Enda Kenny to make irish optional?

Dan_Solo wrote: »

Which again would be irrelevant to this argument. It would be an anecdote and not evidence of anything.

Just trying to understand where you're coming from

Dan_Solo wrote: »

This will make your night even more...
I was exempt and passed Irish anyway.

Here have another 1
http://www.csrplus.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/blue_peter_badge.jpg

Dan_Solo wrote: »

Haha, you'd hardly need to be Cicero or Lincoln to do that, would you.
I might come back to this thread when an adult next posts here.

I should say I am not going to answer all the questions and comments above as this is taking me too long around already and I have alot of stuff to do, but I will try throw my hat in once more and give a part reply.

Succesive surveys have shown that a majority of the public supports policies to maintain Irish in the Gaeltacht,, to provide Irish Language services on the national television channels, to use Irish on public notices etc, to provide state services in Irish, to employ public officials who could speak Irish, and to support the voluntary Irish language organizations..... Thus the Irish public is willing to accept a considerable commitment of state resources to ensuring the maintenance of the irish language and even to support a considerable imposition of legal requirements on certain groups within the society to know or use Irish

Pádraig Ó Riagáin, Irish language policy 1922-2007

A telephone poll of voters conducted between 15 and 24th of November 2005 by TNS MRBI on behalf of Fine Gael....62% of those polled expressed the belief that Irish should become a subject of choice after the Junior Certificate. 34% believed that it should remain compulsory....... The most surprising result contained in the poll was the very high percentage of people in the 18-34 gage group who stated that they thought Irish should remain compulsory at second level. (89% of the ones that voted for Irish to be compulsory)

While most commentors would readily acknowledge that the Gaeltacht areas continue to be under pressure from all manner of threats, very few would deny the phenomenal increase in the numbers of people living outside thse areas who are fluent in irish. This is in no small part due to the role being played in the promotion of the language by classes and by Gaelscoileanna. Ironically, too, the school system, which has been blamed for so many of the ills besetting the Irish language, is still the main reason why significant numbers of our population have a knowledge of the languages, in degrees from basic familiarity to complete fluency

As for an election issue, irish already was an election issue. Fine gael Lost an election because they wanted to make Irish compulsory, I cant remember which one it was but it was between Lemass and Fine Gael, Lemass's first term, and the entire election was about the Irish language even tho there was more "serious" issues like Ireland joining EU. Fianna Fail won because they supported Irish language being compulsory. This was stated in the 'Campaign daily' show on RTE, you can watch it online on the RTE player if you dont believe me, it was from last week.

Im not going to argue about the merits of culture, if someone doesnt like culture then there is no point in arguing about it, and culture that just makes money isnt really culture, it is just a form of business. Anyway that is beyond the scope of this thread.

As for why people want to learn Irish it is not simply because it is spoken or not, one will never understand fully this land of ours if one doesnt speak Irish, you wont be able to understand what a name means when you see it written, where it came from, why its there. The whole land around you opens up if you understand these things. You wont be able to read anything your ancestors wrote or said by not being able to understand Irish, it is important to understand what shaped their world and so yours, the particular world view they had. Irish matters because it is what they changed through their natural and creative uses of the language over thousands of years, it was their vehicle to understand what was around them and inside them. Not only is Irish important to Ireland but it is important to european history in general, Irish and other surviving Celtic languages are the only survives of a pre-Roman western European languages, our language is directly related to the Languages of the Gauls and the Iberians. By keeping it alive we keep another European tradition that we very much own and are part of, alive.

As for speaking I am sure there are some, I have heard some and I have used Irish sometimes to speak in the real world, I was useless in Irish in school and yes for a long time it colored my opinion of irish but with time and age my view has changed. But yes Irish is used by some to speak too, I wear a Fáinne and would be glad to speak to anyone in Irish at any time, even if its poorly. All one can do is take care of onesself and not have to worry about whether others are doing it or not.

But you are right in one way, yes the utter failure of Irish people was that adults never found a use for Irish, and they kept expecting their children to do it instead, passing the buck so to speak, this is exactly the same with government who have only ever half heartedly tried to do anything, Gaelscoils came in the 1970's from ground roots movements, not from government expenditure and as such are often not as well funded as catholic schools.

But its not too late for us to change it, and rediscover what it means to have a life throw Irish. The new Gaeltacht in Belfast is a sure sign of this. And I am looking forward to this debate ending because to be honest I think we are way too transfixed on Irish in school rather than it in the community and wider world. We should be taking notes from the welsh and the fact that education is just one of the ways they seek to continue their language. I see this happening, especially in Galway, even in Cork and dublin, to get something similar to Mentrau Iaith of Whales. Where the focus is on all aspects of community not just schooling. Perhaps making it voluntary will stop this fixation with schools and make irish look to other venues to make this language relevant to a wider audience.

As for compulsory Irish the original topic, this has as others have stated in previous posts, been tried in england with secondary languages and has not worked, and also compulsory welsh in wales has been tried and works, their language is in a much stronger position than ours now, even though they arent an independant country like us. Though probably because 20% of their schooling is done in Welsh medium schools while less than 5% in Ireland.

If making Irish not compulsory will stop blaming the entire language for how its taught then perhaps it is time to end compulsory Irish but I for one cannot do anything that would see it damaged or diminished in any way so I will not be voting for Fine Gael because of it (also because they are a mirror image of Fianna Fail). I only seek to improve things not destroy them, dar liomsa.

PS I think I expended way too much time on this, so doubt I will be back to it! slán!

Dan_Solo wrote: »

If you are incapable of arguing your position, that's fine, just say so. Don't pretend again that there's something about the tone of my posts that you have an issue with, as we all know you have ignored self-confessed trolling in this thread.
I never said Irish was "dead", so you can join the misquote brigade too, in Irish or not. I said if it can only survive on handouts then it is dead for all intents and purposes.

http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/15462
A clinic for a population smaller than the average housing estate?
Absolute economic madness. Maybe I should pass a few copies of the Buntús around the mainland for people who are stuck for years on waiting lists?

Give us a copy i lost mine

My experience of non-optional Irish classes;

I did honours Irish until 5th year, then dropped down to have it as my only pass subject, did a grind course where I learnt big chunks of text that I had no understanding of, purely to paste into my exam paper and got a B.

I currently know as much Irish as I do Chinese, very little...

The only positive I can think of, is after losing the will to live in an Irish class, I had improved concentration levels for all other classes!

I'm struggling to think of any other benefits those hundreds of hours labouring (or staring blankly in most cases) through Irish classes gave me

My opinion would be to introduce earlier Spanish/French/German lessons & allow Irish to be optional from Primary!

Anyone know how German/Dutch language curriculums are any different? There are so many young fluent English speakers.

I think it should be allowed to choose from an early age if you want to focus on one language aiming to achieve fluency, rather than being subjected to multiple mandatory basic courses that will be unused/forgotten when finished.