N. Ireland: Language sparks debate in Kerry

[Harold Schiffman]

Language sparks debate in Kerry

By Diarmaid Fleming  BBC NI Dublin correspondent

The status of the Irish language in Northern Ireland has prompted
bitter debate in the assembly after Culture Minister Edwin Poots said
he would not introduce an Irish Language Act.  But in one of the few
remaining Irish-speaking areas in Ireland, there's another debate,
this time demanding that more English and less Irish be spoken in a
new secondary school in Dingle. The Kerry Gaeltacht, or Irish-speaking
area, is one of the few places left where Irish can be heard in the
street. But in the capital, Dingle, or in its official Irish title,
Daingean Ui Chuis, English is widely used. Two secondary schools
recently merged into a new one, Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne.

But the school's policy of teaching all lessons through Irish has led
to protests by some students who say they cannot understand what they
are being taught. Sam Spinn was one of the students who left classes
to protest against the all-Irish policy. "A lot of students can't
learn through all Irish - there are some who can but a lot of them
can't and it's just not acceptable that people have to go through
school in which they don't understand the classes at all," he said.
"People just begin to hate a language if it's forced on them so it
will flourish under encouragement, but if it's forced on people,
people will just reject it and they'll go against it."

Fluent

But speaking in Irish is fundamental to an Irish-speaking area. Here,
a group of fluent speakers meet to bring on others keen to improve.
Some who have come from outside or abroad say they have learned Irish
out of respect for the Gaeltacht tradition and its people, and want
their children to learn it too. Lone Ui Raghallaigh comes from
Denmark. Married and living in the Kerry Gaeltacht, she has learned to
speak Irish. "When we moved here we knew we were moving into a
Gaeltacht and to me it is very important not to water down the
beautiful language they have in this area," she said. "So we are very
conscious of trying to do the best ourselves to learn the language and
of course we took it for granted that the children would be taught
through Irish. "It's part of living in a Gaeltacht."

Maire Ui Shithigh and her family speak Irish at home. She argues that
if English is introduced into the school, then Irish will end up not
being used. "If you have Irish and English, then everything moves over
to English because English is the global language," she said.

Educational

"English is the language of youth and minority languages are dying out
all over the world and unless we take very serious steps to prevent
it, the Irish will be gone and I think we will hugely regret it."  But
parents of students without fluent Irish, say that it's an educational
rather than a language issue.  Cyril Harrington, from a group calling
itself the Concerned Parents for Education, moved into the area from
Dublin, and feels strongly that Irish should not be imposed in the
school.  "This is not about language - this is about every student's
constitutional right to a viable education," he said. "For the last
20-odd years, the medium was through Irish and English. "Suddenly
pupils who've done four years of secondary school like this are now
having all-Irish imposed on them.

"There are people sitting in classrooms and they don't know what's
being said and that is unfair and unacceptable and it cannot go on."
But for others, replacing Irish with English would have a disastrous
impact on the language in the Gaeltacht. Native speaker and former
Kerry All-Ireland gaelic football winning captain Dara O Cinneide is
on the board of management of the new school. He says extra help in
Irish for those needing it - rather than abandoning it for English in
the classroom - is the solution. The school is looking for further
help provided under a scheme by the Ireland's Department of Education
to give assistance to students needing help in the language. "We are
aware that there are challenges being posed to a certain group of
students in the school," Mr O Cinneide said.

"We have put extra supports in place to counteract this challenge and
we are looking for even more again, so I think anybody who will have a
difficulty learning their subjects through Irish will be catered for."
 He says it is accepted that some older students in the school who may
not have learned Irish from a young age may need help, but said that
throwing out Irish as the spoken language in the area's secondary and
replacing it with English would be devastating for the future of the
language in the Kerry Gaeltacht.

He added that the children of many new immigrants coming into the area
have little difficulty learning Irish, and have no issue with it.
"We just have a love of the language, we feel it's very important for
us and for the next generation and generations to come to have that
language preserved as well as educating our children to the highest
possible standards." With English the dominant world language, those
fostering the Irish language in Kerry say that like other minority
languages, it is threatened, even in the area where it should be
strongest. But just as north of the border, the Irish language seems
to provoke plenty of debate - in English.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7162108.stm

Published: 2007/12/27 18:23:39 GMT

(c) BBC MMVII

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