The creeping prominence of the Irish language

I'm suggesting that independence wouldn't have helped as regards the Irish language. Prior to independence, education policy was, inter alia, to terrorise children into speaking English in preference to Irish. There was a 180 degree pivot almost instantaneously following the establishment of the Free State, to the extent that before we had a Department of Education we had a Department of Irish. But the teachers and parents of the immediate post-independence generation were carrying a message of antipathy to Irish that had been beaten into them - in many cases literally - for almost 70 years prior to that. It is hard to imagine how those teachers and parents could possibly have imparted anything like a positive attitude to Irish in the children in their charge or in their care. In fact, it is easy to imagine how they would have done the opposite, not in spite of the official policy of the State, but because of it. Past trauma is carried and held by people every bit as effectively as present trauma, so I'm not convinced that your mid-20th century illustrations hold up.

The Newfoundland thing is interesting, but I don't know enough about the make up of the immigrant population of Newfoundland to comment with any authority. There was a time when there were almost 200,000 Gàidhlig speakers in Nova Scotia, although today sadly there are fewer than 1,000. It's hard to believe that a motion to make Gàidhlig one of Canada's official parliamentary languages made it to the floor of the Canadian House of Commons.

My takeaway from your closing paragraph is that people aren't hostile to Irish because of learning it at school. They'd just prefer never to hear it again. That's probably my analysis, and the good news for them is that they'll eventually get their way.

I'm a speaker of Irish and an advocate for the language, but I wouldn't dream of using the term "native tongue" to describe Irish on this island. It simply isn't; it is the mother tongue of a depressingly small and decreasing number of people here, trying to hold some space for itself against the background of a profoundly hostile history while competing with a cultural juggernaut. Anyone who has a genuine interest in preserving Irish and trying to extend its reach needs to start from that position of awareness.

You've never been required to do calculus or quadratic equations either, or read someone else's calculus or quadratic equations. I doubt you have ever been required to recite, read or analyse any of the poetry or prose you had to cover on the English curriculum, nor have you ever been required to read anyone else's English poetry and prose analysis. So what?

The trouble is that people who have a fear of Irish (and as I said I think this is more about fear than anger) come up with all these excuses for dissing the language, but you'd be a long time searching for someone starting a thread moaning about calculus, T.S. Eliot or Sylvia Plath. Perhaps they don't have enough lazy tropes to make it worth their while?

You could say the same thing about a lot of subjects and even parts of subjects that you learn and are examined on in school and third level.

I haven't used any of the geography or physics that I took for my leaving cert since leaving school. In the various I.T. related positions that I have held and do at the moment, I have never had to use the majority of the various maths disciplines that were separate subjects in my computer science degree never mind forming part of the leaving cert maths exam. Others who I know do use them due to the types of systems that they write. Same as the fact that a number of my extended family use Irish in their personal and professional lives on a daily basis, but I don't.

I didn't say that I didn't still have an interest in some and parts of those subjects, I just don't use what was part of the majority of the honours geography leaving cert syllabus when I did my leaving cert as an example on a daily basis.

I get use out of some of the various maths disciplines in both work and in my woodworking related hobbies, and I enjoy architecture and history as well.

As you said the majority of education has it's usefulness, which would include Irish, especially for those who use it for work or pleasure as also going by your argument. If you don't use the various subjects or even parts of them when they are multi discipline subjects like maths, in either your work or for personal life, the opposite could be said that they are of no use, which is the case with Irish as a subject for some, as would algebra, or geography for others.

Nothing at all like that. I don’t speak the language, but am happy that it’s protected. That’s the majority view.

I still urge the people offended by signs in Irish to organise. Getting angry on the internet serves no purpose. The rise of Sinn Fein as a political party popular amongst the young doesn’t bode well for your chances, but there’s probably some room for a party hostile to the Irish language with other issues attached (be sure to be pro cheaper housing).

Getting enough votes to get one candidate elected might be challenging, getting enough votes to become the majority of the dail to vote for the referendum might be even more challenging. Then you need to get the vote out.

lots of work there. And good luck.