[lg policy] Ireland: Fianna Fáil joins the Irish-language fight

[Harold Schiffman]

 Fianna Fáil joins the Irish-language fight Policy might help lift the mood
of retreat that surrounds the language
Fri, Feb 12, 2016, 15:41
Seán Tadhg Ó Gairbhí

3
<http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/fianna-f%C3%A1il-joins-the-irish-language-fight-1.2532670#comments>
[image: Leader of Fianna Fáil, Micheál Martin, launches his party’s General
Election Manifesto at Wood Quay yesterday. Photograph: Alan Betson/The
Irish Times]

Leader of Fianna Fáil, Micheál Martin, launches his party’s General
Election Manifesto at Wood Quay yesterday. Photograph: Alan Betson/The
Irish Times

Yesterday Fianna Fáil became the second of the main parties to officially
committ to Conradh na Gaeilge’s three pre-election demands.

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.

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.

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.

According to the party’s manifesto, *An Ireland for All*, the senior
government minister would serve in a newly formed department for community,
rural and Gaeltacht affairs.

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.

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.

“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.

*An Ireland for All* 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.

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.

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.

Many educationalists concerned with how the *status quo* 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.

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”.

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”.

*An Ireland for All* 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”.

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.

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.

Overall, though, the party’s Irish-language policy, while hardly
comprehensive, has a good deal to recommend it.

As with Sinn Féin’s policy, also released this week, *An Ireland for All*
contains measures that if implemented might at least help lift the mood of
retreat that surrounds the language.

Will the big fish take the bait?

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/treibh/fianna-f%C3%A1il-joins-the-irish-language-fight-1.2532670


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