Secret Diary of an Irish teacher: Opting out of Seachtain na Gaeilge

Every year, teachers across the country are invited to celebrate Seachtain na Gaeilge. Every year, I respectfully opt out.

My gripe is not with the Irish language. Irish is beautiful and merits study and celebration. We should absolutely engage with it in our schools, in the same way that we might any second language.

We should learn about it; speak it; and as it is our native language, explore it through Irish poetry and song.

And then we should let the student decide if it’s something they’re interested in pursuing beyond Junior Cycle, or perhaps Transition Year. We should let the student decide and who knows, the language might even thrive!

Irish is a phenomenal code to use abroad. From ‘nach bhfuil an fear seo go hálainn’ to the seriously helpful ‘Bígí Curamach’. When you meet an Irish person abroad and you speak ‘cupla focail’, it’s as if you’re family.

The language is like a warm hug. You’re home again. It may also help families coming from abroad to fully integrate. If a kid from Poland learns Irish from the age of four, they become knitted into the fabric of our society. This is something to be cherished and protected.

But the world is supposed to be our village now, and the bigger purpose of language must lie in its usefulness; it is, after all, a tool of communication. Surely, giving students an outward focus is also positive. We are an island nation and our skills must travel.

We must take a balanced approach. Foundation maths is accepted in NUI institutions. Foundation Irish is not. This is nothing other than cultural snobbery. Other third-level destinations ask for either English or Irish, which places Irish on a remarkable pedestal.

Irish and English are taught at the same level; they get the same hours and have the same weighting. They are both taught as first languages. In much of the country this doesn’t reflect the realities of children’s lives. It is therefore a matter of rights. Where is the right of the student to define their own identity, their own Irishness?

For some, Irish has no relevance.

For some, education must be about usefulness. They don’t have the luxury of studying to develop an identity, as dictated by the education minister; they need subjects they can use in a real way. Economics or technical graphics are worthwhile in a way that Irish isn’t.

Also, for some, languages are tough; they cause a great deal of stress.

This is of course amplified by the fact that their mark in Irish can prevent their entry into the university of their choice.

To have an anchor in your native language is wonderful and edifying, but it should not turn into a noose around your neck. And yet the department is unflinching.

On the contrary, they’re getting stricter. Their recent circular states that students should only be exempt if they’ve not been taught it before the age of 12, or else only under ‘exceptional circumstances’. We are now told the student must be under the tenth percentile which indicates a severe learning difficulty, not a mild or even considerable one.

One family I know, one parent Irish, one English, have just returned from Germany after two years. Their four kids are fluent, wonderfully fluent, in German. They are now in an Irish primary where their only language choice is Irish.

What’s more, as it is, our primary teachers must be Irish! Because they must have a very high level of Irish! Why not bring Irish experts in?

How many valuable, talented people are we excluding from our primary classrooms? Why are we closing doors and opening tiny, if very beautiful windows?

Schools are meant to care about critical thinking nowadays. How can we be critical thinkers if we are obsessed with our own narrative and our own past?

And by obsession, I mean very specifically studying Irish beyond Junior Cycle. I also refer to the hundreds of Gaelscoileanna.

These kids may one day sit in on a Harvard/Cambridge lecture and struggle with the material because their academic language is in Irish.

Language as a communication tool is lost in this respect. An Irish language-educated colleague of mine recently explained that she won’t read in my English lessons, as she wouldn’t have as much confidence in the subject.

I appreciate the benefits of these schools and I don’t mean to knock them, but we should at least discuss their implications. They happily promote themselves through the research linked to bilingualism.

What they don’t mention is the implications of a bilingualism that goes beyond the borders of our small Island country. What about a school with another first language like German? Where my friend’s kids might go?

We need to think globally now. We should work hard to engage students in Irish up to third or fourth year; that’s 11 or 12 years.

But not having Irish at Leaving Cert does not erase my identity as an Irish person. Without it, I am still Irish. Most importantly, I still deserve access to our top academic institutions.

Make Irish an option for the Leaving and I’ll gladly support Seachtain na Gaeilge. Until that happens, keep your stickers and posters away from my classroom.

I’ll be teaching English.