[lg policy] Ireland:

[Harold Schiffman]

FG policy on Irish language will be divisive


Friday February 11 2011

Were Fine Gael to succeed in making Leaving Cert Irish optional it
would be mission accomplished for the dark forces in the Department of
Education, which for the past 30 years has been sticking pins in the
doll that is our national language.National bilingualism is not a pipe
dream but a day-to-day reality for many thousands.

That we still have an Irish language at all is testament to the
courage and vision of concerned parents who decades ago realised the
importance of setting up their own Irish language primary and
secondary schools. These very same schools top national lists of high
achievement every year.

If the vast majority of our school leavers were illiterate and
innumerate it would be a national scandal and yet it has become
somehow acceptable that after 14 years of instruction our young people
can leave school having been denied any meaningful relationship with
their own language. Optional Irish -- a very 'Oirish' solution to an
Irish problem!

Colm Mac Con Iomaire
Co Loch Garman

The stated policy of Enda Kenny to drop the Irish language as a
compulsory third-level subject has just ensured that he will have my
family's vote.

There is no doubt as to the cognitive and developmental benefits of
learning another language, but whilst you may be able to compel the
learning of a subject, you cannot compel an interest in it.

The majority of students across the country may accept the cultural
importance of the Irish language but they have long ago discovered its
irrelevance.

Indeed as thousands of our young people emigrate to pursue jobs in
foreign lands the last thing that will equip them for this is being
able to speak Irish.

If people have a genuine interest in the Irish language then let them
indeed learn to speak it.

This apart, our educational system should be extolling the huge
benefits in the ability to speak such languages as Spanish, French and
Mandarin; skills that will prove more beneficial to them than to join
the dwindling ranks of those that speak a language that has
essentially become little more than a hobby.

Derek Ross
Blessington, Co Wicklow

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/fg-policy-on-irish-language-will-be-divisive-2535762.html

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