<div dir="ltr"><br clear="all"><h1>The case for ending state support of Irish language is littered with dubious 'facts'</h1>
<h2 class="gmail-main_excerpt">For starters, we don’t spend €1.2 billion in preserving An Ghaeilge each year, says Caoimhín De Barra.</h2>
<div class="gmail-infos gmail-border">
<div class="gmail-metadata">
<span class="gmail-date">Sat 7:00 PM</span>
<span class="gmail-views">
<span class="gmail-red-views gmail-icon gmail-iconViewVeryPopular"></span>22,524 Views </span>
<a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/fake-facts-irish-language-debate-3220676-Feb2017/#comments" title="Comment on The case for ending state support of Irish language is littered with dubious 'facts'">
<span class="gmail-icon gmail-iconCommentVeryPopular"></span> 97 Comments </a>
</div>
<span class="gmail-share"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?app_id=116141121768215&display=popup&link=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thejournal.ie%2Freadme%2Ffake-facts-irish-language-debate-3220676-Feb2017%2F&picture=http%3A%2F%2Fc1.thejournal.ie%2Fmedia%2F2017%2F02%2Fairport-21-197x197.jpg&name=The+case+for+ending+state+support+of+Irish+language+is+littered+with+dubious+%27facts%27&description=For+starters%2C+we+don%E2%80%99t+spend+%E2%82%AC1.2+billion+in+preserving+An+Ghaeilge+each+year%2C+says+Caoimh%C3%ADn+De+Barra.&message=&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Fthejournal.ie%2Futils%2Ffb_post.php%3Fp_id%3D3220676" target="_blank" title="Share on Facebook" class="gmail-open-window gmail-social"><span class="gmail-icon gmail-iconFacebook"></span> Share</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fjrnl.ie%2F3220676&text=The+case+for+ending+state+support+of+Irish+language+is+littered+with+dubious+%27facts%27+%28via+%40thejournal_ie%29&related=@thejournal_ie" target="_blank" title="Tweet this" class="gmail-open-window gmail-social gmail-share-twitter gmail-twitter-tweet gmail-jrnl-tweet-3220676"><span class="gmail-icon gmail-iconTwitter"></span> Tweet</a> <a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/fake-facts-irish-language-debate-3220676-Feb2017/#EmailArticle" title="Email this article" class="gmail-social gmail-share-email gmail-lightboxTrigger"><span class="gmail-icon gmail-iconEmailSend"></span> Email<span class="gmail-number">1</span></a></span> </div>
<div class="gmail-clearfix gmail-border gmail-readme_author_about">
<div class="gmail-author_info">
<div class="gmail-author_avatar">
<a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/author/caoimhin-de-barra/">
<img src="https://f1.thejournal.ie/media/2017/02/caoimhin-133x133.png" width="130" height="130">
</a>
</div>
<div class="gmail-author_details">
<div class="gmail-contact_box gmail-auth_named_desc">
<span class="gmail-name">
Caoimhin De Barra </span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<span id="gmail-articleContent"><p>THE IRISH LANGUAGE debate is
always framed as one between an emotional, romantic desire to preserve
Irish against a rational, fact-based analysis that calls for an end to
state support for An Ghaeilge.</p>
<p>Although questionable claims are made on both sides, some dubious
“facts” put forward by those who oppose the state’s Irish language
policy have gained a widespread acceptance in Ireland that they frankly
don’t deserve.</p>
<p>One of the most obvious examples of this is the claim the Irish state
spends €1.2 billion every year on the Irish language. This number was
calculated by Dr Edward Walsh, the founding president of the University
of Limerick. He reached this figure by prorating the proportion of the
school week dedicated to teaching Irish in the school against the total
budget for the school system.</p>
<p><strong>The cost of Irish?</strong></p>
<p>There are several problems with this, however. Firstly, it leads
people to think that we could redistribute this billion euro if only we
stopped teaching Irish. This isn’t true. It is a valuation of the time
spent teaching Irish, nothing more. We could teach something else in
place of Irish, but there is no billion euro that could instead be spent
on, say, hospitals.</p>
<p>Secondly, one could use the same logic to make all kinds of
misleading claims. Based on how Walsh calculated his figure for Irish,
one could just as plausibly say that Ireland spends €600 million a year
on poetry.</p>
<p>Thirdly, the figure itself is bogus. Walsh basically took the
Department of Education’s budget of €8.7 billion and divided this by
seven, to represent the one-seventh of class time he calculated was
dedicated to teaching Irish. This produced the estimate of €1.2 billion.</p>
<p>The problem with this is obvious when you look at the Department of
Education’s budget. It includes grants to third level institutions,
transportation costs, employing non-teaching staff like cleaners and
secretaries, building and repairing schools, and payments to people who
were abused as children in years past under the care of the Department.
In other words, things that have nothing to do with the teaching of
Irish.</p>
<p>Yet all of these were factored into Walsh’s estimate for what the
state spends on Irish. The €1.2 billion claim was never intended to be
an accurate calculation, but rather was designed to provoke outrage
about the state’s commitment to the Irish language.</p>
<p><strong>Translations</strong></p>
<p>Another related figure regularly put about is that tens of millions
of euro are spent every year translating documents into Irish. Taken
literally, this means at least €20 million euro per annum. Getting
accurate information on how much is spent on Irish translations is very
difficult, but we can make some estimates.</p>
<p>The Sun reported in 2012 that 63 public bodies spent €1.6 million on
translations. This gives us an average of €25,000 per department, which
we can multiply by 166 (to represent each government department and
public body) to get a figure of around €4 million total. A lot of people
might feel that this is still too much to spend. But clearly €4 million
is a long way shy of €20 million plus per year.</p>
<p><strong>A false history of the revival of Hebrew</strong></p>
<p>One of the most interesting aspect of anti-Irish language argument is
the invention of a false history about the revival of the Hebrew
language. Whenever a debate about reviving Irish takes place, the
example of the resurrection of Hebrew is usually brought up. And just as
quickly, someone responds that the case of Hebrew is totally different
and therefore not applicable.</p>
<p>Why is it totally different? Apparently, Hebrew was revived by the
Israeli state after its foundation in 1948. As Jewish refugees from all
over the world fled to Israel, they had no common tongue. Israel revived
Hebrew to provide a single language for its new population. This
version of the Hebrew revival is widely accepted in Ireland.</p>
<p>And it simply isn’t true.</p>
<p>The revival of Hebrew began in the nineteenth century, when Jewish
refugees fleeing the Russian empire settled in Palestine. These refugees
already had a common language, which was Yiddish. However, for
ideological reasons, they decided to abandon Yiddish and start speaking
Hebrew.</p>
<p>Yet why has a false version of this history become accepted in
Ireland? Quite simply, somewhere along the way, someone found this
particular set of facts to be inconvenient. So they changed them.</p>
<p><strong>Road signs</strong></p>
<p>Another myth when it comes to the Irish language is the idea that
bilingual signs lead to more accidents on our roads. A good example of
this kind of scare-mongering can be seen in a video released last year
by <a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/should-irish-be-mandatory-leaving-cert-3012978-Oct2016/">Eoin Butler, entitled An Bhfuil Cead Agam?</a></p>
<p>Butler found a road sign in the Gaeltacht, written only in Irish,
that warned motorists that children could be crossing ahead. He said
this was “criminally stupid,” and the sign needed to be in English.</p>
<p>Of course, even if the sign was in English, there would be no
guarantee that tourists or immigrants could read it. This is why an
international set of road symbols exists, to warn motorists of upcoming
dangers, regardless of what language they speak.</p>
<p>And what Butler neglected to mention was that two signs with the
international symbol for children crossing appeared right before the
sign he found. Of course, in order to decide whether the signage on the
road Butler highlighted was inadequate, we should look at what kind of
signs we normally expect to find in a school area outside of the
Gaeltacht.</p>
<p>There is a lot of variety in what kind and how many signs might
appear in a school zone. But the standard appears to be two signs with
the international road symbol for children crossing, without any words
in any language. In other words, exactly what appears on that road in
the Gaeltacht, with an extra sign in Irish for good measure.</p>
<p>Criticise the Irish sign for being pointless tokenism if you want.
But spare us the hysterics that it is after creating some kind of death
trap.</p>
<p>The debate about Irish will doubtlessly continue. But let it be one based on facts rather than convenient fictions.</p>
<p><em>Caoimhín De Barra is Assistant Professor for Irish History and Culture at Drew University, New Jersey.</em></p>
<h3><a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/should-irish-be-mandatory-leaving-cert-3012978-Oct2016/">We spend mind-boggling amounts of public money on the Irish language. Cén fáth?></a></h3><p><a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/fake-facts-irish-language-debate-3220676-Feb2017/">http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/fake-facts-irish-language-debate-3220676-Feb2017/</a><br></p></span><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>
</div>