Agóid Chiúin / Silent Protest.

allimac

No subject should be compulsary at leaving cert level.

krudler

I spent, what, 13 or so years "learning" Irish in school, cant string a sentence of it together, spent 3 years learning french and can read and speak far more of it. The way Irish is taught needs to be completely scrapped, learning poems and pigeon phrases does not teach you how to use a language.

hoorsmelt

deise go deo wrote: »

Hi All.



It is Enda Kenny's Policy to Remove Irish as a Core Subject for the LC and make it optional. We in Cumann Gaelach UL Believe that if this policy was put in place, it would cause serious harm to the Future of the Irish Language. See the link for more information on the issue.

Kenny's move on Irish


To demonstrate our oppisition to this policy, We will be holding a 'silent protest' in Arthurs Quay Park at 12pm this Monday.
For the silent protest we will have red tape over our mouths as a symbol for the loss of our language should this policy be put into practice.

This protest is being run in tandem with another protest in Dublin outside the Dáil.

Facebook, Agóid Chiúin

I would Like to invite anyone interested in the future of the Irish language to come along and take part in the Protest.


Is Mise Le Meas
Christóir Ó Faoláin
Uachtaráin, Cumann Gaelach UL.

Dia daoibh Christóir,

would it be possible for ye to do this on campus as well as alot of students might be put of by having to go into town.

The Snipe

I was discussing this with my Irish Teacher earlier, and she agrees it is a much better idea to have it optional for the LC only, however at that it does need to be completely revised.

deise go deo

hoorsmelt wrote: »

Dia daoibh Christóir,

would it be possible for ye to do this on campus as well as alot of students might be put of by having to go into town.

Well we are planning on having Mary I and LIT involved aswell. And we are hoping to get some people from the City to turn out for it as well.

We could get to gether in UL for a bit before we go into town though.

Raiser

It is an absolute disgrace that our Teachers and educational system cannot produce more than a handful of Irish Speakers after a full 11 or 12 years of ridiculous, lazy, uninspired, misguided, shockingly inappropriate attempts.

- I can't make head nor tale of An Nuacht on the Radio and I have a 1st class honours Degree, so I do have some bit of a spark between my ears......

Also what sort of nonsense is it for Families to be getting grants to speak Irish at home etc.?

- I'm sure they have a grand auld gaire at us as they spend our cash - I've met recipients of this who thought it was a joke, a nice little earner, but still a joke......

black & white

Roadend wrote: »

Were you sat in the classroom with them or are you just peddling nonsense. I never spent more time on Irish than maths in primary school.

Don't know about you but I have always taken a keen interest in my childrens education. I KNEW what they did every day at primary school because I checked their work and homework and had regular contact with teachers.

I resent your assumption.

Roadend

black & white wrote: »

Don't know about you but I have always taken a keen interest in my childrens education. I KNEW what they did every day at primary school because I checked their work and homework and had regular contact with teachers.

I resent your assumption.

A 2 page essay could be viewed as more homework than solving 10 maths problems. Doesn't mean you are spending more time learning one over the other. You still haven't proven they spent more time on one than the other to be frank.

black & white

Roadend wrote: »

A 2 page essay could be viewed as more homework than solving 10 maths problems. Doesn't mean you are spending more time learning one over the other. You still haven't proven they spent more time on one than the other to be frank.

Don't need to prove anything to you. I know what my kids did at school and that's enough for me.

Roadend

black & white wrote: »

Don't need to prove anything to you. I know what my kids did at school and that's enough for me.

Well good, becuase you haven't proved a thing

deise go deo

hoorsmelt wrote: »

Dia daoibh Christóir,

would it be possible for ye to do this on campus as well as alot of students might be put of by having to go into town.

Ok, We will be meeting up outside the SU at 11:30 before going into Arthurs Quay Park.

DarkJager

I really don't see what the point of a "silent protest" is? Last time I checked, the majority of this country spoke english so its not really making any kind of point. In fact, its just going to be a crowd of people walking through town without saying a word, with red tape stuck over their mouths.

Its great you love the language so much, but you need to understand that people want the choice to be there. There are far more functional and useful world languages that can genuinely aid students after school in their professional lives, than wasting thousands of hours forcing them through something that is really just for nostalgia. As previous posters have said, some of us spent ~12 years learning it and can't even string a sentence together. I remember more German (that I only learned for 4 years) than I do of Irish. I hated the subject in school, and even then I knew I'd never have a use for it and it was just wasting my time.

Good luck with the "protest" anyway, but I'll be quite happy for Fine Gael to make it optional when they get elected. I'm pretty sure 95% of the country would agree too.

dr.fuzzenstein

I think the whole idea of "Help, we're being silenced!" is silly.
It's not like Enda Kenny is going to personally shoot everyone in the head who speaks a word of Irish, it's hardly Cromwellian and hardly like banning the language.
It's just that as a supposedly "live" language Irish has less practical application and relevance than, for example, Latin or even Klingon.
In an international context English is the best thing that could ever have happened to the Irish, you now have a language that is spoken worldwide, it is the de facto standard for international communications.
In a world that is becoming more and more globalised you have to look forward, not back.
It is crucial to have English, another European language (two would be better) and, in the future, Chinese will come in handy.
Culture is hugely important, but when you have nothing else it's no good to you.
You need money for vanity projects and money will only come to the Irish if they are up to date, cutting edge, multilingual and fully aware of what's going on in the world.
And a dead language is not much use there.

whatdoicare

What we need to be learning is Chinese, Dutch and Japanese - instead of wasting our time learning a language that has as much use to us as learning Elvish. It's pretty and cool to say you speak it but that's as far as it goes.

bmarley

All the gaelscoil's that have sprung up throughout the country over the last few years are not really proof that parent's want their children to learn through the Irish language but are indicative of parents who wish to separate their children so that they will not be held back educationally by those from other cultural backgrounds. Maybe those who learn through Irish during primary are much more fluent when it comes to the Leaving Certificate. Personally, I feel the way in which Irish is taught in primary schools is ridiculous. Time to get rid of the text books and the rote learning and focus more on the listening and speaking. Having learned Irish from the age of 4 to higher leaving cert standard and French from first year to L.C., I would be more competent in French. If Irish was to be made compulsory for the L.C. would it still be a requirement for colleges of further education as that would defeat its purpose?

deise go deo

DarkJager wrote: »

I really don't see what the point of a "silent protest" is? Last time I checked, the majority of this country spoke english so its not really making any kind of point. In fact, its just going to be a crowd of people walking through town without saying a word, with red tape stuck over their mouths.

Its great you love the language so much, but you need to understand that people want the choice to be there. There are far more functional and useful world languages that can genuinely aid students after school in their professional lives, than wasting thousands of hours forcing them through something that is really just for nostalgia. As previous posters have said, some of us spent ~12 years learning it and can't even string a sentence together. I remember more German (that I only learned for 4 years) than I do of Irish. I hated the subject in school, and even then I knew I'd never have a use for it and it was just wasting my time.

Good luck with the "protest" anyway, but I'll be quite happy for Fine Gael to make it optional when they get elected. I'm pretty sure 95% of the country would agree too.

It dosent seam so.

61% in favour of compulsory Irish

The greatst majority of those in Favour of Irish staying as a Core subject for the LC are the those between 15 - 24.

jonski

deise go deo wrote: »

It dosent seam so.

61% in favour of compulsory Irish

The greatst majority of those in Favour of Irish staying as a Core subject for the LC are the those between 15 - 24.

I am shocked by that report , I asked my three teenagers after reading this thread the other day and all three of them agreed it shouldn't be compulsory .

Insect Overlord

The plural of anecdote is not data.

/devil's advocate

dr.fuzzenstein

If I had kids I would move to another country with a proper schooling system (Germany, Sweden, etc...) so they would learn something useful and not be forced to learn a language that is nothing but a vanity project for a bunch of people who live in the 15th century and want to force their medieval world view upon everyone else.
I hope I'm not scaring you out of your slippers here, but out there is a world that thrives on communication, technology and commerce.
The real skills are science, modern and living languages, computer programming, business, engineering, trade, etc... to name but a few.
If Ireland wants to survive it should make all education free and accessible to anyone, something that FF wants to prevent, along with universal healthcare (Health and education for profit are worse than communism).
At the moment the current generation is being sold down the river in order to pay the banks off who got us into this mess in the first place.
If all people can see is "oh, we have to force everyone to speak Irish", this country will go the way of many other banana republics that where unable to see the bigger picture and concentrated on irrelevant nonsense.

DarkJager

deise go deo wrote: »

It dosent seam so.

61% in favour of compulsory Irish

The greatst majority of those in Favour of Irish staying as a Core subject for the LC are the those between 15 - 24.

Yes, but remember these surveys are only carried out among 500-1000 respondents. That means absolutely nothing compared to the actual population of this country.

dr.fuzzenstein

DarkJager wrote: »

Yes, but remember these surveys are only carried out among 500-1000 respondents. That means absolutely nothing compared to the actual population of this country.

Well, anyone who will quote statistics will either find statistics that support their cause or commission them to be carried out in such a selective way as to point into the direction that suits them.
Because saying that 61% of young-ish people are in favour of compulsory Irish is like saying they prefer staying at home and cutting turf to a good night out.
Or to put it another way, there's lies, damn lies and statistics.

deise go deo

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Well, anyone who will quote statistics will either find statistics that support their cause or commission them to be carried out in such a selective way as to point into the direction that suits them.
Because saying that 61% of young-ish people are in favour of compulsory Irish is like saying they prefer staying at home and cutting turf to a good night out.
Or to put it another way, there's lies, damn lies and statistics.

Yes, FG commissioned a survey in 2005 to support their policy, It found this:

KENNY’S ENLIGHTENED APPROACH

What that piece dosent reveal however is that in the youngest age group, opinion was in favor of compulsory Irish.

A trend that was clearly shown here.

To enforce Irish or not


It is clear that changes made in the curriculum have had a positive impact on peoples attitudes to Irish in Schools, This also is reflected in the increase in the number claiming to have some Irish between the 1996 and 2006 census.

Also, given that all surveys on the Irish language agree that there is wide spread support for the language, then it is not surprising that people are somewhat hesitant about discarding it in the Education system.

Roadend

Should everything aside from reading and writing in English be scrapped because it serves no purpose to most in the real world, plays,poetry etc.
Should History be scrapped as it serves no purpose to most in the real world to know what happened "in the 15th century".
Should students in secondary be told they are not allowed to do the sciences because going on their grades would mean that they would never be able to get into a course(Biology - Medicine, Chemistry - Biochemist) thus rendering them as utterly usless to the student when they get into the real world.
Should most of maths be scrapped as knowing the angles in a triangle or the diameter of a circle or what x is equal to, serves no purpose to the majority of people in the real world.
Should arts and crafts in primary be scrapped because they serve no purpose to most in the real world.
I'm not even going to get into the religion argument

Bicycle

Roadend wrote: »

Should everything aside from reading and writing in English be scrapped because it serves no purpose to most in the real world, plays,poetry etc.
Should History be scrapped as it serves no purpose to most in the real world to know what happened "in the 15th century".
Should students in secondary be told they are not allowed to do the sciences because going on their grades would mean that they would never be able to get into a course(Biology - Medicine, Chemistry - Biochemist) thus rendering them as utterly usless to the student when they get into the real world.
Should most of maths be scrapped as knowing the angles in a triangle or the diameter of a circle or what x is equal to, serves no purpose to the majority of people in the real world.
Should arts and crafts in primary be scrapped because they serve no purpose to most in the real world.
I'm not even going to get into the religion argument

How about the argument for free choice?

Making subjects mandatory is as negative as scrapping them. Most of us here want the option of free choice.

At the moment children in secondary school, once they enter transition year, can choose subjects of choice. They can do or not to geography, biology, chemistry, physics, history, french etc etc.

But they do not have free choice in relation to Irish, English or Maths.

Why????

In spite of the current desires of the Department of Education and some in the teaching profession, not all children are homogenous. Some children are brilliant at maths and appalling at English or Irish, others brilliant at Irish and appalling at maths. Why can we not tailor the education to suit the child?

I have a daughter studying science in Cork. She is the only one of my children who wasn't entitled to an exemption from Irish (neither of the other two use it but its technically available to them). She was not good at Irish and had to waste a lot of valuable study time at leaving cert doing it just to pass. Why should she have had to do this?

I've no problem with people doing Irish (my youngest loves the subject and is good at it despite the fact that he is entitled to an exemption) but I do have problems with people being forced to do it.

Roadend

The case is quite easy to make but why anyone feels the need to single out the national language when a perfectly good case could be made against any of the 3 core subjects is just ridiculous.

marienbad

Roadend wrote: »

The case is quite easy to make but why anyone feels the need to single out the national language when a perfectly good case could be made against any of the 3 core subjects is just ridiculous.

Because, alas, Irish is not the national Language.

Roadend

marienbad wrote: »

Because, alas, Irish is not the national Language.

I think a little thing called the consitution might disagree with you there.

RonMexico

Irish is not, and should never be, a core subject like English and Maths.

It is more in line with subjects like Latin and Hebrew.

It should be optional and the manner in which it is taught should be completely overhauled.

English, Science, Maths and a foreign language such as German or French are essential in today's world.

Irish is irrelevant outside of this country. Many would argue that it is irrelevant here too.

I think all of this fits into a bigger issue though and that is the Leaving Cert. itself. The current system does not work and needs to be changed.

marienbad

Roadend wrote: »

I think a little thing called the consitution might disagree with you there.

You see Roadend, in the really big issues of personal choice the constitution is irrelevant ,be it language , family, marriage, abortion . People vote with their actions . And in the case of Irish that means never reading the thousands of documents in Irish provided by the state, never speaking a word of Irish in their daily lives, never tuning in to TG4 .

You can have it in the constitution all you want but right now everyone in this country can and does speak English . How many speak irish ? national language my arse !

And if ever a survey was done asking the ''hard questions'' such as do you want x amount spent on Irish and not on health , education , whatever , you would find out what people really think. No fear of that though, can't upset the gravy train now can we.

Today was the day of the silent protest , how many turned up ? 1000 ?
Silent alright .Says it all really , you could get more for save the whale/ give us more bus lanes/ give us less bus lanes, anything.

black & white

marienbad wrote: »

You see Roadend, in the really big issues of personal choice the constitution is irrelevant ,be it language , family, marriage, abortion . People vote with their actions . And in the case of Irish that means never reading the thousands of documents in Irish provided by the state, never speaking a word of Irish in their daily lives, never tuning in to TG4 .

You can have it in the constitution all you want but right now everyone in this country can and does speak English . How many speak irish ? national language my arse !

And if ever a survey was done asking the ''hard questions'' such as do you want x amount spent on Irish and not on health , education , whatever , you would find out what people really think. No fear of that though, can't upset the gravy train now can we.

Today was the day of the silent protest , how many turned up ? 1000 ?
Silent alright .Says it all really , you could get more for save the whale/ give us more bus lanes/ give us less bus lanes, anything.

Agreed. By coincidence I got a call from MRBI or one of those crowds on Friday afternoon doing a survey on the election and as well as that asked a good few general questions and one of them was concerning my use of Irish. Will be interested to see the results when published.