To the Webmaster
Please consider this an Open Letter to TDs and all interested parties.
From: M. Ó Fearghail
Date: 10 February 2011 07:32
Subject: ltr Fine Gael’s sudden decision to drop Irish as a compulsory subject
To: The Editor
10Feb11
A chara,
I hope that readers will make known to their TDs their opposition to Fine Gael’s sudden decision to drop Irish as a compulsory subject.
It is based on a wrong-headed understanding of the educational process. Of course children will go for the easy option if it is offered. Again and again I have heard people say they wish now they had worked harder at Irish (among other things!) when they were young & still had the chance.
So many small nations and ethnic groups nowadays are battling to preserve their culture against being swamped, and this invariably includes the study of their history and their native language. Without these things, nationality descends to the level of the meaningless label.
The Gaelic Revival has exceeded the expectations – and predictions – of the naysayers for well over a century now. In the mid nineteenth century it was being confidently predicted in print that the Irish language and Popish Faith would be lost and forgotten within twenty years, while the Gaelic sports were a fading memory. As one who has travelled, I can testify to the huge respect that Ireland has around the world, for maintaining her integrity. Europeans take it for granted that we are fighting to maintain our language.
The overwhelming evidence worldwide is that bilingualism enhances, not retards, intellectual and cultural development, despite what the first thought might suggest. The reason is very simple: it trains the mind for other things as well, and broadens the outlook greatly. In our own case, we already do speak one of the World languages so well that many come here to learn it by preference. Why be so niggardly about our own?
The Gaelscoileanna are flourishing as never before.
Part of the meaning of a culture is the shared background of the citizens. This includes our shared experience of Irish, even for those who have only the cúpla focal.
Making the subject optional would immediately turn Gaeilge into an elitist niche. People would opt out and then regret it – and would have no Gaeilge to pass on to their own children.
I applaud those FG TDs who have spoken out against this defeatist measure.
le gach dea-ghuí
M. Ó Fearghail BSc(hons) Dip. Ed.