Law students rap Government for scrapping exam

THE recent cabinet decision to abolish the Irish language requirement for the Law Society and the King’s Inns was disappointing.

Tue, 04 Dec, 2007 - 00:00

Letters

While downgrading the status of Irish in the legal community, the Government on the same day contradictorily announced that ministers would be mandated to use Irish at EU council meetings.

The Government cannot claim, nationally and internationally, that Irish is our official language while at the same time ignoring the obligations that flow from this status.

Other countries with several official languages, such as Canada, understand the importance of language requirements. Seen from this perspective, the Irish language requirement exam becomes an expression of State support for the language. Removing it dismantles that support and brings us closer to a sham.

All languages are social, cultural, political, intellectual and, occasionally, economic door-openers, and Irish is no exception.

Students, for example, discover that they enjoy going to Irish language clubs, such as Sult, where they can try out another language and listen to other music.

Those who are politically inclined find that Irish language media can usually be relied upon to give them a different perspective on news and current affairs.

Intellectually, language learning sharpens the mind and enhances communications skills. This pays off economically, as employers frequently look for competence in languages.

For all of these reasons, by the time they come to sit the exam, many students feel that revisiting the language was well worth the effort.

For most, abolishing the language requirement would remove the incentive to re-engage with the language.

Irish raises identity issues. Witness the many who aspire to learn Irish but never get round to it.

Consider the number of Irish people who, anecdotally, try to speak Irish when they travel outside Ireland because they do not wish to be identified as American or English.

Increasing numbers of non-nationals are learning Irish at home and the number of Irish language students abroad is growing. In a globalised world, identity issues are becoming more important.

These issues have a particular resonance for us as King’s Inns students. While it is not central to the legal system, Irish does give some distinctive identity to the Irish legal community. Abolishing the language requirement would erase any vestige of difference between the Irish and British legal institutions.

As an alternative to the Irish language requirement, the Government proposes a voluntary exam backed up by ‘special recognition’ (unspecified) for Irish-speaking lawyers. This ignores the reality — removing the exam requirement would break the need that currently exists for student lawyers to reconnect with the language.

In that reconnection, for some valued discoveries await. Irish is for everyone, not just for those who speak it.

Decades of State hypocrisy have left us with a declining number of Irish speakers. Irish has now been formally identified by Unesco as an endangered language. Abolishing the language requirement risks marginalising it further.

Ruadhan Mac Aodháin

Conchubhair Ó Broin

Julie Gilanne

Brendan Glynn

Maria McCormack

Aoife McNickle

Eoin Morris

Thomas Murphy

Simon Noone

Kieran O’Dowd

Roland Ó Ruáin

Brendan Sheehy