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<h1>Renua’s Irish-language roadmap to nowhere</h1>
<h2> Spoiler alert! The following article contains details about Renua’s new Irish-language policy </h2>
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Wed, Jan 13, 2016, 08:00
<span title="Wed, Jan 13, 2016, 16:30 (GMT)" class=""><span>Updated: </span>about 24 hours ago</span>
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<span>Seán Tadhg Ó Gairbhí</span></span>
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<a class="" href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/renua-s-irish-language-roadmap-to-nowhere-1.2493821#comments">
<p><span class="">15</span></p>
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<img title="photograph: cyril byrne/the irish times " alt="photograph: cyril byrne/the irish times " class="" src="http://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.2493820.1452600073%21/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_620_330/image.jpg" height="330" width="620"> <p>photograph: cyril byrne/the irish times </p>
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<p class=""> Last week,
Lucinda Creighton’s Renua, a party unique in the history of Irish
politics in that its name makes no sense in either official language of
the State, launched its first election manifesto. I made straight for
the Irish-language policy section like it was the next episode of
Netflix’s <em>Making a Murderer</em>.</p>
<p class=""> I had been waiting more than a year for this.</p>
<p class=""> You see, last January, on a rare slow news day in
the dog-eat-dog world of online Irish-language journalism, I sent an
email to Renua Ireland (then known, equally preposterously, as Reboot
Ireland) enquiring about their language policy.</p>
<p class=""> I received a prompt and cheery reply informing me
that “all policies were being formulated at present” and that
contributions were being sought “from interested individuals and groups
in this process”. My details, I was told, would be kept “for future
information on Irish language policy and initiatives”.</p>
<p class=""> Impressed by the new political movement’s brazen ‘I
dunno! You tell us!’ approach to policy development, I sat back and
waited for the latest updates as promised.</p>
<p class=""> They never arrived, and, in a way, I was glad that
they didn’t, as last Monday, when Renua finally unveiled their
Irish-language policy, I got to enjoy the same spoiler-free sense of
excitement as everybody else.</p>
<p class=""> “Our language, Our Heritage,” section 18.3 of Renua’s <em>Rewarding Work, Rebuilding Trust</em>,
began auspiciously enough by pointing out that though Irish “is at a
crossroads” we have the power to arrest “its slow downward trend towards
extinction”.</p>
<p class=""> A little dramatic maybe, but a bracing, matter-of-fact start nonetheless.</p>
<p class=""> That sharp shot of realism was followed nicely by a
defiant Obamaesque call to action: “Ireland can and will rediscover the
pride it has for its native tongue and the great cultural and artistic
history that goes with it.”</p>
<p class=""> Is féidir linn, mar sin, but only if we look to the
modern revival of the Welsh language, which, according to Renua,
“provides a roadmap for a revitalisation of the Irish language”.</p>
<p class=""> This was disappointing.</p>
<p class=""> The ‘What Would Wales Do?’ approach to the Irish
language question is a familiar and tiresome one, especially when its
advocates refuse to answer their own question.</p>
<p class=""> It’s true that the Welsh-speaking community have a
better-funded television station than us and, in general, they appear to
have fewer hang-ups about their language than we do about Irish, but
apart from the Super Furry Animals, Gwenno and a more sensible approach
to implementing language schemes in the public service, is there really
that much to learn from the Welsh that we don’t already know?</p>
<p class=""> What we call the Gaeltacht doesn’t exist in Wales,
for example, so it’s unlikely that Renua’s Welsh ‘roadmap’ could offer
much guidance in relation to the greatest existential crisis facing
Irish – its decline in those areas where it is still the primary
language of the community.</p>
<p class=""> At this stage, the lack of detail about the Welsh
solution was a cause for concern, along with my instinctive aversion to
any talk of ‘roadmaps’ that don’t pertain to actual roads.</p>
<p class=""> Next up was Renua’s “path” to restoring pride in our
national language. Apparently the Welsh ‘roadmap’ was no more than a
false start, and what the “first step” on this voyage of rediscovery
really requires is “a fundamental rethinking of how we teach Irish in
our schools”.</p>
<p class=""> It is an old argument, but a valid one, and it is
difficult not to share the party’s indignation about the generations of
Irish teenagers who leave school “with little more than a smattering of
vocabulary and grammar”.</p>
<p class=""> The solution to this “appalling indictment” of our education system?</p>
<p class=""> “To achieve real change, we must blend the
traditional and immersive ‘living language’ elements of education with a
renewed focus on grammar and accuracy.”</p>
<p class=""> This was a little fuzzy (‘real change’, like
‘roadmap’, is one for the ‘bladar bingo’ card), but I found it
interesting, nonetheless.</p>
<p class=""> At a time when it is considered unfashionable,
foolish and even dangerous, to use words like “grammar” and “accuracy”
when discussing the teaching of Irish, the indifference to conventional
wisdom was refreshing.</p>
<p class=""> Were Renua about to surprise us with a proposal for a
second, more challenging, Leaving Cert syllabus, one designed to meet
the needs of native and fluent speakers, who are currently forced to
debase themselves before the Sraith Pictiúr?</p>
<p class=""> Sadly, it was not to be, and just a few ripe
paragraphs and 169 words after it began, that’s where section 18.3 of
Renua’s manifesto, “Our language, Our Heritage,” became Section 19 of
Renua’s manifesto, “Foreign Policy and Defence”.</p>
<p class=""> More a sketch of an idea for a policy than a policy,
“Our language, Our Heritage” left us none the wiser about Renua’s views
on any of the issues facing the Irish language.</p>
<p class=""> Do they have a policy in relation to Irish?</p>
<p class=""> Well, we know they’re ‘for it’, and ‘more of it’, if possible.</p>
<p class=""> In their favour, Renua can’t be accused of promising anything they can’t deliver.</p>
‘Real change’, whatever else it might be, is difficult to quantify.<br><br><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/renua-s-irish-language-roadmap-to-nowhere-1.2493821">http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/renua-s-irish-language-roadmap-to-nowhere-1.2493821</a><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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