Fine Gael policy to end compusory Irish till Leaving Cert

Krusader

Snakeblood wrote: »

Bertie Ahern and his crew of idiots in the REPUBLICAN party were responsible for the IMF coming in. You know, the lads who spout off a bit of Irish to win over dimwitted punters.

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

...
...
...
emm, so people who are against compulsory Irish post junior cert are responsible for the economic crash?
...
...
...
... nope still not seeing the connection.

mloc wrote: »

This is an excellent post.

It is a perfect example for anyone who wants a textbook example of a strawman argument, a logical non-sequitur and an ad-hominem attack.

I suggest Dr Bill join FF.

I think ye need to read between the lines of what he's saying

Japer

mickydoomsux wrote: »

About time. We need to completely do away with Irish being taught in schools, it's a waste of time.

Replace it with a international language that actually has some kind of value.

I agree. Its time all the money + effort spent on the Irish language was seriously looked at. Most people do not use it or want it and most people do not speak or read it. Let those who want it, use it - do not let them shove it down the throats of the rest of us.

Krusader

Japer wrote: »

I agree. Its time all the money + effort spent on the Irish language was seriously looked at. Most people do not use it or want it and most people do not speak or read it. Let those who want it, use it - do not let them shove it down the throats of the rest of us.

Same could be said about English

Dr Bill

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

...
...
...
emm, so people who are against compulsory Irish post junior cert are responsible for the economic crash?
...
...
...
... nope still not seeing the connection.

Where are you coming from with that responseRead the post and make sure your brain is engaged before putting your keyboard in gear.Slán.

mloc

Crosáidí wrote: »

Same could be said about English

A work force with a high quality of written and spoken English is fundamentally essential for our economy.

Chaotic_Forces

mloc wrote: »

A work force with a high quality of written and spoken English is fundamentally essential for our economy.

Not if we all spoke our first language.

But fine, why do we study maths after primary? I honestly don't get it. It's not as if being a journalist means needing to know algerbra.

Dr Bill

mloc wrote: »

This is an excellent post.

It is a perfect example for anyone who wants a textbook example of a strawman argument, a logical non-sequitur and an ad-hominem attack.

I suggest Dr Bill join FF.

Your suggestion is taken on board,thank you,I appreciate your logical response to this post.;)

Wibbs

Crosáidí wrote: »

Same could be said about English

Eh no. Lets substitute english and examine this shall we?

Its time all the money + effort spent on the english language was seriously looked at.
Bugger all is spent on the specific promotion of English.

Most people do not use it or want it and most people do not speak or read it.

Well the vast majority, hell let's not be daft here, practically all Irish born people are fluent english speakers. So that one is nothing like Irish.

Let those who want it, use it - do not let them shove it down the throats of the rest of us.
I agree with the first part, but how is english forced down your throat? It's what we speak and write in the vast majority of interaction involving language in this nation. Blame your forefathers for dropping the ball. If you want to apportion blame that is.

So no nothing like english then.

Chaotic_Forces

[QUOTE=Wibbs;70573957 Blame your forefathers for dropping the ball. If you want to apportion blame that is. [/QUOTE]

We're to blame them for not winning a war?

oranje

Wibbs wrote: »

Here English became that language of commerce and faith and knowledge/learning/science and social position. Though less so with faith. Catholicism is firmly attached to the Irish language. Though a fair few of the early scholars in the 19th century revival of the language were Protestant. No wonder Irish died on the vine. If english had been around in the 8th century it wouldnt have had a hope in the face of the Irish at the time.

Irish was never the language of Catholicism in Ireland. Historically Latin was the language used in higher registers and Irish as a vernacular. When the Normans came French was the higher register language of government with English the main vernacular of the settlers. English gradually replaced French as the language of government but the church language was Latin.

The 1659 census counted speakers of Irish, English, Old English and Scots. Old English (aka Yola) was a language isolate spoking in Wexford up intil the nineteenth century when it was subsumed by Hiberno-English on the introduction in 1831 of national schooling in English (in the same way Irish went into accelerated decline from then onwards.

The Catholic Church generally encouraged the language shift to English in the same way as political nationalists like Daniel O'Connell did. This position was reinforced by the fact that the Book of Common Prayer and other Protestant tracts were published in Irish. The first bible in Irish was a translation by William Beddell, a Church of Ireland bishop.

You are right that Protestants were at the forefront of the language revival efforts. Ironically from today's perspective cultural nationalism and political nationalism were far from the same thing. There were very many Anglo-Irish people who wanted to promote a distinctive Irish culture while the native Irish were busy with one of the fastest voluntary language shifts in history.

Therein lies the answer as to why people have not shifted en masse back to Irish. Nobody forced their forefathers to stop speaking Irish, they pragmatically abandoned their own tongue and we are still trying to deal with the consequences.

mloc

Chaotic_Forces wrote: »

Not if we all spoke our first language.

But fine, why do we study maths after primary? I honestly don't get it. It's not as if being a journalist means needing to know algerbra.

On the first point, the level of FDI into Ireland is as a result of many things, one of those being the availability of fluent native English speakers.

I agree about maths, but think about this; how many careers are cut off to you as a result of not taking Irish (specifically not taking at a post-primary level), not just in Ireland, but all over the world?

How many careers would be cut off to you by not taking maths at a post-primary level? Does a 12 year old know what career they want? Should they be able to exclude a huge gamut of careers from their future as a result of a decision they took aged 11/12?

Chaotic_Forces

mloc wrote: »

On the first point, the level of FDI into Ireland is as a result of many things, one of those being the availability of fluent native English speakers.

I agree about maths, but think about this; how many careers are cut off to you as a result of not taking Irish (specifically not taking at a post-primary level), not just in Ireland, but all over the world?

How many careers would be cut off to you by not taking maths at a post-primary level? Does a 12 year old know what career they want? Should they be able to exclude a huge gamut of careers from their future as a result of a decision they took aged 11/12?

But why should we have to say "thou must study maths" but say "meh, study irish if you want, we don't care if you don't want to"?

Ste_D

Chaotic_Forces wrote: »

But why should we have to say "thou must study maths" but say "meh, study irish if you want, we don't care if you don't want to"?

I think thats quite a strange comparison to make. You can get by in daily life just fine without any knowledge of Irish. Maths is something (like English) that is pretty fundamental.

Dr Bill

mloc wrote: »

A work force with a high quality of written and spoken English is fundamentally essential for our economy.

I agree but that does not mean that Irish be consigned to the skip,would the French or Germans have their language as an option for their equivelant of our secondary students?NO they would not,why cant we as a nation with our language as part of our identity show some pride in what is essentially part of us all. I dont believe that it is a huge task for leaving cert students to have Irish compulsory for their exam,more so for their parents i'd expect,would students find a European language easier?,I doubt it.

Ste_D

Dr Bill wrote: »

I agree but that does not mean that Irish be consigned to the skip,would the French or Germans have their language as an option for their equivelant of our secondary students?NO they would not,why cant we as a nation with our language as part of our identity show some pride in what is essentially part of us all. I dont believe that it is a huge task for leaving cert students to have Irish compulsory for their exam,more so for their parents i'd expect,would students find a European language easier?,I doubt it.

The French and Germans speak their national language on a day to day basis, it would be pretty odd for them not to study it.

Leaving cert students are put under a huge amount of pressure to study and get good grades, this is only made worse by having to spend a large amount of time studying a language that come the end of June will be utterly useless to them.

Chaotic_Forces

Ste_D wrote: »

I think thats quite a strange comparison to make. You can get by in daily life just fine without any knowledge of Irish. Maths is something (like English) that is pretty fundamental.

I meant in secondary school onwards.

Wibbs

oranje wrote: »

Therein lies the answer as to why people have not shifted en masse back to Irish. Nobody forced their forefathers to stop speaking Irish, they pragmatically abandoned their own tongue and we are still trying to deal with the consequences.

I agree. I'd also ask are we still being pragmatic about it? Or at least those not constantly looking for more time and money to prop up Irish are?

Chaotic_Forces wrote:

We're to blame them for not winning a war?

Huh? no, but its an explanation and it was hardly a war either.

NTMK

Dr Bill wrote: »

would students find a European language easier?,I doubt it.

I found german much easier to learn than irish and im finding spanish much easier to learn and i know many more students who found french easier than irish at LC

ilovesleep

Im from an irish speaking area, however you spell it as gailge and my irish is crap. im late 20s and many people my age that dont use irish frequently find it hard to string an irish sentence together. As for reading and writing it - again awful.

I would be in favour of ending compulsory irish. It costs money to keep it alive, we're in a deep depression, irish is a waste and we need to save money. Many go to school for 14 years and are unable to use irish afterwards - speaking, reading, writing.

Anyways as i said, im from an irish speaking area. There is uproar in the community about this. Save irish and nevermind about the country type of thing. this will stregthen FF - the party that has fcuked Ireland up and has us sh1tting our pants with fear.

Dr Bill

Ste_D wrote: »

The French and Germans speak their national language on a day to day basis, it would be pretty odd for them not to study it.

As do quite a lot of Irish people speak Irish on a day to day basis:eek:

[/QUOTE]Leaving cert students are put under a huge amount of pressure to study and get good grades, this is only made worse by having to spend a large amount of time studying a language that come the end of June will be utterly useless to them.[/QUOTE]

It's only useless to them if they choose not to use it and the point is choice.

Ste_D

Dr Bill wrote: »

It's only useless to them if they choose not to use it and the point is choice.

I totally agree, if people want to learn it then let them. My point is just that it shouldnt be forced on people.

ilovesleep

NTMK wrote: »

I found german much easier to learn than irish and im finding spanish much easier to learn and i know many more students who found french easier than irish at LC

I found french easier too.

Actually feck it.

See above that im from an irish area. There was great pressure on me to take honours at LC and I knew i wasnt able for it but did nonetheless and I failed Irish.

Dr Bill

Ste_D wrote: »

I totally agree, if people want to learn it then let them. My point is just that it shouldnt be forced on people.

The same way English and Maths is forced on people????Why shouldn't our national language be compulsory up to Leaving Cert?,its not that difficult for students considering there is foundation,pass and honours to choose from.

Ste_D

Dr Bill wrote: »

The same way English and Maths is forced on people????Why shouldn't our national language be compulsory up to Leaving Cert?,its not that difficult for students considering there is foundation,pass and honours to choose from.

You use English and maths on a daily basis. Being completely unable to speak Irish has never affected me at all.

The fact that the population of this country are fluent in English has been a cornerstone of our economy for years. Not educating people in the language would be a huge mistake. Whereas Irish, is historically the national language although these days its very little use. If people want to speak it then good for them, I just dont believe that everyone should be forced to learn it.

oranje

NTMK wrote: »

I found german much easier to learn than irish and im finding spanish much easier to learn and i know many more students who found french easier than irish at LC

Both German and Spanish have a very big vocabulary overlap with English. If you had to learn Irish or either of those two languages from the same starting position of course you would pick up Spanish and German quicker.

The thing is though Irish people leran Irish as L2 from the age of 4 so most people have an 8 year head start on their third language. In principle people should be better at Irish than their third language.

I know that most aren't but that it's not because Irish is that difficult.

oranje

Wibbs wrote: »

I agree. I'd also ask are we still being pragmatic about it? Or at least those not constantly looking for more time and money to prop up Irish are?

Indeed. I would regard myself as a cultural nationalist so for me the Irish language is important. However, I fully appreciate that many (maybe even a majority) of southern Irish people don't care about it.
Equally I regard myself as a European so I always liked the fact that most Irish people took a third language for five years at school. That made me feel more European than my British brethern when I lived there.
However, just as most Irish people (pragmatically) don't speak Irish they also (pragmatically) don't speak French/German/whatever they took in school. It's the reality, that doesn't make it good or right.
It's a fact that children immersed in a second language will speak it. It's a fact that (on average) do better at third languages. It's a fact that speaking three languages makes it easy to add a fourth.
That leads me to the theory that an Irish schooled population might just be a lot more multilingual. Would that really be such a bad thing in our globalizing world?

NTMK

oranje wrote: »

Both German and Spanish have a very big vocabulary overlap with English. If you had to learn Irish or either of those two languages from the same starting position of course you would pick up Spanish and German quicker.

The thing is though Irish people leran Irish as L2 from the age of 4 so most people have an 8 year head start on their third language. In principle people should be better at Irish than their third language.

I know that most aren't but that it's not because Irish is that difficult.

I agree with you that irish isnt that difficult as a langauge but the curriculum is very poor the whole way up. (by the end of primary school i could speak more turkish than irish)

a few pages back i proposed the idea of making it optional after a few years of a new curriculum where the language is taught at primary like the way French german spanish are taught in secondary. it helps you grasp the language better

Iwasfrozen

Dr Bill wrote: »

Where are you coming from with that responseRead the post and make sure your brain is engaged before putting your keyboard in gear.Slán.

Well sir after respectively making sure my brain was engaged (it is) I still for the life of me cannot make the connection. I fear you will have to spell it out for me.

Iwasfrozen

Crosáidí wrote: »

I think ye need to read between the lines of what he's saying

What is that?

oranje

NTMK wrote: »

I agree with you that irish isnt that difficult as a langauge but the curriculum is very poor the whole way up.

a few pages back i proposed the idea of making it optional after a few years of a new curriculum where the language is taught at primary like the way French german spanish are taught in secondary. it helps you grasp the language better

I am not sure how they teach it these days but I agree with you that they have to teach it as a foreign language. For small kids it is best just to have oral immersion in the language without even thinking of grammar.
(Actually one of the biggest flaws when I was at school was that they never ever taught English grammar.)

With Irish kids should just watch cartoons, read simple books and speak it as much as they can before they get infected with prejudices against it from outside.

As soon as people start thinking a language is 'difficult' it is like a deadweight around their necks. Every language has difficult aspects but most have got very easy aspects too, they would be better off emphasizing the positive 'easy' things.

I have some Irish t-shirts and I love wearing them outside Ireland. Irish is cool, it's just got an image problem at home.

oranje

NTMK wrote: »

(by the end of primary school i could speak more turkish than irish)

How come you could speak Turkish? I am learning it at the moment. It is the most difficult language I have ever learned as almost every word is new and there are loads of unusually grammatical features.
Relative to Turkish I think Irish is easy.

Krusader

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

What is that?

Use your brain and you'll see

NTMK

oranje wrote: »

How come you could speak Turkish? I am learning it at the moment. It is the most difficult language I have ever learned as almost every word is new and there are loads of unusually grammatical features.
Relative to Turkish I think Irish is easy.

my mam taught it to me when i was small (she's irish her job required her to know it). i think i was taught it to give me a good base to learn other languages. ive lost a lot of it though due to lack of use. it is a complicated language though.

BKtje

Just read most of this thread and have picked out some things that I would like to comment on. I realise some of my quotes are from a few days ago and may not be seen by the origianl poster. I apologies for the length to the tl;dr brigade.

Fristly, the point of an education system is to give it's pupils a good well rounded education. It is not always (very rarely actually) what the pupil him/herself wants but what is good for the country and it's citizens in the long run (according to what the "experts" believe is good for the country anyway).

Obviously in today's world languages are vitally important and to that end I would be in favour of having "compulsory languages", however I would also be in favour of allowing people to choose which languages they wish to do.
Currently English and Irish are compulsory then (in my school) we had the choice of german or french.
Why not make 3 compuslory languages from a general set list (my personal set list would be: Irish, English, French, Spanish, German and Chinese, with further options requiring extra funding from parents or going to classes outside of school).
Now obviously not every school can afford to have teachers on hand for all these languages but I'm sure a system could be worked out where one or two teachers share their time between different schools. Anyway the details could be worked out easily enough.

kraggy wrote: »

Because there could be cases where students who want to study it for leaving cert wouldn't be able to because the numbers wouldn't be sufficient in their school.

Since we are talking about Irish in this case, we could use the "time share teachers" approach. I'm not even going to deal with the issue of whether Irish should be compulsory if not enough students are even interested in taking it to keep it "alive" in a school. People have debated that plenty in this thread.

ryaner012 wrote: »

it's not just the Irish language syllabus that should be restructured but the foreign languages that are taught are only useful from a 70's approach when we would only really look as far as Europe.

I took French at school which I think is still one of the most popular languages taught at school, yet it is pointless.

I agree that, and not just the language syllabi, they need to be reformed, however the French and German syllabi that I wtinessed are not that different from what I have just done as an adult learning french. It's mainly about sentance structure,verbs, grammar and vocabulary with some (especially when your level is of a high enough standard) newspaper articles, poetry and songs thrown in. These are however used to help enforce what was learnt in the lesson on one of the 4 basics (sentance structure, verbs etc).
I learnt german in school and even though I now live in a french speaking part of switzerland it has still been of more use to me than Irish has ever been. This is a sad truth.

arch_stanton wrote: »

As several others have suggested, Irish at second level should be split along the lines of Irish Language and Irish Literature.

Irish class should be an english free zone from day 1. All teaching and interaction should be through Irish. After leaving school I took up Spanish classes for my own interest and that's the way it works.

I agree with point one (splitting of the curriculumn) and a general overhaul of it.

Point two however i'm not so sure on. As an adult our brains work differently and we generally choose to do a language course so we are more open to it and have higher concentration levels. I'm not saying it's wrong I just don't know if the attention span of a 4/5 yr old would be up for hearing strange noises and be able to grasp it's meaning as easily when only heard for x amount of minutes a day. Though I guess thats how we all start out learning a language anyway as a child.

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Bottom line is, a determined effort was made to destroy it, now a determined effort is being made to restore it, and whatever else we can salvage from that time. And rightly so.

Overhaul the curriculum, now, don't remove it!

I have snipped most of this post but will still lightly reference it (this post will be long enough as it is).
While a determined effort was made to destroy it against the wishes of the majority (assumption on my part), why now are you now using the same method to try and preserve it? Let it stand or fall on it's own merits. If people wish to learn it they are able to, if not then let them choose another language which they feel would be more beneficial in the long run.

You also mentioned about language and culture being intricately intertwined in that post. I would have to disagree, I never spoke Irish to any decent standard, hell i can't even ask to go to the toilet anymore in irish yet I still feel Irish, I have experienced the Irish culture for 20+ years before leaving the country and very rarely did it have anything to do with the Irish language.

Crosáidí wrote: »

I've thought lately why people dismiss Irish and say it's useless. But really has English been all that good to us, since the state was formed 90 years ago, we've had only 10 years of prosperity and we blew that.

Once again have snipped large portions as post is getting long. English (or lack of Irish) can not be blamed on the prosperity of the country. Infact I think the many MNC's who set up in Ireland during the boom did so partly thanks to the dominance of english. The fact that Ireland has had only 10yrs of prosperity is down to other factors.

In relation to snipped part which spoke of language allowing us to decipher the "code" of other languages; This is true, the more languages you learn the easier it becomes to understand how they all work. I don't hold that learning Irish would make it any easier than say learning french though so this argument (for me) is null and void. Any language will aid in the understandind and learning of another and therefore not a reason to keep Irish compulsory.

deise go deo wrote: »

People do want to do it, The majority of people between 15 and 24 want Irish to remain compulsory.

I have read the surveys linked to in this thread and found them differing vastly from my own personal experience in dublin. In my school the vast majority didn't want to do irish and when discussing it with others from other schools the sentiment was the same. I have to wonder where these surveys were carried out and how the questions were all phrased.

Seanchai wrote: »

2 official languages; 1 national language, to be precise:

Article 8

1. The Irish language as the national language is the first official language.


2. The English language is recognised as a second official language.

Personally I feel that the Irish constitution is grossly out of date and in need of a major overhaul in many many areas. English is the dominant language in Ireland and this should be reflected in the constitution. Not that it would change matters greatly if it was.

deise go deo wrote: »

The number of jobs requiring Irish is growing these days, but that dosent tally with your argument so I suppose it dosent count.

I would like to know how many of these jobs are created "artificially" by keeping Irish as a compulsory language and as an officially recognised language of the EU.

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

Once Irish is made optional, there will be no going back. The vast majority of children will drop Irish for the LC.

Surely this tells you what the majority of the populace thinks of the language and is completely at odds with what the surveys claim. Why the fear in letting it stand or fall according to the will of the people.

Crosáidí wrote: »

Then why isn't maths and english being made optional

I think the english curriculumn needs to be changed as well. We (well I wasn't) was never taught sentence structure or grammar to any high level. Granted I understood it was right but not why. This in itself would have aided me greatly in learning other languages.
English (or whatever the dominant language is where you live/works) is important in both a business and personal sense. If you cannot express yourself formally then you may find finding work more difficult. In Ireland, that is english, so I would be in favour of teaching some "business english" in school as part of the curriculumn. I would actually be in favour of this being compulsory.
Maths is important in so many professions (and in personal life) that I can see why it is compulsory.

deise go deo wrote: »

Learning a second language helps to improve your first. So Irish can be justified in the same way English can. It improves your English.

As I said above, why make Irish the second language, why not allow the choice between many different ones? Surely the result is the same?

deise go deo wrote: »

If you went into a job interview(with Google for arguments sake) And said you had English and Maths, but no Irish.
And I went into the same Job Interview and said I had English and Maths and Irish, which do you think they'd prefer?
(All else being equal of course)

The same can be said if you go to the same interview and say I have English, Maths and French. I can guarantee that (except for specialised jobs) the French would be more importantly viewed than the Irish.

Chaotic_Forces wrote: »

Well, it's our first language, if you prefer your kids to learn more useful things, move to a place where they will learn it.

What do you mean "our" first language? How does 75,000 ish speakers out of 5 million make that "our". The vast population of Ireland's first language is English. In the case of speaking for Ireland, that is "our" first language. In the past it was definitely Irish but today things are different,

Cathaoirleach wrote: »

What about PE? The 'shove' that on you aswell.

PE would be for general physical health which once again comes under the "good of the nation" argument. History and geography would come under a well rounded education. Irish would too but I wouldn't give it any extra weight than any other useful language (personally I'd give it less but that's just me).

Snakeblood

Crosáidí wrote: »

I think ye need to read between the lines of what he's saying

What he's saying is that people who don't care about Irish are the type of people who lost their heads during the bubble because all they care about is money, as far as I can tell. In which case he's talking complete ****.

Davidius

Chaotic_Forces wrote: »

I meant in secondary school onwards.

Probably because secondary maths is fundamental to a wide-range of jobs and you can't really expect a 12/13 year old to realise how much they'd narrow their job prospects if they didn't take it.

Iwasfrozen

Crosáidí wrote: »

Use your brain and you'll see

Currently using brain and still cannot see. You're going to have to spell it out for me.

Seanchai

oranje wrote: »

Therein lies the answer as to why people have not shifted en masse back to Irish. Nobody forced their forefathers to stop speaking Irish, they pragmatically abandoned their own tongue and we are still trying to deal with the consequences.

What dishonest, ahistorical nonsense. The British committed a sufficient degree of genocide in Ireland to gain political, military and economic power here and make it very clear to the natives that if they wished to progress in their own country thereafter they had to use the language, law, mannerisms and customs of the colonial power. English became the language of power and success as a direct result of the British controlling power in the country.

Given this context, how you can claim force was not at the heart of the language shift defies belief. Ridiculous.

Seanchai

Ste_D wrote: »

I think thats quite a strange comparison to make. You can get by in daily life just fine without any knowledge of Irish. Maths is something (like English) that is pretty fundamental.

Forcing all children to study Maths and English for the Leaving Cert - something which Fine Gael supports - is far from "fundamental" to a student's education. Have you seen what constitutes Maths and English for the LC? Most people manage their entire lives without ever using that stuff again. Fact.

smegmar

*apologies for shouting in caps*

IRISH IS A DYING LANGUAGE BECAUSE IT IS NOT TAUGHT IN THE CORRECT WAY, MAKING PEOPLE BELIEVE IT IS USELESS, OLD AND UNSPOKEN. IRISH WILL ONLY BE A LIVING LANGUAGE BY PEOPLE USING IT, BY MAKING IT USEFUL AND RELEVANT FOR DAY TO DAY LIVES. THE ONLY WAY THIS WILL HAPPEN IS CHILDREN LEARNING, AND GETTING AN INTEREST IN SPEAKING IT IN SCHOOL FROM A YOUNG AGE.

TO REMOVE IT FROM THE CURRICULUM WILL ONLY WORSEN THE RELEVANCE OF IRISH AND THE SPEAKING POPULATION. WE NEED A REFORM IN THE TEACHING METHODOLOGY (IN ALL SUBJECTS, BUT ESPECIALLY IRISH)

there, now the discussion has ended, go in peace

oranje

Seanchai wrote: »

What dishonest, ahistorical nonsense. The British committed a sufficient degree of genocide in Ireland to gain political, military and economic power here and make it very clear to the natives that if they wished to progress in their own country thereafter they had to use the language, law, mannerisms and customs of the colonial power. English became the language of power and success as a direct result of the British controlling power in the country.

Given this context, how you can claim force was not at the heart of the language shift defies belief. Ridiculous.

Well, coincidentally I just did a lot of research in this area so I think that I am pretty au fait with the historical facts. If you really want to know about the linguistic history of Ireland I recommend reading papers like:
Kallen, J. (1988) ‘The English Language in Ireland.’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language; Vol. 70, p127-142.
Unless he is fabricating things the data from the 1659 census of Ireland already shows a pattern of primarily English speaking towns surrounded by Irish speaking hinterlands.
The parish reports from 1814-19 already show a significant language shift towards English with an increasingly bilingual population.
Of course national schooling in English (1831) and the Great Famine accelerated the decline, no one can deny that but with the likes of Daniel O’Connell encouraging the switch to English( ‘I can witness without a sigh the demise of Irish’ ) there is no doubt that Irish people actively chose to abandon their own language.
Think about it, nobody forced my Irish speaking great great grandparents to speak English to their children, they made that choice themselves and removed Irish from the family line.
Sure, you can say the British created the conditions where English was the prestige language. So what, the Swedish made their language the prestige language of Finland and the Finnish did not abandon their tongue wholesale.

It might suit Irish mythology to think that the English forced us to speak their tongue but the facts show different. Even the famous bata scóir was invented and implemented by the Irish. It already existed in the (English language) hedge schools.
I must admit that I had different ideas before I researched this whole issue.

LizT

Ste_D wrote: »

You use English and maths on a daily basis. Being completely unable to speak Irish has never affected me at all.

The fact that the population of this country are fluent in English has been a cornerstone of our economy for years. Not educating people in the language would be a huge mistake. Whereas Irish, is historically the national language although these days its very little use. If people want to speak it then good for them, I just dont believe that everyone should be forced to learn it.

When was the last time you have to conduct a comparitive of three texts in your daily life? How useful is it to study the poetry of Slyvia Plath et al?

When was the last time you had to use almost any of the stuff from Leaving Cert maths?

When we leave primary school, unless something goes terribly wrong, we all have a grasp of the English language and basic maths.
I can see where your point is coming from and I agree with your views on the irish language. But I'd also propose that there be no compulsary subjects at all after Junior Cert level, if we're going by what's going to be useful.

Naikon

lizt wrote: »

When was the last time you have to conduct a comparitive of three texts in your daily life? How useful is it to study the poetry of Slyvia Plath et al?

When was the last time you had to use almost any of the stuff from Leaving Cert maths?

When we leave primary school, unless something goes terribly wrong, we all have a grasp of the English language and basic maths.
I can see where your point is coming from and I agree with your views on the irish language. But I'd also propose that there be no compulsary subjects at all after Junior Cert level, if we're going by what's going to be useful.

English forms your skills with regard to critical analysis. Maths teaches you how to solve problems. The information is not of consideration, it's the thought processes which are honed from studying these two subjects. Both are challenging to say the least, so it's worthwhile to not make them optional.

Sounds to me that there needs to be a "kill Irish language funding" lobbying group set up. Cos there's enough of ye Joe-Duffy, Daily-Mail-letter-style-this-is-outrageous angry.

Like it or not, the majority of people in the country associate the language with the country in, at the very least, a fuzzy semi-patriotic way, if not a stronger "gra" (love) and will not actively support actions to remove it from public life. You may not see it in your own circle of friends or family, but in the wider nation, people are sending kids to gaelscoilanna (overheard my sister telling my nephew a bedtime story "as Gaeilge" earlier), and singing songs in the language on family occasions such as weddings or funerals.

Your only chance would be to convince enough of a certain demographic (business people, hard-line capitalists I'm guessing) of the economic benefits of the loss of public funding for the Irish language.

Why is it so abhorrent to live and let a language live?

Snakeblood

Deleted User wrote: »

Sounds to me that there needs to be a "kill Irish language funding" group set up. Cos there's enough of ye Joe-Duffy, Daily-Mail-letter-style-this-is-outrageous angry.

Like it or not, the majority of people in the country associate the language with the country in, at the very least, a fuzzy semi-patriotic way, if not a stronger "gra" (love) and will not actively support actions to remove it from public life. Your only chance would be to convince enough of a certain demographic (business people, hard-line capitalists I'm guessing) of the economic benefits of the loss of public funding for the Irish language.

Why is it so abhorrent to live and let a language live?

There's a touch more of the Joe Duffy's about the 'Keep Irish, or move to britain if you hate it so much' attitude.

Snakeblood

Snakeblood wrote: »

There's a touch more of the Joe Duffy's about the 'Keep Irish, or move to britain if you hate it so much' attitude.

"Oh it's not our side that act unreasonably, only theirs do!"

Gee, I wonder where in Irish history we've seen that before? :rolleyes:

My gut went for that on my first reply to this thread, but that was just patriotism (misguided or not would depend on your outlook)

Odd how this thread has changed from "cumpulsory Irish for LC" debate to "kill public funding" debate.

Wibbs

TBH I think it's as much about a rural/urban split as anything else. Irish is seen as rural, twee, inward looking nationalism. English is seen as urban and basically more modern. That notion has been prevalent for a very very long time too(as oranje wrote as far back as the 17th century*). Irish died in the cobbled streets long before it died in the centre grassed country lanes. As more Irish people have become urbanised this continued. Now it seems its mostly the suburban who actively foster the language. Maybe cos they're usually only second or third generation urban caught between the two worlds looking for an identity in some way? Most have lost their accents and link to the past, beyond an affiliation to a GAA club. The language they abandoned in the past come back to haunt them?





* that reads wrong, oranje is not that old

Snakeblood

Deleted User wrote: »

"Oh it's not our side that act unreasonably, only theirs do!"

Gee, I wonder where in Irish history we've seen that before? :rolleyes:

My gut went for that on my first reply to this thread, but that was just patriotism (misguided or not would depend on your outlook)

Odd how this thread has changed from "cumpulsory Irish for LC" debate to "kill public funding" debate.

My side is 'Not Compulsory'. I'm not sure how that is a crazy pro british, anti Irish side. I don't see why it shouldn't be a choice, and no one has really made a satisfactory argument why it should be. It's all 'Well the love of Irish' etc. That doesn't work when a language needs to be used to communicate. We don't need Irish to communicate, so we don't.

I don't think you'd get that from your average Joe Duffy listener, who seems to be angry about teachers doctors, the banks, Horse Outside etc. Your average Joe Duffy listener (maybe not listener, but the poor benighted souls that ring in) seem to be more likely to be the people bemoaning the lack of Irish around and blaming that for the current economic troubles (which the people who don't want Irish are to blame for, according to this thread, in addition to wanting the queen to come over, and also should emigrate, apparently).

Snakeblood,
I'm actually of the same opinion, that you won't encourage the use of Irish language by hammering a syllabus of obscure literary works that, in any language, would entice groans of derision from anyone except enthusiasts.

It just seems that the thread turned into a wider debate on whether the language should be supported at all by the state or not.

I look forward to Stephen Fry's take on the matter. Apparently he was over in Galway doing a programme on minority languages.

snorlax

it's a great idea..I mean it's nice to know irish and all but how often do we actually use it? I mean compared to maths and english.