My father had good Irish. He learnt it in primary school. It wasn’t a Gaelscoil, he just had a great teacher who had good Irish and a passion for teaching it. It was not a burden to the rest of his life.
It may not have contributed a single pay check, but it was part of his purpose in life and fed his spirit. The debate that rears its head again and again in this country regarding the failure of Irish language education has a strange and perplexing pattern. Nominally it’s about why the teaching of Irish is “failing” but it is really a debate about the eradication of the language.
This was the case once again in a constrained and polite debate on RTE’s Upfront program recently where the declining state of literacy in Irish was the nominal subject. But, as in all these debates, th unspoken issue below the surface was how fast we should procee with policies that would ensure the hastening of the rate of th decline of the Irish language.
Conradh na Gaeilge chairman, Julian De Spáin, was an able spokesman on behalf of the policies that Gaelgeoirí espouse to address the poor tuition of the language, and why making it optional would be a serious blow to its survival. I will not go into those arguments, which are all sensible, as others will do that, but I do want to address the unspoken issue of why there is an antipathy to the survival of Irish.
It is not a universally held antipathy, as the majority of people have a sentimental attachment to “the old cúpla focail” and would rather endure it as a mandatory subject, than see it die. And yes, most people are hard headed enough to understand that without this status, it just might die.
Opponents of this position say that the teaching of Irish is not working. Their suggestion –to get rid of compulsory Irish- will only make the decline faster. They say that Irish is badly taught, but this is an argument against the education system, not the value of the language or its cultural importance. Its pointed out that most people leave school with a poor level of Irish; a state which is sometimes improved with yearly trips to the Gaeltacht. However, this is the case with many subjects and many people who earn high grades in their Leaving Cert would not do so without extensive investment in grinds.
Surely this is a critique of the education system in general?
As an aside: remember that this is the same system that has now decided to work in 40 hours of mostly woke indoctrination (that Irish people have ‘white privilege’ for example) into the students schedule before theJunior cert. I don’t hear the anti-Gaeilge crowd worrying that this is a waste of time.
The biggest issue of resentment is the claim that the Irish language is of no use. This is a strange utilitarian focus to hear from personalities in the liberal media, who constantly argue in moral and quasi-spiritual sense when it comes to socio-political issues such as immigration. It ignores the spiritual and cultural aspects of a language and its connection with a landscape and a people.These are roots that go deep in time and culture.
People understand this on an emotional level. The young woman who spoke from the audience in the Upfront programme, and who was born in Poland and raised in Ireland, could see the moral and spiritual utility of a native language in its native place. She expressed the same sentiment that Irish people feel. She could feel the importance of language and culture, and she said that it made her feel connected to this country which she now calls her home.
There are two attitudes to the Irish language in Ireland. One is the post colonial, “West Brit”, gombeenish attitude, that sees the language as a relic of a failed culture. An embarrassment; useless to a globally conscious people leaving the past to itself and embracing the future of global trade and citizenship. Ironically, this attitude has historic roots. The perception of Irish as a language of poverty and an impediment to progress and prosperity was first expressed by the emancipator, Daniel O Connell. The education system, that Pearse was so critical of, which embraced this attitude and culturally embedded it. The resentment of Gaeilge is part of our sorry history.
The Irish language in this view is not just useless, but is also a hindrance with its association with the “backwards nationalism” that the global facing leaders of our country despise.
In sharp contrast, there are is the culturally aware Irish who say this language is “ours” and should not be discarded as that would tear out part of our soul. That’s the argument really. It’s simple, and it’s spiritual. If you can’t feel it, you won’t be swayed.
In my opinion, some of those who make this argument are nervous of the negative perception of nationalism also, and so don’t address the antipathy, bordering on hatred from some quarters.
We keep talking about why the teaching of Irish is not succeeding, and some people say that this proves that its mandatory status should be scrapped. Nobody has ever made a convincing argument that this will improve the state of literacy and fluency in the language. Why this option comes into a discussion of the state of the language is beyond me.
But this debate is not really about the failure to teach Irish well (though this is obviously an important issue that should get energetic attention from people who have a desire to see it improved), it’s about the survival of the language or its managed decline. These are not two separate issues, they are the choice of the direction we take.
As I mentioned, my father learned Irish from his teacher who just had a passion for the language and for teaching. Perhaps without the mandatory fluency in Irish for teachers (a standard which is not now as strict as before) he would not have been in my father’s school teaching Irish. He did not live in a Gaeltacht or go to a Gaelscoil.
From its founding, there was precious little appetite in the state to promote either the teaching of Irish or the economic communities where Irish survived. Managed decline seemed to be the unspoken policy of the state. All the advances we have seen in the promotion and survival of Irish have been from the ground up. The Gaelscoil movement came from parents in English speaking towns who felt that spiritual hunger for the culture of their ancestors. Mandatory Irish in schools, though frequently done with little appetite, is for the state, an acceptable concession to this “spirit of the nation”.
What the Polish girl in the audience in RTE recognised is what Patrick Pearse recognised. A nation’s language nurtures its soul. Tír gan teanga, Tír gan anam. Perhaps it is this spirituality and nationalism that is disliked by the neoliberals. After all, that is a rival sense of belonging to the “our liberal/European values” nonsense of fluctuating globalism that our leaders are committed to.
Dála an scéil: tá seans ana-mhaith go mbeidh roinnt daoine ag rá nach ait é go bhfuil daoine ag caint faoi náisiúnachas agus staid an Ghaeilge agus gan líofacht Gaeilge a thaispeáint acú. Chun bheith soiléir faoi: ní do lucht labhairthe na Ghaeilge an alt seo ar chor ar bith.
Ironically, there are some interesting developments internationally regarding the preservation and cultivation of national languages which might be endangered. Perhaps for geo-political as well as cultural reasons, Estonia – a small country like Ireland – is moving to ensure all primary schools in must teach through the national language. It is a reminder of a time when many primary schools in this country – which were not Gaelscoils – taught through Irish, a practise which was abandoned but is worth reconsidering. In Wales, the percentage of both primary schools and secondary schools now operating in Welsh is increasing towards the sort of ambitious target which seems so sadly lacking from the establishment here.
As the old adage says, there is no problem so bad it cannot be made worse. The answer to the question of falling Irish standards is not attacking the idea of compulsory Irish in schools but bringing more students and parents to see its enduring beauty and value.