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<h1>More Gaelscoileanna must be opened to breathe life into Irish</h1>
<h2> ESRI finds 23% of parents would choose a local Gaelscoil for children if available</h2>
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<time title="about 18 hours ago">about 18 hours ago</time>
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<span>Caoimhín Ó hEaghra</span> </div>
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<img title="Students from Gaelscoil Cois Feabhail Choir, Movill, Co Donegal, at Government Buildings for the launch of Bliain na Gaeilge last December: A vision for Project Ireland 2040 should be that by 2040 at least one-quarter of the children in Ireland would attend a Gaelscoil and speak our native language day to day. Photograph: Alan Betson:" alt="Students from Gaelscoil Cois Feabhail Choir, Movill, Co Donegal, at Government Buildings for the launch of Bliain na Gaeilge last December: A vision for Project Ireland 2040 should be that by 2040 at least one-quarter of the children in Ireland would attend a Gaelscoil and speak our native language day to day. Photograph: Alan Betson:" class="gmail-responsive-img" src="https://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.3424352.1520876791!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_620_330/image.jpg" width="620" height="330"> <p class="gmail-selectionShareable">Students
from Gaelscoil Cois Feabhail Choir, Movill, Co Donegal, at Government
Buildings for the launch of Bliain na Gaeilge last December: A vision
for Project Ireland 2040 should be that by 2040 at least one-quarter of
the children in Ireland would attend a Gaelscoil and speak our native
language day to day. Photograph: Alan Betson: </p>
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<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">No new Gaelscoil will open in the State this September in a year which has been designated as Bliain na Gaeilge.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">That stark fact is not the fault
of Bliain na Gaeilge. Such initiatives are hugely positive and welcome
but cannot alone transform the fortunes of the Irish language. To save
and enhance Irish we need to create new fortresses of the language
outside its traditional heartlands through establishing large numbers of
new Gaelscoileanna.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">In the past, saving the language
through education felt like pushing a boulder up a hill. But those days
are long gone as the demand for Irish-medium education grows from the
ground up. Addressing the demand for it is now not only a necessary
action, but would also be a popular one.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">There is a lot of catching up to
be done: of the 3,000-plus primary schools in the country, only 8.3 per
cent are Irish medium, with just 145 gaelscoileanna outside the
Gaeltacht.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Economic and Social Research
Institute findings in 2015 established that 23 per cent of respondents
would choose a local Gaelscoil for their children if one were available,
and further surveys which we have conducted all over the country
confirm it.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">The evidence for that level of
demand is also anecdotal: debates about the difficulty of getting into a
Gaelscoil occur not because we want to be exclusive – far from it –
they happen because we don’t have enough places. As a result
gaelscoileanna have long lists of people from all backgrounds wanting to
get in.</p>
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<span class="gmail-instream-headline">DUP alarmed by unionist reaction to potential Irish language legislation</span>
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<li class="gmail-internal"><a class="gmail-gtm-event" href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/why-do-some-unionists-fear-the-irish-language-1.3391306">
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We provide Catholic and inter-denominational ethos models also, and so can meet diverse needs
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<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">At least 200 new gaelscoileanna
would be needed over the next five-10 years to even begin to meet this
demand. Given the priority, we are told the language is given and all
the work which has been to done to revive it, we find ourselves in 2018
with almost one-quarter of parents willing to send their children to a
Gaelscoil, and we cannot accommodate them – with not a single new
Gaelscoil due to open this year. This level of demand is the most open
goal the State has ever seen in its Irish language policy, and yet we
cannot puck the sliotar into the empty net.</p>
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<h4 class="gmail-crosshead">Ethos and life</h4>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">How did we get to this point? It
has happened for any number of reasons: the slow pace of change in
response to parental demand, but also the sense that the only issue
about diversity in Ireland relates to ethos. This year is the 25th
anniversary of An Foras Pátrúnachta, the largest patron body for
Irish-medium schools, and since then we have been establishing schools
using a variety of ethos models.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Our first school, established in
Cork in 1993, is multidenominational as are all the new schools we have
opened in recent years. We provide Catholic and inter-denominational
ethos models also, and so can meet diverse needs, and do it as gaeilge,
allowing the State to achieve two vital national objectives at once:
providing choice of ethos and breathing new life into the language.</p>
<blockquote class="gmail-inline__content gmail-inline__content--pullquote">
Obviously the total number of schools to meet demand cannot be achieved overnight but what we need now is an urgent process
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<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">More though is needed: we need not
just new gaelscoileanna, but also the transfer to Irish-medium of at
least one existing English-medium school in many towns as well as in
many areas within our cities to ensure that all parents have the
realistic opportunity to send their child to a Gaelscoil, at both
primary and post-primary level.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Obviously the total number of
schools to meet demand cannot be achieved overnight but what we need now
is an urgent process with the stated ambition to establish hundreds of
Gaelscoileanna rather than dozens. To do that, we have to think short,
medium and long term. Project Ireland 2040 sets ambitious targets for
many things – the process surely provides an opportunity to address the
deficiency in Irish-medium school places, if someone wishes to seize it.</p>
<h4 class="gmail-crosshead">Multilingual environment</h4>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">A vision for Project Ireland 2040
should be that by 2040 at least one-quarter of the children in Ireland
would attend a Gaelscoil and speak our native language day to day. We
want to see that same portion of parents – from wherever they hail –
choosing to educate their children in a multilingual environment,
improving their own Irish as they do.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Children can learn multiple
languages and are deeply enriched by it educationally. We have recently
launched an initiative which sets as its goal that all children in our
primary schools will be proficient in three languages when they leave.
If you doubt that is possible, visit Switzerland.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">This is our vision: a vibrant
Irish language spoken by ever-increasing numbers of our young, and the
success of the language recognising and celebrating our roots while we
embrace a global future through learning in a multilingual context.
Isn’t that a vision everyone could unite behind? Would a commitment to
do that not be a proper legacy of Bliain na Gaeilge?</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Táimid réidh chun ár gcuid a dhéanamh.</p>
<p class="gmail-no_name gmail-selectionShareable">Caoimhín Ó hEaghra is ard-rúnaí of An Foras Pátrúnachta, the largest patron of Irish-medium schools</p></div></section>
<br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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