The creeping prominence of the Irish language

If is cheaper than English medium education for the parents, there would suddenly be an interest. Grants could be used to incentivise parents. And resistance levels drop EU funding could be used.

As part of the EU's drive towards maintaining cultural heritage and so on.

Can I see your budget figures and cost evaluations on this, please?

Now your being facetious.As you are no doubt aware part of the tenets of the EU is protection of cultural heritage.

https://ec.europa.eu/culture/policies/selected-themes/cultural-heritage

Much like the revamping of Ireland's road infrastructure which leaned heavily on EU money to make it work over a number of decades. Developing Ireland's Irish language infrastructure could be done in the same manner.

I would argue it is far less costly than building, road and transport infrastructure. But much more valuable from an intrinstic cultural heritage standpoint.

The European Parliament agrees with me in a 2013 report above the following was stated -

'Robust educational policies are required to promote the learning and use of endangered languages.'

I totally accept and respect your stance - but the fact is not everyone feels the same way and it's totally fine to not have any affinity for the langauge.

Just on one point you made - "Kids are given exposure to many things in school and if they want to dump them afterwards that's fine too" - Id argue that if there;s to be a revival, then kids dumping the langauge when they leave school would be far from "fine", it would need to be the first issue addressed.

I always felt that the critical mass was always there - but it was like a platform people seemed to settle for. As long as no one rocked the boat or messed up the numbers, nothing bad would happen. Of course, nothign positive would happen either, but they seemed to accept that.

The language was/is never in danger of endangerment, but it was never moving forward either.

Depends on the drugs, really :)

No you haven't and no I haven't.

I've no idea what you are referring to here; but if you are saying you have never posted about Irish in the past, well it must have been a different PCB.

My stance is simple: I'm all for the preservation and betterment of the langauge by any means nessecary EXCEPT mandatory Irish in schools because 1) I beleive students should choose for themsleves

Like maths and Shakespeare - one of which I liked and learned and the other I didn't like and didn't learn. And they were both mandatory in the school I attended, BTW. I didn't get to choose to do them at any level any more than I got to choose Irish.

and 2) it doesn't bloody well work! THe first one is apparently "Orwellian" and the second one seems to be the fart at the dinenr tbale everyone smalls but pretends not to notice.

Actually it does work, but it doesn't work very well because there isn't enough of it. This has been proved in international studies, as referred to earlier.

It's not a life skill for reasons pointed out at least four times: people lead succesful, happy, fully-functioning lives without Irish - prove this wrong and I'll retract the statement.

I understand that for you it's not a life skill because you don't want it to be so. But the reality is that for hundreds of thousands of Irish people it is a life skill. Probably not the 1.7 million that claim to speak it come census time, but certainly for one third to one half of that number.

Now if THAT stance makes me "geenrally contemptuous" than that's your opinion but I disagree that being "all for the preservation and betterment" of something is contemptuous.

Gimme a break, with your sort of preservation and betterment .... you'd have the Irish language in the grave in a week.

Oh, and by the way, looking at the way you have mangled the English language in that post, it won't last very long either!

I understand where you are both coming from, but I feel that would be counter-productive.

For me, the way to go is to ensure that there is a Gaelscoil in every town, at primary and at secondary level alike.

The demand will increase in line with availability. And eventually, as has happened in the Basque country, the demand for English-language education will slowly diminish as people see that children leave the local Gaelscoil with an extra life skill. Those who are afraid their child might get left behind will quickly move their children to the Gaelscoil, even if they are themselves lukewarm towards Irish, and in a generation's time or so the only ones sending their kids to an English-language school will be the people who couldn't care less about their kids' education and those who have a huge ideological bias against the language.

This might be somewhat slower than your method, but would overall cause less tension in society. Don't deny them their hissy fit, it will keep them out of our hair.

Here's a graphic showing the changes in the Basque country since 1983. It shows a huge decrease in the Spanish-language system, a huge increase in the Basque-language system, and a rise followed by stagnation in the bilingual system.

GDG wants to take a sledgehammer to the nut, and in the process will destroy the nut.

PCB says s/he is in favour of providing choice: this is the way to provide choice (not her method of providing kids with the choice of not studying Irish at all; which would actually remove from them the choice to learn the language. They already have the choice of not learning it, by the simple expedient of not bothering to spend any time on it).

Give all parents the choice of sending their kid to a Gaelscoil, and an ever-growing minority will do so. I believe that the minority over a generation or so will turn into a majority, and we will eventually reach the stage where most kids are attending a Gaelscoil.

I may have overstated the case, but let's assume for a moment that in real life your name is Irene but every time I meet you I call you Gobnait (knowing full well what your name actually is) - well how would you feel about that?

The easyosy approach, is probably more practicable I suppose. But after over 100 years of fluting around with the Irish language. I think something radical has to be tried at this stage before it is too late. There is a latent middle ground there just waiting for a spark. As another poster said most Irish people like Irish (would not want the language lost) but are either too lazy/afraid to take practicable steps. Are people waiting for when is on it's knees completely only then only start?

I realise this is boards.ie and it has its own type of 'culture' driven by certain posters in various subjects. But the fact that threads like this get created at all, shows some have a really odd relationship or former relationship, with the Irish language. The mindset is really warped.

I would struggle to think of anything comparable for some of a nation to completely despise their own language and view it as as enveloping (when it is nothing of the sort) far, far, from it is merely a veneer. The usual 'half measures' playing to the gallery - ticking boxes. If there was real 'creeping prominence' there would have been real tangible results many decades ago. That is the real irony of this thread.

How effective are Gaelscoils at promoting Irish outside an educational setting/wider society

I think that in general they are as effective in promoting Irish outside the school gates as the English-language system is in promoting English outside their school gates.

The point I am making is that these schools are primary schools that function through Irish. They ensure that their pupils reach Rang a 6 with a command of the Irish language along with whatever else the kids learn in any other school.

They are not institutions for promoting Irish outside the school day.

Even though I can't actually read your references. And to be fair your first link just links to a website, not actual research. I'm too long out of the education system and my Irish is no longer remotely good enough to be able to understand the second one, if it ever was good enough in the first place. (Again that represents an interesting problem in itself because if you print research in only in Irish you are basically preaching to the converted. To read any language in an academic context you need a very high level of fluency.)

"to be fair" you say but your comments seem totally unfair to me; I think you do a good line on complaining, maybe you should do your own research?

So I don't know if that deals with how Gaelscoils specifically promote Irish language use in a wider societal setting ie outside the education system.

As I said, they don't - that's not their function.

Try Glór na nGael, Spleodar and other similar bodies.

You can have all the effective teaching methods you want with Irish but its a waste of money and time if the minute a person leaves the school gates they don't use a word of it. That time and money could be spent on other things that support the language better potentially. Again to know that you need research done.

Personally, I can think of no better way of supporting the language than producing a body of new speakers who will retain the ability throughout their lives, if only to watch TG4 or listen occasionally to RnaG.

Regarding the time and money being spent on other things, I'm curious as to why you feel that more time and money is needed to provide education through Irish than through English? Most people seem to think that they do a good job of providing an ordinary primary education while imparting fluency in a second language too.

I think if someone was doing it intentionally they're being a dick but I don't think that's a fair characterisation of Bordise using Gaelic, I still remember mixed message corrections by different teachers on carr vs gluaisteán and chuig vs go dtí.

Well put (in all respects). I wouldn't necessarily see the relationship between input-process-output working quite as directly as you do, but I do think it provides the right mixture of opportunity and motivation to people, and I do think it could do much to broaden the appeal and use of Irish.

Yes, of course, you are right - it doesn't follow that the same would happen in Ireland as has happened in the Basque country; however surveys have shown that a quarter of parents would send their children to a Gaelscoil if one was available to them, and this is in fact the case in Galway city. AFAIK demand continues to rise in Galway. It will be interesting to see where they will level off.

So whatever the final outcome might be, we can be fairly certain that there is huge pent-up demand for such a service, and it is in the nature of things that when something becomes available and popular, demand often grows. But while I do agree that it isn't necessarily the case that we would end up with a majority of kids attending a Gaelscoil, I feel that there is a very good chance that this would happen.

The 170,000 estimate comes from Ethnologue via Wikipedia.