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<h1>Fianna Fáil joins the Irish-language fight</h1>
<h2> Policy might help lift the mood of retreat that surrounds the language </h2>
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Fri, Feb 12, 2016, 15:41
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<span>Seán Tadhg Ó Gairbhí</span></span>
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<a class="" href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/fianna-f%C3%A1il-joins-the-irish-language-fight-1.2532670#comments">
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<img title="Leader of Fianna Fáil, Micheál Martin, launches his party’s General Election Manifesto at Wood Quay yesterday. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times" alt="Leader of Fianna Fáil, Micheál Martin, launches his party’s General Election Manifesto at Wood Quay yesterday. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times" class="" src="http://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.2532669.1455291624%21/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_620_330/image.jpg" height="330" width="620"> <p>Leader
of Fianna Fáil, Micheál Martin, launches his party’s General Election
Manifesto at Wood Quay yesterday. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish
Times</p>
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<br><p class="">Yesterday
Fianna Fáil became the second of the main parties to officially committ
to Conradh na Gaeilge’s three pre-election demands.</p>
<p class="">The biggest electoral fish still remains at large,
however, and whatever excitement exists in Conradh na Gaeilge at the
prospect of a clean sweep will be tempered by the memory of an interview
the Taoiseach gave to Raidió na Gaeltachta late last year.</p>
<p class="">On that occasion, Enda Kenny stoically resisted
broadcaster Cormac Ó hEadhra’s entreaties to agree to even the
relatively mundane demand for the establishment of a full Oireachtas
committee to deal with Gaeltacht and Irish language affairs.</p>
<p class="">Meanwhile, Micheál Martin was the first leader to
pledge himself to Conradh na Gaeilge’s three demands, and yesterday
Fianna Fáil put it in writing that they would establish the Oireachtas
committee, appoint a senior Government minister with primary
responsibility for the Gaeltacht and provide extra funding for Foras na
Gaeilge and Údarás na Gaeltacha.</p>
<p class="">According to the party’s manifesto, <em>An Ireland for All</em>, the senior government minister would serve in a newly formed department for community, rural and Gaeltacht affairs. </p>
<p class="">Such an entity already existed during the long reign
of Éamon Ó Cuív whose Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht
Affairs was affectionately known by some smart alec journalists as
Craggy Island. </p>
<p class="">While the proposal to re-establish Ó Cuív’s old
fiefdom might have a retro, rustic Celtic Tiger feel to it, the
beginning of Fianna Fáil’s Irish language policy appears to take its
inspiration from the type of dewy rhetoric that dates back as far as the
Celtic Twilight.</p>
<p class="">“Our national language is an immeasurable cultural
treasure,” we are told in the very first line, but, mercifully, it’s
mostly straight-talking from then on. </p>
<p class=""><em>An Ireland for All</em> even tries gamely to put
some actual figures on the value of our “immeasurable treasure”. The
implementation of the 20-Year Strategy for the Irish language, for
example, is worth about €3 million a year, a substantial increase on
current – woefully inadequate – funding. </p>
<p class="">The education section of the policy begins with the
claim that Fianna Fáil would “ensure Irish remains at the heart of our
Junior and Leaving Certificate Curriculum”. That might be no more than a
subtle reminder of Enda Kenny’s reluctantly abandoned plan to scrap
Irish as a core Leaving Cert subject, which made headlines during the
last general election, but the next part is more interesting. </p>
<p class="">Though it doesn’t exactly qualify as a fully-fledged
promise the commitment “to examining the possibility of introducing a
second Irish-language option for the Leaving Certificate and Junior
Certificate” is certainly eye-catching. </p>
<p class="">Many educationalists concerned with how the <em>status quo</em>
fails the native speaker in particular would regard the introduction of
an extra optional subject as a possible game-changer for the future of a
language that is being diminished by an insistence on a
one-size-fits-all approach in our schools. </p>
<p class="">Also welcome, though in need of fleshing out, is a
pledge to tailor educational policy to the specific needs of native
speakers and other fluent speakers, and to give Gaeltacht schools “the
freedom and resources” to teach Irish “in a manner that is appropriate
and effective”. </p>
<p class="">Fianna Fáil also promises to protect the independence
of the office of An Coimisinéir Teanga and to introduce legislation to
“strengthen” the Official Languages Act, and the party would “work to
ensure the Irish Language has full parity of esteem with other EU
languages”.</p>
<p class=""><em>An Ireland for All</em> accuses the outgoing
government of lacking “any real commitment to the language or the
protection of language rights”, claiming that Fine Gael and Labour have
“continuously downgraded the status of the Irish language”.</p>
<p class="">Even casual observers of Irish language issues would
probably agree with that assessment of an administration that oversaw
the resignation of a language commissioner in protest and the
appointment of a junior minister for the Gaeltacht who had to learn the
bit of Irish on the job. </p>
<p class="">The difficulty for Fianna Fáil, as always, is that a
lot of their promises address problems that also existed during the many
prolonged periods they enjoyed in power.</p>
<p class="">Overall, though, the party’s Irish-language policy, while hardly comprehensive, has a good deal to recommend it. </p>
<p class="">As with Sinn Féin’s policy, also released this week, <em>An Ireland for All</em> contains measures that if implemented might at least help lift the mood of retreat that surrounds the language.</p>
<p class="">Will the big fish take the bait?</p><p class=""><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/fianna-f%C3%A1il-joins-the-irish-language-fight-1.2532670">http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/fianna-f%C3%A1il-joins-the-irish-language-fight-1.2532670</a><br></p><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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