Our language strategy is leaving us at a loss for the right words

THE invoice for my eldest daughter’s summer trip to the Gaeltacht arrived the other day. It is for a sizeable amount, sufficiently large to make me to gulp and wonder if this is a good investment of money, for that and a number of other reasons.

Firstly, here are the reasons why I’ll most probably sign the required cheque (other than being told by my wife to shut up and get on with it). My daughter’s Irish language capabilities were improved greatly by the experience last year on her visit to the Gaeltacht. She had just finished primary school and was heading into secondary school. Her Irish proficiency was sufficient, but probably just about. Immersion, even if only for a three-week period, was extremely beneficial and has helped enormously in her first year in secondary school, allowing her to work during Irish class comfortably alongside those children who had completed their primary education as gaelige.

Secondly, the exposure to the Gaeltacht culture has to be good for a city girl, as well as the meeting with people from other parts of the country who have different experiences of growing up to her own. The part of Galway where she went, deep in the Gaeltacht, about an hour’s drive from Galway City, is remote and beautiful and, to a city girl, must be challenging. In addition to that the discipline that is imposed, beyond the insistence that only Irish is spoken, is reassuring to any parent. (And yes, I’m not naive enough to believe that the boys and girls do not show interest in each other, but they do that anyway 52 weeks in a year and this is part of growing up, isn’t it?)