Sarah Harte: As ‘An Gaeilge’ rises in popularity, standard of spoken Irish is falling

We need to look at how we’re training teachers to teach and students to learn Irish — a language should be first and foremost spoken

The Irish-language film An Cailín Ciúin, Ireland’s 2023 entry for the Oscars’ best international feature category, has a decent shot of making the longlist.

IT feels like An Gaeilge is having a moment. Last week legislation giving official status to the Irish language for the first time in the North was given royal assent by King Charles.

An additional €8.5m in Budget 2023 was given for the Irish language and the Gaeltacht.

The largest ever increase to TG4 was given in the form of an additional €7.3m, which will support the launch of a new Irish language children’s TV channel, to be called Cúla4.

Next Wednesday, the Irish-language film An Cailín Ciúin, which is Ireland’s 2023 entry for the Oscars’ best international feature category, has a decent shot of making the longlist of the final 15 films.

This beautiful film has also been named movie of the year by the American movie review website, Rotten Tomatoes.

It’s the first Irish-language film to gross over €1m at the box office in Ireland and the UK. Based on the short story ‘Foster’ by Claire Keegan, it is directed and produced by husband-and-wife team Colm Bairéad and Cleona Ní Chrualaoi.

Alan Esslemont, director general of TG4, described it as “a watershed moment for Irish-language cinema”.

There are now over 400 Gaeilscoileanna in Ireland and counting. Gaeilscoileanna were once regarded as being for native speakers, odd bods, and those with a certain brand of politics.

As one ignoramus memorably put it to me years ago, “they are terrorist training camps”.

Irish is the most popular language for learners in Ireland on Duolingo, the language app. The hugely popular Motherfoclóir podcast discusses fun, new terms as Gaeilge.

It’s no longer a badge of honour to boast about failing Irish.

Maybe in part because millennials, and Generation Z wear their Irishness with a self-assurance that is palpable. 

As the beneficiaries of cheap Ryanair flights, and cheap Airbnb, these global citizens have hopped about the place in a way that was unthinkable to earlier generations, and it shows.

They are refreshingly free of that shoneen inferiority that was embedded in the psyche of so many.

Put simply, they aren’t as threatened by Irish — but can they speak it?

Last week, the head of one of the country’s best-known Gaeltacht summer colleges criticised the way Irish is being taught in schools and said that the standard among students is “shameful”.

Mícheál Ó Foighil, manager of Coláiste Lurgan in Connemara, that the Government had put “its head in the sand” about the “broken education system”.

He added that officials and the Government would prefer to leave the system as it is, even if it isn’t working instead of “rocking the boat”.

In March this year, the Department of Education’s chief inspector’s report referred to the concern over the quality of teaching and learning in Irish across many primary schools.

Perhaps the proficiency of teachers in Irish is a factor. Currently, primary-school teachers must have higher-level Irish as a prerequisite for entry into college, which seems a bit vague.

An Cailín Ciúin is the first Irish language film to gross over €1m at the Irish and UK box office.

One suggestion that has previously been made is that the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages should be introduced for training teachers.

This European Certificate of Irish, Teastas Europach na Gaeilge, provides a series of general Irish language proficiency examinations and qualifications for adult learners of Irish.

There are six levels, from basic to advanced. Testing teachers in the four skills of speaking, listening reading, and writing might provide a more credible benchmark of their competence and help them to progress.

However last week, Labour education spokesperson Aodhán Ó Ríordáin questioned the requirement for higher-level Irish at Leaving Certificate level for people entering the teaching profession.

Citing the huge challenges faced by the teacher shortage, he pointed out that a higher-level qualification is not needed for maths or English, saying:

It’s time to understand why this rule is in place and consider changing course requirements for entry into the teaching profession.

He also claimed the Irish requirement for teacher training was a barrier to a diverse workforce.

The attitude of official Ireland to the language does seem to remain half in, half out, when it comes to education.

The study of Irish is mandatory at second level unless you have an exemption because of having lived abroad, not speaking English, or having learning difficulties. 

Schools are required to teach the subject to be eligible for State funding. There is, however, no obligation on students to sit the actual subject in the Leaving Cert exam.

The NUI universities — University College Cork, University of Galway, University College Dublin, and Maynooth University — require students to have a pass at ordinary level Irish while this is not the case in Trinity College Dublin.

Need for integrated policy

Julian de Spáinn, general secretary of Conradh na Gaeilge, points out that since the foundation of the State there has never been a policy for the Irish language in the education system spanning pre-school to third level.

Such an integrated policy, he says, would have multiple benefits including creating a system that makes sense from level to level, showing young people the benefits associated with learning Irish.

It would reduce the need for exemptions as it would be far more responsive to students’ needs and abilities and deal with many of the inaccuracies about the language such as that it’s too difficult to learn.

Mr de Spáinn says: “This policy was an electoral promise of Fianna Fail in the 2020 election and there is mention of it in the programme for government, but the Minister for Education and the department are not acting on it.”

Mr Ó Foighil said the education minister should be concerned by the level of Irish students have after spending 14 years of education and suggested that pupils who attend Gaeltacht summer courses gain a better command of the language in just a few weeks.

Des Bishop, the New York-born comedian, blasted the idea that Irish is hard to learn. He learned Irish in a relatively short period by living with a family in Connemara, documenting his experience in a series for RTÉ.

His as Gaeilge cover of House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’ — Léim Thart — is memorable.

It’s clear that we need to look at how we’re training teachers to teach and students to learn Irish. And it’s arguable that a language should be first and foremost spoken.

Where Irish is concerned, maybe we need to figure out if we’re teaching it for cultural reasons or for it to be used.

Great to study literature and poetry but not before you can credibly converse at a basic level.

After all, the Irish word for language is ‘teanga’ — tongue.