What’s your most controversial opinion? **Read OP** **Mod Warning in Post #8023**

Why do you care so much? Either way I mean.

To me, whatever the reason the parents might have, it's a win that the Irish language gets to survive.

I've friends with young children in Ireland and this is the impression they get as well quite a lot of the time.

Imho, there's two main reasons for uptick. First is your grade automatically goes up a little for doing exams in Irish. Second is a lot of the gaelscoils tend to perform pretty much on par with private schools in terms of leaving cert results. So that weird leaving cert league table is responsible for a lot of it.

I did go to a gaelscoil but honestly was not a fan if I'm honest. It was pretty strict in terms of being caught speaking English…

One of the downsides of gaelscoils is that they can segregate society.

Where I live we have both and its like two different societies who dont mix much. They are completely different fron a socio-economic, ethnic and demographic perspective. You wouldnt think they came from the same place!

For transparency, my kids arent in a gaelscoil.

I don't, it wasn't me judging people.

Ah wasn't aware of that. I only did second in Irish.

I don't know the faces people make make when you say you don't like the sun/heat. It ranges from mild amusement, confusion, deflation and disgust! So instead I just stick to the default "yeah" through gritted teeth.

Do you find it difficult being friends with him?

I recently had friends come out with some outrageous stuff about foreigners & I can't look at them the same anymore.

One of them thinks losing a friendship of over 20 years because of a difference of opinion is stupid, but it feels more serious to me then that.

Is it a controversial opinion to drop friends because of their attitude towards other people??

People need to have a good look at themselves, honestly. This isn't specifically Irish people, it's people in general. Everyone expects to have everything without any compromise whatsoever. For instance, a friend of mine is from North Cornwall. Cornwall was a net beneficiary of EU support back when we were in it. Cornwall voted to leave the EU. Cornwall also suffers from high house prices and youth emigration from the area. The locals hate how the place is withering and they hate all the Londoners who buy up all the houses for holiday homes. However, the thing that they despise most of all is housebuilding of any kind. Nothing gets them going like coordinating to shut down developments. They won't create a favourable environment for young people so they leave and then they make sure nothing changes anyway.

I don't think blaming immigrants ever solves anything. People who do are usually racists. Blaming successive governments is of limited utility when it's we the people who install them without ever asking questions.

The fact is that we need high immigration to ensure growth. People don't seem to know this but politicians surely do, make no mistake. Nobody wants to get blamed for decreasing pensions and house prices. House prices must always go up.

I listened to a bit of an interview yesterday with a Dublin man who moved to Wicklow. He was boasting about how he'd successfully killed development of six new houses because it would ruin his view of Mount Leinster. It's just avarice at this point.

We made progress as people when we limited vested interests' ability to pull up the ladder and hoard wealth and opportunity. Now we've gone back in the other direction entirely.

when tens of thousands of Irish are emigrating due to the cost of living

Don't worry, they are being replaced by indians in similar numbers. Oh no, did I just use the word replaced?

Don't get me wrong, property developers are neither saints nor angels. It just seems like there's always some excuse. I've seen some seriously pathetic ones over the years. My favourites are the objections to an abandoned airfield and ones about casting shade on a graveyard.

There can obviously be real, legitimate reasons to object to some developments. It's the greed, the selfishness and the short-sighted attitude I have problems with.

I live in the UK, the first country in history to voluntarily worsen its own trading situation. We were told that we'd be living in a land of milk and honey if we voted for this. Immigration would come down and we're told (wrongly) that immigration is why wages are so low.

Brexit happens and immigration reaches its highest ever level because it's the only way to prop up the economy. People want mutually exclusive things. Can't have infinite growth without immigration. Then they refuse to pay more taxes which might help other people so there isn't a lot of room for governments to manoeuvre in.

We really do get the governments we deserve. Always.

The left is not a group of people with identical opinions. Many understand the big difference between the two and many others dont.