[lg policy] State support for Irish Language

Mon Feb 6 16:37:29 UTC 2017

The case for ending state support of Irish language is littered with
dubious 'facts' For starters, we don’t spend €1.2 billion in preserving An
Ghaeilge each year, says Caoimhín De Barra.
Sat 7:00 PM 22,524 Views 97 Comments
<http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/fake-facts-irish-language-debate-3220676-Feb2017/#comments>
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Caoimhin De Barra

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.

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.

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.

*The cost of Irish?*

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

*Translations*

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.

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.

*A false history of the revival of Hebrew*

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.

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.

And it simply isn’t true.

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.

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.

*Road signs*

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 Eoin Butler,
entitled An Bhfuil Cead Agam?
<http://www.thejournal.ie/should-irish-be-mandatory-leaving-cert-3012978-Oct2016/>

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The debate about Irish will doubtlessly continue. But let it be one based
on facts rather than convenient fictions.

*Caoimhín De Barra is Assistant Professor for Irish History and Culture at
Drew University, New Jersey.*
We spend mind-boggling amounts of public money on the Irish language. Cén
fáth?>
<http://www.thejournal.ie/should-irish-be-mandatory-leaving-cert-3012978-Oct2016/>

http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/fake-facts-irish-language-debate-3220676-Feb2017/

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