Polls show majority support Irish as a core subject

I WAS very taken aback at your intolerant editorial (October 17) in which you betray your true attitude to Irish as a language ‘force-fed’ at school and then you err in fact by stating that each successive census has shown a fall in the number of people describing themselves as competent in Irish.

Both assertions are incorrect. A majority of people, when polled, support Irish being a core subject from infant classes to Leaving Cert level, such support being strongest among the 18-25 age group.

Without doubt, the teaching methods need to be addressed and modernised as a matter of absolute priority and Conradh na Gaeilge is in the vanguard of the campaign for such reform.

The number of people returned as Irish-speaking has increased from 1941 to 2006, according to figures from the Central Statistics Office, and the number of daily speakers has stabilised against all the odds in recent years, presumably due to Government initiatives decried by your editorial such as TG4, the Official Languages Act and Irish being an official EU language.

The Irish language offers the opportunity to build a culturally-based Irish identity beyond colour and creed. This inclusive attitude is, and always has been, a core value of the Irish language movement.

Intolerance of the language and those who speak it (which includes a large proportion of people born overseas) comes primarily from Irish-born Anglophones who see Irish as inferior and embarrassing.

To project such small-mindedness onto the immigrant communities is simply to compound one form of prejudice with another.

Your editorial has no space in its worldview for a community where Irish is the primary and default language (Gaeltacht), and where incomers — whether Irish Anglophones or immigrants — learn Irish to integrate into that community.

Contrary to your attitude, Conradh na Gaeilge encourages immigrants not only to learn Irish, as well as English, but also to maintain fluency in their native languages. We believe in linguistic diversity.

Irish language education for an Irish-speaking area is described alternatively as “daft” and as showing a “meanness of spirit”.

Is education through the medium of Welsh, Basque or Maltese equally to be condemned?

The comparison between Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne and the Finsbury Park mosque again betrays your attitude not only to Irish speakers but also to Muslims: we are all, it would seem, beyond the Pale.

Your editorial states that it behoves incomers to Anglophone areas to learn English to aid their integration, including presumably their integration into the education system.

This is true.

It is also true that it behoves incomers to Gaeltacht areas (including Anglophone incomers) to learn Irish. There is no nobility in the refusal to learn.

Finally, Irish medium schools consistently perform as well, if not better, than English medium schools.

Dáithí Mac Cárthaigh

Uachtarán

Conradh na Gaeilge

6 Sráid Fhearcair

Baile Átha Cliath 2