The creeping prominence of the Irish language

They'll probably just put a minimum LC result as the criterion and then wonder why those civil servants can't actually speak Irish.

The problem is that we don't teach Irish, we teach people to pass exams.

In Germany, , Spain, Norway etc you are educated entirely through the state language throughout your primary, secondary and possibly tertiary education and you're speaking it at home as the first language you learn. You are using it in day to day life and you are entirely surrounded by it. You won't start learning English in some of these countries until Second-level where it may be a mandatory, but also a comparatively easy, language to learn to a level of understandability and communicability. On top of that, the pervasive nature of US media content means that in some countries, they are always shown with the original audio and subtitles and I know from many of my foreign friends, this was one of the ways they used to perfect their proficiency.

Go to rural France, Germany, Spain or Russia and you've probably go no chance of anyone understanding you; go to rural Norway and you'll still manage just fine as it's effectively a second language there.

If we had taken the same approach in the day, of making 'gaelscoils' the default model, then my parents would have grown up with Irish and there's a chance they'd still be using it, particularly when they wanted to have 'adult' conversations that we might be tempted to overhear (as two of my Irish teachers used to do). I may then have had some command of it and more of the content on RTE etc may have been in Irish as well, and over time it would have been revived.

Two notable examples of countries that managed to revive or hold onto their language would be Norway and Israel with Norwegian and Hebrew respectively. It can be done, if it is done right.

We value our heritage by valuing our people of course, Irish speakers included.

Fitting on the day that poet Thomas Kinsella passes on that we talk about heritage and the contribution of Irish and English to our heritage.

His famous book with Sean O Tuama An Duanaire: Poems of the Dispossessed 1600-1900 brings that heritage to light.

I love this amazon review:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Duanaire-1600-1900-Poems-Dispossessed/dp/0851053645

Apart from A levels in England, which countries allow free choice in secondary school?

And if you manage to find one, what is the level of choice involved?

What difference does that make, and why am I would I not be allowed to cite A-levels in England?

I think the Mauri connection has everything to do this.

This bill is about respecting minority native speaking communities.

Respecting those native communities is about respecting heritage by definition. The clue is in the word native!

They said "certain proficency in it & irish culture should be required to gain irish citizenship for forgien born people.....smililar to the need to learn mauri in nz)" which is what made no sense as not everyone has to learn Maori in New Zealand, especially to gain citizenship. Respecting native communities is not heritage, its just basic common respect.

Your second post had nothing to do with what in posted and answers neither question that I asked, but not everyone feels the same way about the poetry of Thomas Kinsella. And how many of the Irish Nobel prize winners had their work assessed on Irish in order to win the award? Although what relevance any of this has, only you know.

And I've answered your last questions more than once: yes I am; and no, I don't.

It's not designed to, anyway

Of course I'm not an expert on education systems around the world, but I think you'll find that many countries provide little choice as to the subjects studied. Some countries have different types of secondary school with the emphasis regarding subjects studied, while others have a sort of one size fits all. Among the country countries I know about, Ireland is probably unusual in that it allows a relatively free choice beyond the three core mandatory but not obligatory (or is it the other way around?) subjects. In those countries, the idea is to give a grounding in general knowledge to everyone.

The UK is very much an outlier in my experience as a high degree of specialisation begins in the post-primary upper cycle. A levels are in effect a pre-university course - which is probably why so many degrees in English universities are three-year courses. This level of specialisation puts A levels into a different category than any other second level education that I am familiar with.

Logically therefore it cannot be compared to the Leaving cert cycle, or similar cycles such as the French Bacclauréat.

Doesn't answer either question: just because everyone else does it doesn't mean we should. And even if we do, there has still yet to be a decent argument presented as to why, if we must have core mandatory subjects, one of them should be Irish (for LC - assuming the student has already done ten years of it).

We have a very unique issue with Irish being the first language constitutionally but minority language in terms of usage, so what they do in other coutnries is not nessecarily what we should do here.

Going back to the bill, though, it's a bit unfair to say it's valuing people when the same value isn't extended to students.

As PBH said we have a unique situation with Irish here. I think the native language community in Ireland is inclusive. Any one can join. Isn't that great. No one is excluded because of racial blood lines, religion, politics. I think we have a really great thing going with Irish, similar to our diaspora which is often forgotten too.

But what's the benefit of doing any of that through Irish instead of English. You're just advocating using Irish for the sake of using irish.

"The current approach is tried and tested in the Irish environment. 3 mandatory subjects gives the essentials someone can usefully use as a citizen in Ireland while giving flexibility to specialise in choice subjects too."

• The current approact has tried tested and failed, unless you deem it's aim to be political. There is no evidence that "three" is the magic number, and even if it was, on what criteria shouls subjects be deemed optional or mandatory?

The rest if your post is confirmtion bias: you are biased towards Irish and have to find reasons to confirm it.

I wasn't going to ask "what can people achieve?" I was going to ask "why is any of what you post essential?". And the simple answer is: it's not. We are a bilinglual country, there is no essential text published in Irish only and if people what to listen to Irish, then the option to learn is open to them, even in adulthood. Creative expression comes form the self, not an external source of forced expression: are the students expressing themsleves, or are they are expressing YOU?

Creativity and expression is and where it comes the heart, not the State. While you think you have no right to tell large groups of people you've never met who they are and what they should express, you don't. Not in a free country. It is the job of education to give them the tools, not the preset opinion.

So my point stands: there has still yet to be a decent argument presented as to why, if we must have core mandatory subjects, one of them should be Irish; and I ask the question again: on what criteria should a subject be deemed mandatory or optional?