Irish Examiner view: Time to end lip-service on languages

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he wants European languages taught in primary schools

An Taoiseach Micheál Martin: “We need to introduce a full, national scheme for teaching European languages." Picture: Julien Behal Photography.

One of the positive legacies of Britain's subjugation of this small island is that we speak English, that door-opening, international lingua franca. That empowerment, certainly unintended, has consequences. 

It is hard to imagine that this week's events in Washington might have had as green a tinge, albeit a fading one, had the Irish emigrants who arrived at Ellis Island in the first half of the last century spoken Russian, Yoruba, or Yiddish.