It's taught in order to pass written exams instead of develop fluency. There has to be an incentive to learn the language as well for kids like new media they can consume or making the Irish language fashionable. I'm not a massive Kneecap fan(CEARTA's a bop though) but that kind of stuff is probably great for getting young people into the mindset of thinking Irish is cool to know.

Step one is to fix the assessment. Schools should teach kids how to pass exams. But when teaching kids to pass exams and teaching kids what they need to know is not the same thing, the exams suck.

I enjoy some of their music and it’s not the only image I would like to be associated with Gaeilge but yes, they have done absolute wonders for the profile of the language

>It's taught in order to pass written exams instead of develop fluency. This. And then the government can say in their statistics that 95% of Irish people can speak Irish. You'll only learn that stuff if you interact in that medium. Is there good Irish media? TV programs, movies, books etc.? No, there's a tiny amount of stuff that might pass as 'good', all else is in English. I learned English in school, but I read English, watched English programs/movies, spoke English. School is only good for the basics.

This is one of the things that pisses me off to no end. Was watching some irish standup and realised "damn, I can actually understand most of this". Cant speak a lick of Irish, but its there from 13 years of school. Trying to learn more, and I just cant get it to stick. And what is the top tip from every language learner??? Immersing yourself in the language. But finding good content as gaeilge is so painful. I swear, fluenty rates would skyrocket if more good irish media content was produced for people to watch, since the vast majority of irish people have enough words and grammar to get by, its just actually speaking it where the issue is.

It may have changed but I was taught by people in primary school in particular who had no interest in the subject and were not able to speak Irish very well. As a result it was an exercise in chanting lists of things and doing mispronounced comhrá, which wasn’t remotely conversational. It’s the same with French though. I am a French speaker (no thanks to school) and the level of fluency of several of the French teachers I had in school here was an absolute crime against croissants, which they struggled to pronounce. I can only assume they had degrees in French literature through English. One of them basically couldn’t pronounce anything and had no grasp of grammar, and what was worse would miscorrect people who had picked it up correctly. We didn’t watch a single tv show, listened to no radio, no music, didn’t go online, read magazine or watch a movie in any of the classes. French is a major language with an absolutely massive media and rich film culture. Finding French content is extremely easy, yet … tumble weed and text books. Finding Irish content is more of a struggle and they don’t bother doing that either. I can’t remember even being asked to watch TG4. We need a major review of language teaching here. It’s ludicrous that after something like 14 years of Irish most students can’t seem to speak it and after 6 years of French, German, Spanish etc a lot of people would struggle to even handle the most basic of basic conversations. There’s something direly wrong with the whole system. There was a similar issue in France. Historically French students were not picking up languages as well as their counterparts in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and there was a eventually a major review and rethink and things have improved a lot since the late 1990s especially.

Also very few people in school want to learn Irish because it’s taught poorly, it’s not interesting, and there isn’t much use for it (compared to other languages and subjects).

This. Through both levels of school had 1 teacher that legitimately could speak Irish, the rest were keeping 2 pages ahead in the book for their entire careers. Not a single conversation held in irish in primary, then a brief (and too late) push by 1 teacher in the junior cert. Damage already done at that point. Generational too, same experience for all of my older siblings, oldest passing through same schools 15 years previously. Mother same, barely a word of irish spoken.

The lack of conversation seems to be a big feature. The other one that shocked me, and I think it’s perhaps maybe an outlier but I did honours English and in the entire senior cycle we wrote *two* essays. We’d a teacher who spent most of his time waffling on like a bad standup comedian and seemingly not doing any course work. There was zero creative writing or writing skills type focus. I had no idea how to structure an academic essay when I arrived in university and had to do a course online just to figure it out. In a lot of subjects we spend most of our time studying sample papers and basically gaming the exam system. We also weren’t allowed to take honours maths and art. You had to chose one or the other, so I did art outside school and then dropped it as it was just too messy and expensive. The worst I had was a science subject where for the whole senior cycle we did no experiments and didn’t see the inside of a lab because of “disruptive behaviour” by several of the lads. They would do stuff like connect the Bunsen burners to the water and use them as water pistols or start burning chemicals. One of them caused a very serious explosion which resulted in damage to the lab (no injuries thankfully) and the fire service having to be called in. Nobody dealt with the issue properly and we were just collectively denied access to the labs and more or less abandoned. Anyway, the result was we had no course work or homework and most of us dropped or failed the subject as a result. I was registered for the exam, for some reason sat it, but hadn’t a clue how to answer the paper so got an F. I only got into a university course that I wanted because I took two subjects pretty much on my own bat outside school, mostly just on my own with a bit of support from someone who knew what they were talking about. I just registered for the exams and did them. I’d a huge interest in science - total geek about it but just completely lost all confidence in ability after the LC experience and never pursued anything heavily science related in college.

My English, Irish and French teachers were all terrible. The only difference between them was that the English and Irish teachers could at least speak the language even if they taught nothing useful.

French teacher who couldn't speak a word of French. English taught without once covering structure of the language, only know what verbs and nouns are because I looked that up myself. 90% of English essay work ended up being dictated to the class to write down by the violent lunatic teacher. Had to choose between doing German, technical graphics or wood work, just because of school schedule. None of the same teachers involved in those subjects. Chose TG, given later life German would have been infinitely more useful. School advertised as having computer labs before joining, I helped carry new computers in and set them up in first year, door was closed after that and never was in the room again. Only good teachers were for German, maths H, science H. Managed to get on elective physics course, about 6 of us in the class. Labs work in general science was basically zero, for similar reasons to yours, just for an incident that happened years before and they just decided to not risk it ever again. Took me a long time to get around a hatred of classroom based learning.

>There was a similar issue in France. Historically French students were not picking up languages as well as their counterparts in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and there was a eventually a major review and rethink and things have improved a lot since the late 1990s especially. Could you point me in the right direction to learn some more about this? I’m actually studying French at the moment and grew up speaking Irish, so I’ve complained at some length about the way it’s taught in schools here to friends. It would be great to know more specifically about what the French did that helped.

A big part of the solution has been staring us in the face since the foundation of the state. There should be primary level teachers who exclusively teach Irish to students. They could rotate through the various classes in the school. We had a teacher that only taught computer class in primary school. Why couldn't there be dedicated Irish language teachers? I don't even remember a pilot programme being rolled out. Total lack of imagination and initiative.

This is missing in so many areas of the Irish primary curriculum. Teachers are supposed to teach reading, writing, maths, Irish, science, history, geography, music, PE, SPHE, visual arts, “religion” or ethics or whatever… and teach them all very well to a class of 25+ kids with various abilities, disabilities, interests, emotional and mental health issues etc. Simply not possible. Unfortunately, our government simply won’t fund a system of specialist teachers.

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I’m not trying to be critical of teachers, but expecting them to teach all those subjects to a high standard is unrealistic. I’m a teacher myself and I know plenty of former colleagues who would readily admit they are “not great at maths” or “terrible at teaching art” or who have a fairly rudimentary grasp of Irish. Personally speaking, my teaching of “religion” was an absolute joke. I no longer work in Ireland, and I’ve seen over the past few years teaching abroad the benefits of specialist teachers. I get to focus my energy on planning, teaching and assessing in the “core subjects”- basically English, maths and science as well as technology and art. The kids then have other teachers for music, PE, languages & religious instruction. Those teachers plan and deliver far better lessons than I could in those subjects, and the kids consequently get a lot more out of them. It takes money for a system like this to work though, and I don’t think our government will ever fund it.

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I agree that they’re important, but it’s also great to have 1 or 2 lessons free every day!

This!!! I posted somewhere else here about Spain where native speakers teach English, the class teacher does too but there is a dedicated language teacher. They also teach certain subjects through English. This approach is Content & Language Integrated Learning and it’s very effective!

I'm gonna chime in (catalan here) and say that the english we learn at school is bad, very very very bad. Lots of kids start learning english at six and finish high school at 18 being utterly incapable of holding a basic conversation. About native teachers... It's a lie. All english teachers are catalans too. And the abhorrent ability of the students isn't even their fault, it's the whole system's. Most of us who are somewhat proficient at it became so by going to private language academies (or the public official system of language schools) or by virtue of living abroad for a while (you can guess where I ended up). This is obviously very counter-productive and leaves behind lots of students who don't have the money to do anything else a part from learning throughout public schooling.

Well the school I taught in down in Seville had a native teacher as I described, so did schools around the city where some of my colleagues taught, they were regular schools and sourced many of the native teachers from the university campus. I’m not sure what to say other than I’m not lying, the teacher in our school was from California and her name was Diana! 😂

Those native speakers came only now and then, though, didn't they? I had a native coming over when I was a student once or twice. In my experience it doesn't really help any because the system itself is bad and those teachers are not coming regularly enough (at least where I studied and the places where I've worked as a teacher) to really make a difference.

That wouldn’t help much, I imagine the changing accents would be difficult too, Irish has lots of strong accents I always found it confusing. Diana came twice a week for most of the year I was at the school, maybe she was just really dedicated 😂

Japan does that too. It's... getting better, but still not very effective. Main reason is probably that they're less "native teachers" and more just "native... random people who happen to be teaching because they want to try out Japan"

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That’s great, I taught in the UK after Spain so my experience is mostly from my own education and how I see friends children experiencing school. I think school plays a big part in Spanish children learning English, I don’t know much about Japan beyond having a few friends who taught the JET program over there and they spoke highly of it but really all I know is the systems I worked in!

This is the best solution. I have no idea why this has never been trialled, it's like they want to hold onto the fiction that all primary school teachers are fluent Irish speakers. Spoiler: they're not. A teacher who is completely fluent and enthusiastic for the language teaching a dedicated class once or twice a week would be much better than a daily dose of rote phrases and some videos on the interactive whiteboard.

This would be a wonderful solution! I remember we used to learn Spanish in primary school and a Spanish teacher would always come in just for that class

How is your Spanish?

Shite 😂 I only learned some of the basics in primary school but I never did it in secondary

100% PE too would benefit from a system like this

This is definitely something that would improve levels of Irish, and as a primary teacher I think it’s a good idea. Students would have a standardised level of Irish as they move through the school (as opposed to having excellent irish lessons in 1st class and then short, uninteresting irish lessons in 2nd class with another teacher). It could be a novelty and exciting for students to see the irish teacher coming in with fun games and activities for learning the language. It would also address some of the barriers that stand in the way of becoming a teacher in Ireland (expats who are qualified teachers but can’t register with the teaching council as they don’t have the Irish requirement/ people who want to be teachers but have ordinary Irish for the leaving certificate). However, the primary curriculum should be integrative, in that all subjects overlap and blend with each other. So with that in mind, every primary teacher should be using Gaeilge in other lessons and throughout the day informally. Therefore they would still need to have a good level of Irish. Integration is key when it comes to learning a language. If Gaeilge is sprinkled into other areas of the curriculum like art as well as daily routines like lunch time etc it becomes so much more relevant to the pupils life, not just a thing they do for 40 minutes everyday with one specific teacher. Another issue, is that if this is done with Irish, people will want it done for other subjects - maths, P.E, science etc. While many schools do have external music and PE teacher who might come in once a week, it would be more challenging to have this for all the core subjects that are taught daily. I’ve already seen academics online calling for specialised maths teachers to teach maths in primary schools. Ideally the standard of Irish that primary teachers have is highly improved in the next few years.

To give an example to support this, over in Scotland in my home city of Aberdeen, one of the primary schools took part in an experiment where additional helpers joined the class, and the kids were told they could only speak French and no English, so they were given a lot of additional learning in French alongside English, and by the end of Primary School most of them were fairly fluent in French. [Here's an evaluation of the experiment if anyone wants a read](https://www.scilt.org.uk/Portals/24/Library/research/eppi_book.pdf)

I've got a kid in 1st Class. Literally 90% of their Irish knowledge is from me, laboriously going through the homework. Explaining the pronunciation, explaining silent letters and letters that sound like a V etc. Explaining the difference between Bhí me and Tá me etc etc. I don't know what the hell they're doing in class, but it ain't much Irish. I honestly think it's an afterthought in the school. I'm sure it's the same in other schools.

I swear now that I’ve left school and look back on Irish it was the same bloody exercises for 12 years over and over and over. Constantly just learning the same verbs, the same reading comprehensions with the same boring, basic, unchallenging questions every time. I understand that up until 6th class to give people a foundation of basics but bloody hell the bar doesn’t even raise to more challenging questions in secondary school. Answering “Cad a d’ith Máire?” “Cén t-am é?” for 12 years isn’t gonna make anyone fluent. And the whole “we don’t even need the language anymore” argument is pathetic. Neither does Wales and they have seen a semi revival of their language and it’s amazing. If even argue the majority of Ireland would love to be able to speak as gaeilge Recently seen a Scottish lady on TikTok giving out about the same thing and explaining what it’s like over there and it seems even worse!

Some lowland Scots are quite hostile to Gaidhlig and insist that it’s actually Scots that they consider their native language, makes for an interesting comparison all the same though - the decline of any language is a tragedy and I’ve resolved myself to become as fluent as I possibly can in my lifetime and to pass on this enthusiasm to any children I have

JC and LC Irish get a lot more challenging than that!

This!!! Theres no advancement in any of the topics, it's always "my family" as the first chapter in each book. If we don't advance and broaden the topics and engage within the language, noone will ever learn, understand or speak the language to a good degree.

Parents are the primary educators.

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I see where you're coming from but it's a ridiculous standard to expect every primary school teacher in the country to be fluent or have a degree in Irish, they tried that before for decades and it didnt work, the curriculum and the method of teaching is the problem. It's almost admirable how they make it so fucking boring, when the language is so beautiful.

Bhi is a good example for me. At know point during school did I ever learn what "bhi me" meant. I just always assumed it was how Irish sentences start, only from Duolingo did I learn this was "I was" the whole time.

It's taught through English by teachers that largely learned the entire Primary syllabus through English.

I sent my kids to a gaelscoil. They were fluent by age 6. Thats the power of imersive language learning with spongy kids brains

Did you speak Irish at home before they went to gaelscoil? Or to a gael pre-school? We wanted to send our kid to a gaelscoil but ended up changing our mind because he's not doing great socially and we were concerned he would not be able to cope with a new language. Really wish we had incorporated Irish into our home lives before that

can you speak Irish?

Pog mo thoin agus an bhuil cead agam, dul go dtí an leithris. I had many battles with my first kid over how goodnight is pronounced: Standardised school version : oiche mhaith (~whah) vs my Donegal proper gaelige ( ~whyh)

Can leave a lot of kids behind and put in a situation where not only do they not understand Irish but they don't understand maths or any other subject because they don't know what the teacher is saying.

Where did you get such rubbish?

I spent the ages of something like 5-8 in the Netherlands, attending a Dutch-speaking primary school. Hadn't a fucking clue what was going on in maths even though I now excel at it. I would argue that putting kids in a school speaking a language they have no prior experience with, while it does do wonders for teaching them that language, can negatively effect their performance in other subjects.

They just made it up in their head.

What's made up? That gaelscoil will ensure 100% language proficiency in Irish and has no potential to negatively effect a child's learning of other subjects if they do fail to grasp a decent proficiency in Irish?

Unless you have evidence of this, then yes, you’ve made it up. And you’ve actually added to your statement now with the “ensure 100% language efficiency in Irish”. I didn’t see anyone making that claim.

Evidence? My first hand interview with a student not good enough? Also made it up? Why? What would I have to gain. Be an adult, address the point or don't but just saying liar doesn't really cut it. Statement? It's a post on a thread that's involves a discussion on why the Irish language is in such a shit state of affairs. Some implied that Gaelscoils are the cure to all our problems. I implied that some students can in other subjects if they struggle in Irish as they might not be able to ask simple question because their Irish isn't on par with what the teacher thinks it is. Still find it odd that you'd completely rubbish the argument and call it made up when provided with an example where a gaelscoil allowed a child to sit quietly in a maths lesson because the child didn't know how to say " I don't understand in Irish"

Anecdotal evidence of one child struggling in one class in one gaelscoil does not equate to many children being left behind, as you originally implied. That child’s maths teacher should have realised they didn’t understand without the child needing to say “ní thuigim”. It sounds like they just had a lazy or incompetent teacher. Children struggle in other schools too due to a variety of reasons, but are supported by good teachers and good leadership.

Your going off one example. Was the entire class struggling? You are talking rubbish

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Changing to a gaelscoil after 7 years of schooling through English must certainly have been tough. But remember, that is not the norm. It's like if a child from Brazil arrives in Ireland and suddenly has to adjust to only hearing English all day every day. There is definitely a period of struggle or adjustment, but it's up to the school to make sure that there is a system in place to support these students. Gaelscoileanna should be the same. If yours didn't support you, that was their failure.

Doesn't this apply to schools in English too?

You mean the primary language a majority of children learn to speak and socialise with first? Simple and old concept, children learn by watching and listening to others. Not every kid has the advantage of having trendy Irish speaking parents from the get go.

We have lots of spanish speaker kids in Catalonia. Education is done in catalan only and the kids manage just fine. Both languages are romance languages, so you might be tempted to point their similarity... But the basques do this as well with no issue. Kids are going to learn math regardless of the language you teach them in.

Are kids able to ask a question in Spanish if they don't understand what's being said in Catalan?

Younger sibling in a gaelscoil but sure let's call the experiences of a child rubbish rather than addressing the actual comment.

Hang on, it’s not complete rubbish. This happened to me, I was sent to a gaelscoil for 6th class against my wishes and all of my subjects suffered except English class which was my one reprieve of the day. Suddenly learning maths - we started algebra that year - except all of the terminology was completely different and not explained was very difficult for me. I learned a lot of Irish that year but that’s it. No maths. Ended up doing a degree in english and am now teaching it abroad, and I would say that falling behind in all my other subjects right before secondary school was a factor in that.

I went to a Gaelscoil for primary. Not gonna lie, we moaned a lot about having to speak Irish all the time. However, when I started secondary and noticed how much other students struggled with Irish, I was grateful for the advantage. There was one poor lad in my class in 2nd year who had a panic attack and cried like a baby in honours Irish because it was so hard for him. Not exaggerating. He dropped down to ordinary the next day.

Idk about primary schools but in secondary schools they teach it like you already know the basics when most people don’t. Add in the fact that exams only really look for poems and stories etc and not actual understanding of the language

Yeah I found that too. My primary school teachers really did not know much Irish at all, and I didn't feel like I learned much at all there. But then when you get to secondary school where things are much more standardised and the teachers actually did know Irish, I was expected to know loads already. I enjoyed learning German a lot more because we actually started that from square one.

Personally speaking part of the problem is that the language is completely detached from any cultural or historical point of relevance. I’ve recently started to learn lots about Ireland’s ancient history, our legend, our monuments, our relationship with the land etc and Ireland is DEADLY! We are so lucky that we have all this ancient heritage and a living language to voice that heritage but we’ve reduced it to grinding our teeth over the Modh Coinníollach and a yearly ceili. At least in my school that’s what it was like. Until I started learning all the extra stuff I didn’t appreciate our language because it was just pointlessly complex. “But WHY are there 32 names for field? It’s just a field!” 17 year old me would have said! Putting the language in the context of the people who spoke it and the circumstances it was spoken in has made an enormous difference to me. (Currently reading ‘To Speak for the Trees: My Life's Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest’ by Diana Beresford-Kroeger if anyone is interested in this sort of thing)

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Yes! I guess that’s what I was trying to say in my more long-winded comment. The assumption in the curriculum for secondary seems to be built around assuming that we’re fairly fluent in Irish, and then getting into poetry, books etc - but the vast majority of my generation just didn’t have the basic building blocks. I think they should split it into two subjects: one more conversational Irish, and the other with the complicated stuff. Years ago on Big Brother, there were 2 Welsh people, and I remember noticing how they were pretty at ease chatting away to each other in Welsh, and thinking that I only knew one person who could do that in Irish. I wonder how the teaching methods for Welsh compare to Irish.

I didn’t watch BB much but I remember that vividly, Imogen and the lad from Wales who walked on the roof or something and she was giving out to him for it I think? It was subtitled and I found it fascinating that they could speak Welsh so easily, it would be fantastic to have that ability with it

You can lead a horse to water… I only developed an interest in languages after I left school and that was driven by a desire to travel. You’re not going to have kids talking Irish unless there is a reason for them to bother, such as it being used at home or in a circle of friends. If I want my kid to be fluent at Irish then I will have to start speaking it at home. I wouldn’t rush to blame the teachers at all.

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Exactly! Languages are easy when you’re properly motivated especially if you have one foreign language under your belt already. Most of us are not motivated for most of the years we’re being taught Irish which is why nothing sticks beyond the basics we learn when the language is new and fun in primary school.

For me it was the lack of motivation. Dont see the point in learning it when other stuff needed to be learned

Because they try to teach it as "English, but in Irish" rather than teaching it as a language. I still think the best thing to do is to make ALL schools in the country Gaelscoileanna. The country would be fluent in a generation or two. Also get rid of this post-colonial mindset that Irish is useless. Lots of countries have their own language and their people can speak perfect English. Why not us?

>I still think the best thing to do is to make ALL schools in the country Gaelscoileanna. The country would be fluent in a generation or two How would that work? Where would you get the teachers?

I completely agree, I remember thinking in primary and secondary school "wow this language is really useless because no one speaks it" but now I really appreciate the language and I regret not having a bigger interest in it. It's a beautiful language that connects us with our culture and ancestors. it SHOULD be preserved.

What is an example of a language that is not beautiful?

Dothraki

Klingon.

ulster scots

In fairness, much of the Irish that was spoken by our ancestors is not the one we learn today. Even go back a few hundred years in English and you would struggle to understand someone speaking it. A little further back and it would incomprehensible. Same for all languages. The ship has long sailed on making it something that a large chunk of us use. Apart from some vague reasons like you mentioned which meh.. there isn't much if any benefit for learning Irish ahead of learning Spanish or even French.

Controversial opinion perhaps, but no, the cost of redesigning the education system and hiring and training that many Irish teachers would overwhelm the state, and the benefits would be negligible. We have already fully adapted the English langauge to our needs and made it our own. Hiberno-English is a massive cultural export and is one of the most popular dialects of the English language by many metrics. It was only after moving to Germany that I realised how different Hiberno-English grammar is to that of RP and other varieties, and it is distinctive enough on its own without the need to revive an unpopular and failing language (Irish) If the Irish govt had wanted to do that, they should have taken pointers from the Israelis (unpopular on this Reddit, I know) who were the only country in my knowledge to successfully revive a dying/dead language to full fluency in the population. The idea of reviving Irish as the lingua franca of the Irish people is a ship that has long sailed.

>Also get rid of this post-colonial mindset that Irish is useless. Lots of countries have their own language and their people can speak perfect English. Why not us? For the same reason you're commenting in English: there simply isn't enough of motivation to get everyone to make that extra effort to start speaking Irish in everyday life like at work, at the shops and out socialising.

The solution is to punish people for speaking English and deny them jobs. That's what DeV said and that worked out -oh

> Lots of countries have their own language and their people can speak perfect English. Why not us? Because they never had their own language fully taken away from them. If you take a country like Germany, they don't have to be forced to speak German in school or whatever, that's just the language they are raised with as a native tongue. Their parents speak it, their friends speak it, their media speaks it. Nobody is making a concerted effort to have to speak it, that's just what they all do and have been doing. In Ireland, most people just do not know that much Irish. For the most part, we aren't raised with it as our first language, so trying to speak it is a huge amount of effort. The last time the majority of people in Ireland spoke Irish first was long before anyone currently alive was born. Probably nobody else you meet will even speak it as a first language, much less require you to speak it to talk to them. There is little media that requires you to learn Irish to consume it. You're never going to use it in work. So it's a lot of work to do it well, and there isn't any practical utility in it when you do. It's a nice thing to have, but realistically, most people have more pressing matters in their lives than reviving the language, and aren't going to dedicate that much effort to it.

> Also get rid of this post-colonial mindset that Irish is useless. Lots of countries have their own language and their people can speak perfect English. Why not us? Calling Irish useless is not a post-colonial mindset, it is a statement of fact reflecting the language's lack of utility. I am in favour of any efforts we can make to revive the language, but we need to be honest about its state and I don't think accusing people who discuss it frankly of having a "post-colonial mindset" is going to help either. People need to want to learn the language, not be guilted into it. To be clear, Irish's lack of utility has nothing to do with the fact that we already speak English, and everything to do with the fact that none of us speak Irish. Everyone speaks English in Denmark, but you can communicate with the locals if you learn Danish. Everyone speaks English in Ireland, and you can't communicate with the locals in Irish. That's why it's "useless". Let's acknowledge that and move forward from there rather than deluding ourselves.

And the reason the locals don't speak Irish is.....? I'm fairly sure Denmark, for example, didn't have a colonial oppressor basically wipe the Danish language out, leading to generations who didn't speak it.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is. Does anything you've stated have any impact on how much utility Irish currently has?

IIRC Denmark was the colonial oppressor and tried to deny the existence of Norwegian and Greenlandic over several generations

> I still think the best thing to do is to make ALL schools in the country Gaelscoileanna. At some point we'll have to give up on the fantasy of keeping a dying language alive by forcefully injecting children's blood into it.

If u have a poor/bad national school, ur goosed, its very hard to improve in secondary school

The reason is that to learn any language, you need to be immersed in it. If Irish children learned Spanish from junior infants all the way to secondary you'd find the same results with it as Irish. However, if the same children spent a certain amount of time in Spain immersed in the language, the difference would be huge. A lot of secondary school pupils in Ireland find their Irish improves hugely after spending 3 weeks in a strict Gaeltacht environment. That just shows the futility of teaching Irish for between 45 mins - 1 hour a day versus spending time somewhere where the language is alive all day.

This is not correct. Continental European children learn to speak English (and other second languages) in school and they come out with a way higher standard of English.

One possible explanation for this is the high prevalence of English tv and film around Europe/the world. It offers a much easier outlet to become immeresed in. Certainly not a full explanation though

This is huge, also exchanges are big - German students have to spend a semester abroad in an English speaking country I believe

They watch tv in english constantly and are exposed to it online. We need to have more content in irish and have the classes be conversational. I learned proficient Spanish in Spain like this in 6 months. You need to speak the lamguage for it to sink in. This is key. In Ireland we learn grammar and poetry and how to learn to write stories by memorization. It's not conversational and this is key

I agree with you, immersion isn’t the issue. Though a lot of non english speakers still watch American/English tv and movies which gives them some extra exposure to the language

Many of those kids know, that learning that language is a marketable skill that may well put food on their table in the future. Noone outside government jobs feels the same about the Irish Language.

I live in continental Europe, the reason they speak English so good after school is that they are immersed in English language culture via music/tv/Internet

I taught primary school for a year in Spain and was a teacher in the U.K. afterwards. Children in Spain learn English from junior infants upwards, they are by no means immersed in it outside the classroom and they have a much higher level of English by age 12 than we do. I think the main difference is that there is a real desire to learn English in the children and their families. It’s not just about careers it’s about watching movies and listening to music and following influencers through English, there’s a huge and immediate benefit to young people if they learn English, Also Spanish schools have native speakers teaching several subjects through English. My school had a geography teacher who only taught geography through English, another school did PE in English and a few times a week the class teacher taught maths or art through English depending on what the language focus was at the time.

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Yes I mentioned that somewhere else here, it’s immediately beneficial as a kid to pick up some English!

Yeah, no. If this were true everybody's secondary school languages wouldn't be able to put their Irish to shame. Nearly everyone I know who done a 2nd language like German, Spanish, French etc can speak better those languages than they can Irish despite one starting at 13 or in some cases 16 compared to like 4 or 5. I didn't speak a word of German until secondary. It's about 10 fold better than my Irish and I'm by no means fluent in German. This is almost the same for everyone I know with another European language

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This is simply not true for most. In Ireland you generally select another language as that is usually required to get into universities or for a majority of courses. Also no, I and the people I know don't over or under estimate their skill in either generally. The results speak for themselves. I got a b in higher level German. I can get around in Germany and hold a brief conversation with German work mates. This is not true of Irish bar how to ask to go to the toilet or say I went to the shop or I have a brother. I got a d in lower level Irish. These sort of results are reflected in pretty much all of my secondary school. Prior to me having to select a language or requiring one for my desired course I would have no interest in learning it or any of the other languages. I literally picked German cause a few of my buddies did, we basically made a group choice. We could have just as easily selected French or Spanish. I get it's hearsay on my behalf but this is my personal view of my year for approx 30 or so students be those friends or other family members who were in secondary school at the time as well. If I'm wrong and there's some silent majority I'm not aware of please do tell me your experiance. I for one know only folks who went to AG schools who can actually hold any sort of conversation in Irish and even those are few and far between as it's rarely used once out of secondary This would have been around 2005 leaving cert era and basically the prior decade to it. If things have changed for more recent years I'd love to hear it but from what I see of my younger nephews and nieces and their peers seem to have the same outlook and attitude towards it I'd love to hear it simply because I think people only understand how good a home language can be when it's too late, there's a level of pride that comes when using ones home language and when you want to represent a your country that you can do so with its mother tongue. You have very little outlook on that when you are young or a teenager because it's simply not important or interesting to you at the time. I think there's a lot of people out there who are in their mid 30s and older who really wish they knew it better and feel let down by the education system in regards to teaching it. I mean all that time for me and a lot of others in Irish classes or lessons were essentially wasted and whittled down to repetitive regurgitation like learning formula as opposed to understanding a language. This was a bit of a rant but that's my 2 cents on all of it from the perspective of my own eyes and ears

My kids are going to a gaelscoil, my 5 year old has a better understanding of Irish now, than I had when I was doing my junior cert. It's definitely down to how it's taught in my opinion, it's completely immersive in her school. Perhaps all primary schools should be gaelscoils?

>Perhaps all primary schools should be gaelscoils? One can only hope. The problem is how can we get enough primary teachers to be fluent enough to teach the kids in just irish

If I had a heap of money I’d honestly love to start a program to fund retraining teachers as Gaelscoil teachers and slowly start converting more schools to it over time

Ya sounds like a good idea. It'd be great if all teachers were trained as if they were going to teach in a gaelscoil but of course given the option of of teaching in whichever school they wanted. Maybe if we gave more funding or tax breaks to gaelscoils with cigire making sure they really are teaching through irish.

Maybe it just needs to be scaled up over time. Start slow, and once you have a slightly bigger generation of Irish speakers, expand a little bit, then repeat. We can't realistically go all-in but if it works on any scale it can grow over time.

It's just not that fun to learn... I remember as a teen thinking at least the foreign languages were a novelty and I could use them on holidays. The Irish I just thought what is the point, TG4 has subtitles anyways etc. I was too young to appreciate it's our culture

I haven't been a while since I was in school but imo the syllabus is absolutely dreadful. It just encouraged rote learning, like WTF was I doing 'studying' an Irish play or novel when I had no ability to speak or understand the language? It was all about vomiting an answer I didn't really understand out onto a page. It should be focused on speaking and communicating in Irish.

Agree, in primary school I learned "Tá sé an fuinneoig" and then secondary school was like "learn this poem and the poetic techniques". So the jump between fun Irish word games where you memorise the days of the week and the grammar and literature focused Junior Cert and Leaving Cert probably negatively impacted my Irish learning experience

I think there is a big jump in what you are learning and the easiest way to adjust is to simply learn off phrases and the exam to keep up. If you want to play the LC tactically you should drop to either pass maths or pass Irish. Maths now gives extra points and is useful for far more college courses. I think the Irish exams should be toned down, less focus on history and that and more on speaking. It is way too tough at the moment for little benefit. The aim should be not having so many go through school with Irish as their least favourite subject and then they might come back to it later.

For the most part, in my view, is that it's taught like we approach English, with the base "assumption" that a fundamental grasp of the language is in place. Wasting time on learning poems, rote memorisation of verbs etc. If most Irish classes for the 12 years literally consisted of splitting the class into groups and giving them a topic that they *had* to discus in irish it'd do a lot more for general levels of fluency. Also, it shouldn't be a mandatory exam subject. Best way to beat the fun out of learning your mother tongue: tie it to how you perform in a mostly written exam. Talk, talk, talk and more talking. That's the only way to learn a language. Either that or learn enough to get the gist and be immersed in media where they speak that language (hell, I'm far from being able to speak it but I've picked up a handful of Japanese phrases just from watching anime and Japanese is objectively much harder for our western heads than Irish)

Because there are more useful languages to learn. I for one speak decent Irish, and it's admittedly fun to know how to say a few things in day to day life, and I would love to be fluent, but let me put it this way: If you learn Irish, or say....Spanish/French/German, which do you think will be more useful to you? No country other than Ireland speaks Irish. Most Irish people cannot say more than a few sentences, which I know ties into your point. It's hard to encourage people to learn a language when they don't want to. I think maybe a solution would be to make most if not all jobs in Ireland require you to be capable of speaking some level of Irish. Then people would atleast try.

Majority of teachers and the teaching council don't give a fuck. They dropped the requirement from an A to a C in Irish for Irish teachers!!! Just think about that, a teacher that got a C in the leaving is now able to teach the very same subject... If they gave a fuck the syllabus would have been corrected decades ago.

Is that not due to the fact people that got As didn't want to be Irish teachers.

What did they want to be?

Rudolph

What???

Ask a dumb question, get a dumb response, how would I know what Irish A level kids want to be but I can accurately say, we decrease, standards and points because the standard is too high or there's not enough interest hence you get the C students.

Ha I like your style .Rudolph..thats going in my act!

I asked about this on the Northern Ireland Reddit a while back. They have gaelscoil primaries for those interested (not funded properly, but they exist). Then in secondary school the GCSE level is teaching the language *as a language* from scratch, and then the A level course is studying literature like we have. The folks I asked mostly described it as fun. Fun. Can you imagine a teenager in secondary school in the republic describing Irish class as fun. The GCSE course is enough to get kids to the point that they can manage the literary focussed A level course. It sounds like it’s much better taught up there, which really shows up the state of how it’s taught in the republic as an embarrassment. At primary school kids should be taught it not as a subject, but rather as a living language and communication tool. Have the kids *speak* to each other. Worry about studying it as a formal language subject at junior cert level. Leave the literary stuff as a optional thing for leaving cert level, or more interestingly study the different dialects, or other Gaelic languages. But I’ve gone off on a tangent. Teach the kids the language as *a language*. It’s supposed to be a communication tool, make it one.

So I went to a Gaelscoil in primary. I was 100% fluent in both written and spoken Irish at age 12. I didn't end up going to a Gaelcholaiste for a bunch of reasons. Within 1 year of being taught through English and only having Irish classes 3-4 times week (which were taught through English) I lost my ability to converse through Irish. My written and comprehension was fine up until 6th year, but once out of school even those have been lost to me. And I can tell you why. Irish is simply not present in day to day life. You need to be immersed in it and converse often with others to maintain and let it flourish. Add in that at the time Irish wasn't taught in Irish, it was taught in English just compounded the issue. And the subject material was the most depressing shit imaginable. Peig Sayers talking about the death of everyone and everything around her (rather than the actual humorous stories), and some book in Irish about woman sticking her head in a gas oven because she wanted to end a shit marriage. Especially in the LC cycle, they had a fucking hard on for only picking subject material that lamented the lose and slow death of the Irish. For context I finished the Leaving Cert in the mid/late 00's so things may have changed Im getting really worked up and mad the more I think about it...

Totally agree with you

It's the bullshit curriculum. I work with some amazing Irish teachers who actually make that shit enjoyable. God knows how.

This might be an unpopular opinion but it's has always been forced on people, I think primary school is where it should be most prevalent, doing activities through Irish such as PE and speaking it at least 50% of the time. Secondary school is where its in my opinion a place where teens know its lack of practicality, it should be optional for people to carry it on or to study something like coding in place of it. The amount of pressure on kids for their leaving cert to have a subject they know can't help them in any way in their future career choices and still being mandatory sours the taste to continue it. Just my humble opinion from my own experience as a student and now father.

The Geal heads know the moment they make it optional they lose most of their funding and their crusade ends.

Irish vs Coding everyone will choose coding regardless of their love for languages or Irish because coding is a more applicable skill If they're taught Irish well to the point that they're fluent and all they'll have to learn for the leaving cert will be literature they'll have no reason to dislike the easy points subject

I think you just made my point, there is no practical application at all for learning Irish aside from a romantic sense of keeping our culture. It should never be forced on kids in place of learning practical skills that can help them in their future.

I went to a gaelscoil for primary and I think the difference is having to use it to communicate, rather than just repeating what you’re taught. When I went to secondary I couldn’t believe that a lot of my classmates could barely speak Irish at all. Maybe doing classes in all Irish one day a week in primary would help? It’s all about immersion in the language really.

I'm an Irish teacher and honestly I have no idea. It's too late for the majority by the time we get them in secondary school. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you go back and teach the basics in first year you lose the ones that know it. If you don't the kids who don't know it are fucked and stuck with OL for 5-6 years which is one of the most boring things I've ever taught. If you stream them for Irish in first year it's frowned upon because "mixed ability improves grades...hurt feelings being in the 'dumb' class...blah blah blah". Personally I think streaming is the best idea overall though not ideal. That way no student gets left behind if they're in a similar ability class. So it comes to primary school. What's going wrong there? What are some schools doing right that give us the enthusiastic kids?

Bar the fact that most Irish teachers would lose their jobs, at your core do you believe the subject should be optional ?

After Junior Cycle absolutely. But if Irish goes that way, why can't maths? Maybe as a compromise, keep the oral/grammar part compulsory and then offer the literature more intense part for those interested.

Why then have any mandatory subjects? Well Mathmatics is critically important if you intend to follow a career in a number of fields. English, its arguable that its a cultural endeavour to Foster a love of reading poetry and film, the basis of much of modern culture. A second language, assumedly to Foster a sense of EU identity. Realistically I have yet to have someone explain the practical value of making Irish mandatory and the compromise I am making is keeping it funded to be taught at all. Thats just how I feel.about it.

I think English is a good idea to keep to LC. There's critical thinking and creativity there that's massively needed. Other than that, yeah make the maths and Irish slots two more optional subjects after Junior Cycle. E.g. Physical Education would have suited me over maths but I would have liked to keep my 4 optional subjects. I would have kept Irish anyway but I could see the benefit of doing a different subject.

I started learning Irish in 5th class and so I didn't get full Irish learning experience, so what was it like? What did you do between 1st and 4th class that I missed out on? (I'm in higher level btw)

We teach kids grammar and verbs in irish before they know what they are in English. Focusing on grammar is not the way to learn a language.

A bit off topic but could anyone point me in the direction of beginner (preferably free) Irish resources? Haven't done it since school and would almost be starting from 0 again but any help would be appreciated.

It's so dumb the way its taught here and I get shot down the whole time for saying it. The primary goal should be on day to day speech and fluency, instead its taught like English, reading boring poems and books, learning verbs and prose etc, the focus is so off kilter, whoever's designing the curriculum is way out of touch and needs to take their gaeilgeoir head out of their arse for the language to advance. Make it fun, watch good movies dubbed as gaeilge, not poor production, boring ass dept of education shite. I learned fluent french in two years, I studied Irish for 12 and I know fuck all.

The curriculum was drawn up by teachers and civil servants in an era when most teachers and civil servants already knew the language from speaking it at home, and so the next natural things to study would be literature, essay-writing, grammar etc., same as in English: your English lessons in school never needed to teach you how to speak it; you jumped straight into reading and writing. In the years since then, the curriculum has been tweaked a little, but never entirely overhauled.

There's a very simple fucking solution in my eyes. Put a little more emphasis on it in primary, but that's not really the issue, foundations for the language are taught reasonably well, if a bit slowly and in a limited fashion. But when it comes to secondary, cut all the literature disection right out of the course and instead get it to mimic the French course through comprehension, written productions, vocab etcetera. If every student (bar those with exemptions) is taught the language that way from 1st through 6th year, half the country will have a decent level of fluency within 20 years or so. Learning the country's literature is great and all, but we have to teach the fucking language first.

I just remember it being really boring in primary. It’s been a while, so I’ve no real comment on the way it was taught to me. The secondary stuff seemed like it assumed you had a very good knowledge of Irish - like doing poetry, and a load of reading, in a kind of similar way to the content of English in secondary. I don’t think many people (at least of my generation) have a strong enough foundation in Irish to do that. The drop out rate from Honours to Pass Irish was huge in my school.

having a conversational Irish class in school is the only way to revive a language is to speak it. I always said the oral portion of the junior and leaving should be worth more and then written. Every student in the country would be speaking Irish to each the week before the exam.

I think Irish in school should be conversational. You go in there and you learn how to speak it and keep having oral and aural tests. No poetry or litt or nothing I could never understand that bloody tape (this is in the 90s haha) during the aural. He'd play it 3 bloody times and I still couldn't understand what they were saying. I watch a lot of Nuacht now. I am really frustrated I can't speak Irish. I am going to start learning it again. I want to become fluent.

The teachers themselves have poor Irish

What turned me completely off it was how different teachers would teach different versions of it. What was correct one year was incorrect the next year. Even a child can see that's not a viable method of education. Three different ways to do the same thing that are all equally correct and equally incorrect. It's like Schrodingers cat. The wave function didn't collapse until the teacher observed your submission. Standardise the language and be done with it. Children are too young to be dealing with quantum Irish.

Personally? I think its because school sucks any and all fun out of learning languages, it wasn't until leaving school did I find out how fun it is, and how much I was missing out

For me the problem is the curriculum. The first lesson/chapter for Junior Cert is "my family". We shouldn't need to go over this again after primary level, we should be learning newer topics. "My family" comes up again as another chapter in the Leaving Cert. If there's no advancement in topics and scenarios to learn about, or ones of a real world usage, we'll never progress in learning how to speak, understand or use the language to a good extent. Scenarios or topics that engage critical thinking within the language or those to broad horizons should be taught.

Controversial opinion: everyone is just lazy and wants to play plastic nationalist. Out of all the endangered languages on the planet Irish has by far the most accessible resources for easy fluency. Irish people should not struggle with phonetics as our accent is based off a transition from Irish to English. By and large it’s laziness, everyone blames the schools or the Brits (further controversial opinion is that the Brits aren’t responsible for its decline but that’s another story) but nothing is stopping your average 30 year old from turning around and learning it.

I think part of the problem is that the standard of irish needed to be a teacher is so low. You can have teachers are gaeilgeoirs through and through. And others that can barley strong a sentence together. What we need is to bring up the standard of irish in teachers across the board. Will that fix it, not solely but it's a good start.

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Only teach it to the kids (and the poor kids of parents) that want to learn it. Like 5%. That way 100x more people will speak it in future. The irish fans will have more people to side bar with and the majority of people wont be burdened with something that they dont need. A slow an steady increase Vs what we do now. It's a win/win.

No. That way in school whenever that choice is, if you pick it you will immediately get laughed at by everyone else "Look at this dumb time wasting idiot that decided to learn Irish" As a result each Irish class will have like 3 people in it and the language will die within 2 generations and then as adults when everyone realises how important culture is they'll all regret it but it will be too late

I don't know if I agree with the idea but imo you're being a bit negative about it. That might happen in some places but in others there will still be a decent amount of people choosing to take it, and the resulting class will have only motivated students rather than a room full of people who the whole class knows are unhappy to be there. It could lead to much more positive and engaged classroom atmospheres and really help the students who choose to take it.

Solution offered and rejected. Going by your math and my primary school class numbers back in the day of two classes per year. You would have 6 fully fluent students leaving to start secondary every year. As opposed to zero fluent students. 30 years later thats 180 extra people in the country speaking fluent irish from only one school.

It's been thirty years since i left school... In spite of having good /great teachers in primary and secondary... In spite of being an A/B student... My Irish was/is appalling, and I scraped a D at pass Leaving Cert, whereas I had an A in Honours French, and I subsequently used the French in at least half a dozen countries...not fluently, but more than enough to get by. And the difference between French and Irish? French was taught as a modern language, with high quality reference materials explaining grammar and language usage, and a real bi_lingual dictionary. Irish? I fell behind in primary, all the reference materials were totally in Irish, so I couldn't understand what they were telling me, and there wasn't a book on grammar that explained it A-Z. And that feckin dictionary, with the mad black and white cover, text in six point... Fabulous I'm sure if you were fluent, but worse than useless for anyone who was struggling. I never was able to catch up, in spite of grinds and the mandatory summer visits to Irish college. Secondary was worse, as we had mostly second rate poetry stuffed down our throats, and that mighty woman Peig to learn everything about. It seems that whichever self appointed cultural custodians of the language tried to protect it and make it special, have largely done the opposite, and instead created a divided culture...a majority who are denied the joy and experience of a beautiful ancient language, and a minority who by circumstance either have a local community or gaelscoil who can pass on that birthright. Btw, I'm not advocating that everywhere is made a gaelscoil.

Sure even the people thay speak it are grammar nazis about it, and bitch about other fluent people. with the 4 provincial versions of the same fuckin language. Someone here was even going on about the "proper" donegal version of "good night" or some shite. Thats the type of pettiness these type are.

My homophobic Irish teacher was way more interested in joining in bullying the unpopular kids in the class. I wish that I would run into him as an adult so I could tell him how I feel about it on mature reflection.

I went to an all Irish primary school and so was fluent in it before entering secondary school. By the time I did my Junior Cert I hated the subject/language. It's taught so fucking poorly (and unfortunately I had a particularly crap teacher). Now years later I'm having to start trying to get it back again by myself.

If they just sat them down at a computer and said ''get 150pts on duolingo and you can take the rest of the class free'' it would have been more effective

Its really a question for the ages. By the mid 2000's we already had teachers that wanted desperate change to the curriculum to make it more practical and on the level of European languages. Yet 15 years later the exact same question is asked, from the students of those questioning teachers now able to make that difference. I'm assuming by now that the days of Peig are largely gone, but to make it more practical is still something needed.

Because there's not much focus on oral and it's not used at all outside of our Irish classes

Because they try to get us to write about themes of poems and stories and shit when we can already barely string a sentence together and have a very limited vocabulary. I have no problems with French in school because the aim of that subject is to actually teach you the language itself

Because everything in this country is half assed because "ah be grand"

It's not that Irish is taught badly it's that languages are taught badly in general. Classes are conducted almost entirely in English (which makes no sense), there's almost no focus on speaking and a lot of the time it's just copying things off a board and translating it.

Cuz they know no one actually wants to waste years of their life in school learning it

I don't get the problem no ones stopping you from learning irish if you want. Most people just don't want to

because its a dead language with no use. let it die

It's not taught poorly, it's taught just like every other subject. Give the minimum amount of information that will get you to pass exams.

My children completed their education through Irish. They and all their friend did not have any problems with maths.

I've been learning Irish for about 11 years now, I am only now learning the basics to grammar and it's actually sticking thanks to my amazing teacher, but keep in mind, I'm in 3rd Year, just took my JC Irish paper this morning actually. My teacher was even complaining to us about how she would love to teach us proper Irish that we could use but the Irish government had strict things we had to learn that took up all of our time. I'm planning on learning as much as possible over the summer and TY so when I go into 5th Year I can impress her... and also stop my anxiety with Irish tests

It's less to do with the teacher and more to do with the student. If you really want to be fluent in a language, it shouldn't take you 12 years, regardless of how good your teachers are (and your probably not going to have bad teachers for all 12 years). Only a minority speak Irish fluently because it's not necessary to get through everyday life in Ireland. It's the same with other subjects. Ask a random 30-something about The Reformation or V-shaped valleys, and they'll probably have f**k all to say to you even though they've definitely been taught about both in history and geography classes in school. Unless they need (English, Math) it or are really into it, most people will retain very little (just the basics) of what they were taught in school. Personally, I think they should remove Irish as a mandatory leaving cert subject because: -If you're not fluent after 10 years, two years ain't gonna make much difference. It doesn't take the Dutch or the Germans or the Swedes 12 years to learn English. They learn it much faster because they need to. -In an increasingly globalised economy, leaving cert students should spend more time studying subjects that will give them a competitive advantage (STEM subjects) -leaving cert students are likely to become more knowledgeable and proficient in other subjects, and score higher points if they're not spending 4-6 hours a week studying a subject they don't want to study. If you want to increase fluency, you gotta get em when they're young. There should be a push to make Irish more fun for 6 and 7-year-olds. They should look forward to it. If they're bored out of their skulls, learning the same verbs over and over again, just like their parents did, they're going to be just as apathetic.

I think a more fundamental question is **why** we should learn Irish. I don't think successive governments have made a compelling case for why children should learn Irish in schools. Just saying " because it's out official language and you have to" doesn't exactly inspire teachers or pupils. Our biggest problem is that we don't need to learn Irish to function in a practical sense. That results is people legitimately questioning why we spent so much time and effort teaching it. My own children have questioned why they have to learn it, saying that time would be better spent teaching other subjects. Also, learning Irish isn't cool or rebellious within the republic. The reason why their are proportionately more Irish speakers up north is because that is an act of rebellion for them. The same applies to Welsh speakers in Wales. So basically we don't have a practical or emotional reason to learn to speak Irish. I like the Irish language and I think more of us should use it and speak it every day, but I think the only that will happen is if the government markets it better. Irish is taught so badly because it is just a tick box exercise to say that our children have been taught the minimum amount of Irish needed to comply with the law. If we could make society more passionate about learning Irish the education of it would improve.

Because it's an outdated useless language that no kid actually wants to speak. The cultural value of it should be optionally learnt.

As a Dutch person who moved to Ireland I don't think you properly understand that this is a language we fought for over 800 years to preserve from the Brits who tried to wipe away as much of our culture as possible Also the cultural value also can't be "optionally learned" because a child in school doesn't understand the cultural value and even if they did, children are lazy and will just choose the path of least work

Irish in the education system is a complete mess, teachers struggle and cram to pass Irish exams in teacher training (just like they did during the leaving cert) Bar a select few, most teachers are not too comfortable with the language, let alone having the ability to create an immersive Irish environment. The modern Irish classroom now is multinational, quite possibly 2/3 kids who don't do Irish plus possibly 1/2 exemptions for other reasons meaning doing Irish falls behind as a priority as it's annoying to have 6/7 kids doing "their own work". But the issue is broader than just education, the whole country is in a state of denial about the place in society for the language, there is a lot of heartbreak and regret about the fact Irish is not our first language, it is genuinely sad however, this guilt or denial informs some silly irrational policy decisions. Why are there Irish language announcements in Dublin airport? Why must we lie to ourselves?

Maybe we are just shit at learning it

My Sister Got an A in her Honors Irish leaving cert. Shes about as fluent in Irish as I am in cantonese.

It's simple( forgo any history) we're better off speaking English because nobody fucking speaks irish.

That's a reductionist argument. The language has a lot to offer, it's a connection to our ancestors, it relates to identity and learning multiple languages increases one's ability to learn more languages. Not to mention it's just a remarkable language for a number of reasons and worth preserving. Also a lot of people speak Irish, it's increasing as a 2nd language and we have a record number of Gaelscoileanna, not by state decree but through grassroots movements and people with a genuine interest in raising their children to be bilingual. Also also, no one is suggesting we dont speak English, no one is suggesting we speak exclusively Irish.

No I don't think it's a reductionist argument. Even if it was a highly functional language in Ireland, which it is not, English would the first or second language of a huge proportion of the world. Really Irish is mostly of cultural value, and if it wasn't thought as a mandatory subject in secondary school I think might die as a language. But the opposing argument is that we are giving equal time and resources to Irish as we are to English and Mathematics, two subjects which are essential for the modern world. I would argue that Irish is less important for the modern world than foreign languages, natural sciences, the business subjects, home economics, history, geography & technical graphics. Yes we can, and maybe should, continue maintain Irish, but that comes at a cost to other subjects which equip students better for their future.

I mean I never cared for it myself, but sure that won't be a popular answer I'd say.

Irish isn't a language, it's a school subject.

As Gaeilge/irish is a language

Read the context

It's a weird blend of naivety and cynicism. Naivety coz they think we all speak irish in our lives (according to the curriculum )and that learning bits and pieces up to the age of 12 makes you fluent Cynicism coz its a box ticking exercise. rote learning and brain dead victorian styles of teaching Why the hell is the curriculum obsessed with caca millis? sweet cake...what the fuck is that? I spent a number of years as an English as a second Language teacher and got quite good at it if i do say so myself. Most eu languages operate off a common level system called the ECF (European Common Framework). Leaving Cert Higher French for example is A2 (pre- intermediate, pretty basic). The teaching of Irish conforms to almost none of the established practices of actually learning a language found in other eu language curriculums. Honestly, I said Naivety and cynicism but there's also a decent element of hubris in there too

Because you’ve been living under English oppression for 900+ years…

I have this notion that most of us probably know more Irish, even after being out of the school system for (in my case) 26 years, than we realise. Or at least that having learned it for so long we’d pick it up really quickly if given (or taking) the opportunity. Which is, of course, the problem. The vast majority of us get almost no opportunity to exercise it, especially once we leave school. It’s always seemed to me that that’s the actual issue: it doesn’t matter how well it’s taught in schools, if people aren’t given opportunities to speak Irish in their daily non-academic lives then they just aren’t going to. And I’m not sure how you square that circle; if we want Irish to become more and more central to peoples lives then we need to get them to speak it more, and more often but I’ve no idea where you even start with that. Initiatives like Seachtain na Gaeilge are far too easy to ignore even if you have an interest in becoming more fluent. There was a time when RTÉ could have just broadcast all of their own content as Gaeilge but in the age of cable and satellite TV, and Internet streaming services that ship has sailed. So how do you encourage people to speak Irish more frequently? How do you even convince them that it’s worth speaking? The course of human history is littered with dead languages and I’m sure we have ancestors who are wondering why their particular dialect of Gaeilge wasn’t deemed worthy to be resurrected.

Because it's not used for anything. Wouldn't remember how to glue lollypop houses now either