Irish Examiner view: Reviving red-list languages starts in how it is taught

As the Irish language becomes evermore marginalised we need to relook at its popularity and how it is taught in our schools

How a language is taught in schools is a deciding factor in its survival or popularity

It may be plausible to compare the fate of Irish and Latin. Both are beautiful but red-list languages struggling to hold a place in today’s world. Both have ardent champions swimming against what seems unstoppable tides. Both are on one kind of a life support system or another.

In the case of Irish, one of those supports was a recent amendment to the Official Languages Bill that includes a stipulation that a fifth of civil service recruits will have to be proficient in Irish from 2030. That ruling was followed last week by a Government-funded report from Tuismitheoirí na Gaeltachta that found that fewer than one in four Gaeltacht families are raising their children to be proficient in Irish. As anyone with a sharp ear who took a staycation in a Gaeltacht this summer might confirm, that one in four ratio seems well beyond the place Irish holds in everyday usage.

In the case of Latin, the British government has announced that it will be taught at 40 state schools across England in an effort to counter the language’s reputation of being a symbol of elitism. This may help change the perception of this foundation language but whether it revives its fortunes must be an open question. That programme underlines that how a language is taught in schools is a deciding factor in its survival or popularity. The absolute importance of this relationship has been recognised for decades, yet Irish seems ever-more marginalised. Why?