreement is expected - maybe I should laugh? Or cry? I don't know!

Aoife didn't really give any thoughts, apart from saying she was a bit biased in favour of Irish and didn't really understand how it was overly difficult to learn. She was mostly asking for other people's opinions.


Keep the faith, Thoie - you're better than you think you are!

Thoie

dubhthach wrote: »

I don't know why you are Anglicising his surname, that's as rude as someone Gaelicising your surname without your consent

No harm intended - was translating as I went along. I work in a business where people's names (including my own) are translated all the time and I don't even notice it at this stage. I wouldn't even blink if someone referred to me by the Irish version of my name or surname.

dubhthach

Thoie wrote: »

No harm intended - was translating as I went along. I work in a business where people's names (including my own) are translated all the time and I don't even notice it at this stage. I wouldn't even blink if someone referred to me by the Irish version of my name or surname.

In jest surely if you were to translate it then it would have been:
"Grandson of "World-Ruler" and not O'Donnell though

Domhnall (Dónal reformed spelling) -> Dumnovalos (Proto-Celtic)

*dumno- (proto-Celtic) = World
*val (proto-Celtic) = rule

As for the Poc (thence Puck Fair in Kerry), no doubt he was in middle of a religious enlightenment when the protagonist of the song/poem stumbled into his field. Perhaps brought on by eating some "mushrooms" so it's no wonder he was "ar buile".

In case of the two "poems" you could summarise them as saying basically Conn dropped some acid and had a "trip" where he ended up meeting the God Lugh and prophesying the names of future kings of his line. The "Baile Chuinn" probably dates to period 700-720AD.

Thoie

dubhthach wrote: »

In jest surely if you were to translate it then it would have been:
"Grandson of "World-Ruler" and not O'Donnell though

Ah c'mere, I'm still trying to figure out how to tell my fuinneog from my doras!
:P

dubhthach

Thoie wrote: »

Ah c'mere, I'm still trying to figure out how to tell my fuinneog from my doras!
:P

Doesn't help that fuinneog is borrowing from Old-Norse vindauga

vindr (“wind”) +‎ auga (“eye”)

This of course is same origin of word Window which is borrowing in english from Old-Norse as well.

Simple rule in Irish, loan words starting with v/w -> f

so Latin: vīnum -> O.Irish: Fín -> Modern Irish: Fíon
(wine)

This reflects an older shift in Goidelic languages where v/w sound shifted to a f sound. That's why Fear (man - Fer in Old Irish) is cognate with latin Vir (as in virile) and English Wer (as in Werewolf).

pog it

dubhthach wrote: »

Regarding number of hours and the resultant lack of fluency, the Canadians did a study regarding language learning with regards to French, published back in 1981.

Swain, M. (1981). Linguistic expectations: Core, extended and immersion
programmes. Canadian Modern Language Review, 37, 486-497

They reckoned that 1,200 hours of language contact would give a "Basic" understanding of a language (French in this case). Your average Irish student gets about 1,388 hours language "contact" over the course of Primary/Secondary education.

See the following doctoral paper from RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN in the Netherlands:

Retention and Attrition of Irish as a Second Language
A longitudinal study of general and communicative
proficiency in Irish among second level school leavers
and the influence of instructional background,
language use and attitude/motivation variables

http://dissertations.ub.rug.nl/FILES/faculties/arts/2003/l.murtagh/thesis.pdf

I don't see any mention here of time spent on homework or even any allowance for outside exposure to Irish such as on TG4, etc.

I don't have access to the Harris 1984 paper but nothing you have quoted seems to specifically mention how much time has been factored in for homework which would account for lots of extra hours of exposure.

bennyineire

Here's an idea, instead of having an Irish class in school tell the students (particularly secondary school) that they can chat amongst themselves about anything they like during the allocated class time but under the proviso that it has to be in Irish. The teacher would walk around the class in a mentor role.
Let the students use Google translate through a phone or a tablet to help them and then check with the teacher that the grammar is right. If you could get a fluent speaker to help out the teacher (maybe a University Student who would get extra credits) that would be great too.
I think in this environment nearly everyone who goes to School would have at least conversationally Irish.
Now tell me please surly this is the way to keep our language alive.
BTW this comes from a 36 y/o who has a Master Degree in Computer Science but has less Irish than his 8 y/o son

Insect Overlord

bennyineire wrote: »

Let the students use Google translate through a phone or a tablet to help them and then check with the teacher that the grammar is right.

Replace Google Translate with some decent dictionaries (Focal.ie, PotaFocal.com, Breis.Foclóir.ie) and you could be onto a great idea there.

bennyineire

An File wrote: »

Replace Google Translate with some decent dictionaries (Focal.ie, PotaFocal.com, Breis.Foclóir.ie) and you could be onto a great idea there.

I just put in "What time is it" in focal.ie and I got "
Níor aimsíodh téarma ar bith · No terms found" but yeah I get your point, but Google translate will spit out something that makes some kind of sense and Google translate is a handy app that is on practically every teenagers phone, also that is where the teacher/mentor comes into to place to make sure grammar etc. is right

feargale

@dubhthach: Just wondering what your sources are for Irish etymology. I'm particularly interested in that, but the only printed work appears to be MacBain ( Scots Gaelic. ) I believe the RIA have an amount of material, but nothing in print. I heard some years ago that they were working on bringing something out, but I guess alot of us will be in the great language laboratory in the sky when it happens.

pog it

feargale wrote: »

@dubhthach: Just wondering what your sources are for Irish etymology. I'm particularly interested in that, but the only printed work appears to be MacBain ( Scots Gaelic. ) I believe the RIA have an amount of material, but nothing in print. I heard some years ago that they were working on bringing something out, but I guess alot of us will be in the great language laboratory in the sky when it happens.

The RIA has the eDIL online dictionary and the book version.

dubhthach

pog it wrote: »

I don't see any mention here of time spent on homework or even any allowance for outside exposure to Irish such as on TG4, etc.

I don't have access to the Harris 1984 paper but nothing you have quoted seems to specifically mention how much time has been factored in for homework which would account for lots of extra hours of exposure.

The point of quote is about language exposure within education system, specifically in a classroom setting. TG4 is great for providing passive exposure. As an irregular speaker (I classified myself as: "Less often - outside education system" in the census) I use it all the time -- along with twitter and RnaG. If anything I think RnaG is a resource that should be used alot more in education system, particularly for exposure to various canúintí.

dubhthach

feargale wrote: »

@dubhthach: Just wondering what your sources are for Irish etymology. I'm particularly interested in that, but the only printed work appears to be MacBain ( Scots Gaelic. ) I believe the RIA have an amount of material, but nothing in print. I heard some years ago that they were working on bringing something out, but I guess alot of us will be in the great language laboratory in the sky when it happens.

eDIL is available online see:
http://edil.qub.ac.uk/dictionary/search.php

Was updated in late 2013.

Wiktionary can also be used to certain extent however it's fairly basic regarding coverage, can be useful for finding Proto-Indo-European root and cognates.

A copy of Dineen is also hosted out of UL, useful for (a) finding new words (b) pre-caighdeán oifigiúil (can be useful for comparing with Gaidhlig)

pog it

dubhthach wrote: »

The point of quote is about language exposure within education system, specifically in a classroom setting. TG4 is great for providing passive exposure. As an irregular speaker (I classified myself as: "Less often - outside education system" in the census) I use it all the time -- along with twitter and RnaG. If anything I think RnaG is a resource that should be used alot more in education system, particularly for exposure to various canúintí.

Re TG4, I only mentioned it as an aside really to show how presenting the total hours spent teaching the language is not giving a true reflection of the actual total exposure children/young people have to the language by the time they are leaving secondary school.

You need honesty when you are arguing this and homework is a gigantic contributor to what a person learns and you can't just leave it out in the same breath as talking about total hours spent teaching.

So when you factor in time spent on homework and other things like Irish language tv, etc. the expectations of what level of Irish you should have leaving school are completely different than if you just go by Harris 1984 or similar research on just total teaching hours.

Take this study:

http://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Inspection-Reports-Publications/Evaluation-Reports-Guidelines/insp_Irish_in_the_Primary_School_08_pdf.pdf

During the evaluation the inspectors noted the oral language ability of the teachers. They found that 3% of the teachers had a poor level of spoken Irish, 20% had only a fair ability to speak Irish, 55% had a satisfactory standard and 22% had a high standard of Irish. These figures reflect the indings of Harris et al. (2006, p.128), based on a national survey, in which 25% of teachers in ordinary primary schools described themselves as poor speakers of the second language.

However, inspectors considered that almost half of the teachers observed in this evaluation had difficulties with their proficiency in the Irish language or with their ability to teach Irish.

From:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/education-how-did-we-get-the-teaching-of-irish-so-wrong-1.1667065?page=1

feargale

pog it wrote: »

The RIA has the eDIL online dictionary and the book version.

A book version ?
1. Title?
2. When did it come out?
3. How much?
Thanks.

pog it

feargale wrote: »

A book version ?
1. Title?
2. When did it come out?
3. How much?
Thanks.

http://ria.ie/Publications/Books/Research-Series/Focloir-Stairiuil-na-Nua-Ghaeilge/Inneacs-Nua-Ghaeilge-don--Dictionary-of-the-Irish-

I see you can buy it online but they will sell it from their shop in Dublin as well.

FWVT

Irish is (or should be) as important to us as Hindi is to Indians. The trouble is that in school it's taught as a SUBJECT, not a language. Too much cultural shïte thrown into the mix. It's the same with Radio na Gaeltachta. Why does that Irish-language station only play traditional Irish diddly-idle music and not have a modern slant to it? Peig Sayers is long dead so stop putting out stuff that only she would like.

At least TG4 make the effort to be different, but I wish the language could be projected for what it is and not with all the extra crap that turns most people off.

dubhthach

FWVT wrote: »

Irish is (or should be) as important to us as Hindi is to Indians. The trouble is that in school it's taught as a SUBJECT, not a language. Too much cultural shïte thrown into the mix. It's the same with Radio na Gaeltachta. Why does that Irish-language station only play traditional Irish diddly-idle music and not have a modern slant to it? Peig Sayers is long dead so stop putting out stuff that only she would like.

At least TG4 make the effort to be different, but I wish the language could be projected for what it is and not with all the extra crap that turns most people off.

You've obviously never listened to "An Taobh Tuathail" on RnaG, heck I've heard Trance music been played on RnaG at nighttime. In many ways it's equivalent to Ráidio 1 (RTÉ). It has to cater to a broad church, so talk shows, country music, alternative, traditional you name it.

Perhaps you just need to be more open-minded in your listening choices, personally I have no problem switching from trad music to Trash Metal to Trance to Classical music, as long as the performer is good at what they do.

If people are "turned off" as you claim it's more to do with hangups that they themselves suffer from.

pog it

FWVT wrote: »

Irish is (or should be) as important to us as Hindi is to Indians. The trouble is that in school it's taught as a SUBJECT, not a language. Too much cultural shïte thrown into the mix. It's the same with Radio na Gaeltachta. Why does that Irish-language station only play traditional Irish diddly-idle music and not have a modern slant to it? Peig Sayers is long dead so stop putting out stuff that only she would like.

At least TG4 make the effort to be different, but I wish the language could be projected for what it is and not with all the extra crap that turns most people off.

What turns people off? Peig is more or less gone from the secondary school syllabus now from what I heard so that's not a block for learners anymore.

It's a shame she got such abuse cause her language should be a showcase for Irish and not the opposite. Can't really blame her for living in hardship!

I think that RnaG do a great job serving those living in the Gaeltacht and from what I know of their policy, that is their first remit. They do have brilliant shows such as Ronan Mac Aodha Bhui which is as 'modern' as you can get. It's a really diverse programme, he has everything on it and he's seriously talented in interviewing people and engaging listeners. Others like Donal Mac Ruairi have interesting music/chat mix programmes that are totally not the pure trad based music shows.

I agree with you though on their overall output. They have too much focus on the traditional music programmes where the person introduces the tune, might give a bit extra info on it, and then plays it. But then again, that's maybe what their listenership is looking for. There was uproar when they wanted to cancel the mass on it a while back I remember.

A radio station purely for the rest of the population would be a brilliant addition to what's on offer.

Insect Overlord

Raidió na Gaeltachta is exactly that - a radio station for the people of the Gaeltacht regions. They serve their target audience pretty well.

If something like Raidió na Life was extended around the country it'd be a fantastic option for us more urban types!