The Republic of Ireland should consider rejoining the Commonwealth as Britain celebrates the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party said.

Her visit to Dublin and Cork last year suggested a new relationship between the two states, Tom Elliott added.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to know if FG have decided to abandon their pre-election promise of making Irish optional. I am not interested in hearing about aspirations to ‘teach it better’ but simply would like to know if you intend continuing the policy of compulsory Irish for Leaving Cert or more precisely have you done a U-turn after pressure was brought to bear from vested interests who benefit from the current arrangements. Where does FG stand on this?

Thanks and regards,

Robin Bury,
The Reform Group.

The race for the Áras

Sir, – Gay Mitchell’s comment that he “would be positively disposed towards Ireland joining the Commonwealth if that was the price of a united Ireland” (Home News report on debate hosted by Today FM and The Last Word presenter Matt Cooper, October 12th) raises an important point.

If and when the European project collapses or fragments, Ireland could find itself isolated internationally. The country would need to strengthen its links with our closest neighbours – Britain and Northern Ireland – and with the members of the Commonwealth, which contains a huge and growing Irish Diaspora and with whom we already have deep economic, political and cultural links.

In that context it would certainly be advantageous to have a president open to the idea of Irish membership of the Commonwealth. – Yours, etc,

Prof GEOFFREY ROBERTS,

Head of the School of History,

University College Cork,

Cork.

> Read more

I wrote a letter on September 23, suggesting people be allowed to pay an ‘indulgence’ to free their child from compulsory Irish. This money could be used to satisfy the special interests that forced the FG U-turn on making Irish optional.

> Read more

Choice in Irish Facebook Page

The Irish News – 3 October 2011

As I drove to the 4th McCluskey Civil Rights Summer School at Carlingford County Louth recently, I felt a warm sense of coming home. Louth is where my family have lived for centuries.

The last time I felt like this was at Londonderry as I presented a programme “Looking for Lundy”. Stories of the famous Siege and Lundy the scapegoat were among my earliest memories.

During the 1930s my grandfather, the best glazier in Ireland, worked on Guildhall windows. Using off-cuts from the stained glass he created a colourful glass picture exhibiting various Orange symbols which remains in the Apprentice Boys Museum.

My ancestors were said to survive the Siege by eating cats and dogs. In truth however they were Royalists who fought for King James at the Boyne. If they were at Derry in 1688, they were among the besiegers.

My Garland forebears settled near Dundalk perhaps by the 12th century. Their surname in Norman/French was spelt Gernon but both versions were used alternatively over many centuries.

For a decade during the 1990s Dundalk local historian, Alphie Reilly helped research my family roots there. The surname remains on road signs for Castlebellingham as Baile an Ghearlánaigh (Garlandstown).

Dundalk historian Dr Harold O’Sullivan explained their sense of identity saying they were proud of their English ancestry and played a significant role in the development of modern Ireland.

Often however they appeared on different sides during various conflicts. By the 17th century along with other Old English families, they joined forces with the Irish to save their lands.

In 1645 Father Anthony Gearnon/Garland published a catechism and prayer book in Irish Gaelic: Parrthas An Anma (Paradise of the Soul). Irish Catholics lacked such religious material in the Irish language.

By the late 17th century the young sole heiress of Milltown Garlands, Margaret Gernon, eloped with William Fortescue a Williamite who, while fighting at Bandon County Cork, was captured. Margaret and her children were then evicted from their Dromiskin home.

In a strange irony some of Margaret’s descendants became intimately associated with the 18th century Protestant Ascendancy. But my branch had moved to Monaghan in 1591 where two centuries later, they helped form the Orange Order.

These Irish/British traditions are so firmly embedded in my life that I resent the description “West Brit”, that implies that my family is not truly Irish. As a unionist and member of the Dublin based Reform Group, I feel unashamedly Irish and British but find the term “West Brit” is insulting.

The Irish dimension is for us as inextricable as the British dimension. Neither can be obliterated because the people of these islands have been too closely intertwined for too long.

Some say Hitler had Jewish blood in his veins which may explain his hatred for Jewish people. Patrick Pearse’s father was English which may help explain his antipathy to things British.

But instead of trying to accomplish the impossible by driving out our inherent complexity, we ought to embrace all comers and be enriched by doing so.

Martin McGuinness may have contributed more to peace than many unionists but Republicans are an intrinsic part of the equation that reproduces bigotry and intransigence.

I was once Worshipful Master of an Orange Lodge that displayed its title in Irish Oidhreacht na hÉireann and English “Ireland’s Heritage LOL”. Surely one’s family cannot live on this island for nearly a millennium yet be denigrated as “West Brits”. That would be incredibly short sighted.

Old English Catholics were part of the reality of Irish life and so were many of the New English. If this diversity cannot be welcomed and accommodated it might yet return to haunt us by becoming a major stumbling block. It already gives a spurious legitimacy to Dissidents who condemn us just for being what we are.

Fifteen years ago I addressed Republicans at Camlough South Armagh. I faced antagonism from some in an audience that included Basque Separatists. But Sinn Fein’s Alex Maskey intervened by saying I had engaged with Sinn Fein when no one else would do so. He also recalled Loyalists insisting that they are “the Brits”. Republicans had stopped using the offensive slogan.

To seek to unite people or to cherish unionists while denigrating those one proposes to unite with is a contradiction in terms. To scapegoat the remnant of a once proud tradition as “West Brits”, reinforces the alienation that already exists. Such talk may provide spurious comfort blankets in the short term but at the expense of a better, happier and more inclusive future for us all.

The Irish News – 12 September 2011

Veteran republican and writer Eoghan Harris gave an oration honouring Liam Lynch, anti-Treaty IRA Chief of Staff, yesterday. In 1922 while walking beside Eamon De Valera, Lynch asked how Tom Clark might have viewed events. De Valera replied, “Tom Clarke is dead. Our problems are our own”. The following year Lynch died of wounds inflicted by Irish State Forces.

Harris agrees that the problems are our own. He added that it’s time to “forget fantasies” and speak truth. Liam Lynch demonstrated his humanity by his benign treatment of captured RIC and British soldiers. But being human he could be wrong. He defied the Treaty militarily and failed to walk away from Civil War.

Harris challenges Republicans to acknowledge that the real problem is their failure to foster meaningful relationships with Ulster Protestants and unionists who were instead vilified because of their legitimate fears of a repressive church-dominated state.

Unionists certainly behaved badly which contributed to the bitter legacy. But whereas Wolfe Tone sought unity between Irish people many Protestants were driven from the land of their birth or left cowering in silence and could take no consolation from those supposedly honouring Tone’s legacy.

Eoghan Harris’s “good authority” argument, like charity, begins at home. Only when we can critique our own can we be taken seriously. Faithful Bible prophets told their people truths they did not wish to hear.

In contrast false prophets tell people what they want to hear. Politicians are especially prone to appealing to lowest common denominators. Their profession should be approached with caution given their temptation to prey on the insecurities that haunt their electorates.

Rarely are they able to rise above this tendency lest they face vilification or indeed crucifixion. But someone has to tell it like it is. An old hymn says, “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide; In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side”. This does not claim that our side is good and others bad. It explains that “to side with truth is noble” but only “when we share her wretched crust”. Honesty may be the best policy but if it is only a policy, it is not honesty. The hymn suggests the reward for truth telling may be the scaffold but “that scaffold sways the future”.

Republicans must accept responsibility for much murder and mayhem since 1916. Gusty Spence, speaking for Loyalists in 1994 led the way by offering “abject and true remorse”. David Trimble followed by acknowledging NI as “a cold house for Catholics”.

Harris suggests facilitating ongoing public dialogue including between north and south. But unionists remain stubbornly reticent. A leading victims’ worker could not see how this could resolve interface problems. But having initiated a decade of private dialogue with all sides and extremes near Dundalk, I remain convinced that interface troubles are symptoms of a deeper malaise that cries out for healing.

The Irish Republic is now more pluralist and less Church dominated. The positive reception Queen Elizabeth received should encourage Republicans to reach out in humility to estranged brothers and sisters.

As Martin McGuinness suggests, unionists are “to be loved and cherished” as indeed nationalists are to be. But Republicans must face up to the suffering inflicted on their cousins. They hold the key with potential to liberate the people of Ireland from the stranglehold of ancient hurts.

But like the Catholic Church, Republicans tend to forget their founding father’s message. Instead of unity they have scratched at festering wounds and now collude with Unionists in denying mutual responsibility. Too often we commemorate our own “martyrs” but there are other victims not of this fold. To be serious about healing we must stop identifying scapegoats under the guise of truth seeking.

Harris proposed an inclusive memorial to be erected by both traditions to all victims including “Southern Protestants” and “working class British squaddies”. As Liam Lynch was honoured we must honour all victims. Lost Lives lists nine victims surnamed Lynch, around half killed directly or indirectly by the IRA.

Constable Kenneth Lynch and his RUC companions were riddled with bullets from behind a hedge in 1977. Gary Lynch, Ulster Democratic Party election worker was killed in 1991, seemingly for being a pall bearer at a friend’s funeral. Patrick Lynch was shot dead as an alleged informer. Kevin Lynch of INLA died on hunger strike while others died in riot situations including from RUC bullets.

This dreadful legacy is ours. There are no clean hands. A better future can be ours if we practice good authority by speaking truth to ourselves.

http://www.irishnews.com/

It is early 1922. The black cloud of civil war is coming closer. Liam Lynch, Chief of Staff of the anti-Treaty IRA, is walking with Eamon DeValera, in the Knockmealdown Mountains when he suddenly stops and says: “What do you think Tom Clarke would have thought of all this?” Dev replies simply: “Tom Clarke is dead. Our problems are our own.”

That is as true today it was 88 years ago. Our problems are our own. And whether we want to roll back the recession or reach for a future republic, the first step is to forget the fantasies of the past, and face the truth, no matter how tough a truth it turns out to be.

Liam Lynch was a brave man. He was also a humane man. His gallant treatment of captured British soldiers and Irish members of the RIC, contrasts with the cruelty of some other Cork commanders, and reflects credit on the 2nd North Cork Brigade.

But if Liam Lynch was humane, he was also human. Like all human beings he could be wrong. He was wrong about the Treaty. He wrong in obsessing about the Oath of Allegiance. He was wrong not to walk away from Civil War. Above all wrong in believing that the problem was between Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Like all republicans since 1916, Liam Lynch never faced the fact that the fundamental problem was not merely to break the connection with England but to create a connection with Northern Protestants – who rightly feared a repressive Roman Catholic Republic.

Given what we now know about the coverup of child sex abuse, about the secret cabals mentioned by the Archbishop of Dublin, about the arrogance of the Vatican in dealing with the Irish Republic, we might admit that some Protestant fears about Rome Rule were well founded.

These Protestant fears fed into the formation of the Northern Ireland state. Northern Unionists fears, and Roman Catholic reaction to these fears, spawned a sectarian state, with bigotry on both sides.

Accordingly the first duty of all who called themselves Republicans should have been reassure Northern Unionists that their protestant and British identities would be cherished. They after all are the “children of the nation” referred to in the 1916 Proclamation.

If Republicans really respected Wolfe Tone’s message, they would have had a lot more time for working class Loyalists than for fat cat Anglo-Irish bankers. Northern Protestants only wanted to keep their British identity. They did no harm the men of no property in the Irish Republic.

But the bankers of the Irish bourgeoisie did do us harm. Did us harm while waving the green flag. Did us harm while brazenly telling us – as Sean Fitzpatrick told us – that he wanted to show he was as good as the old guard Protestant bankers.

No he was not. My generation remembers the rectitude of the Protestant bank managers of the old Munster and Leinster bank. They minded our money as if it were their own. Had Irish banking stayed in their hands we would not be in the mess we are today.

In 1922, the Free State lost a million Northern Protestants. By 1926 it had lost a third of its southern Protestants, a total of 107,000 people. They were not big lords looking down from big Anglo-Irish castles. They were ordinary Irish people: farmers, shopkeepers, clerks, rural people, people that Thomas Davis would call “racy of the soil.”

Some left because they had served Britain. Some left because they felt their lives were in danger. Some had seen their neighbours murdered – 73 in the Cork City area alone. All of them were afraid.

This flight, of which we still fear to speak, is a dark hole in our history. Far from protecting these defenceless Protestants, republicans actively took part in many of the sectarian actions against them. And their supporters to this day are still in denial about what was done.

Today sectarianism is still the biggest barrier to a better future in Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement, although an amazing grace, has made no dent in the divisions between the two traditions. That is why Republicans, who failed to do the right thing so far, must now finally step up to the mark, or else stop claiming to be followers of Wolfe Tone.

The first step in banishing the bloody ghost of sectarianism forever is to figure out why we did not banish it long ago. That is why this speech is about rethinking the republican and unionist record, and is titled “Towards 2016: Rethinking Republicanism; Rethinking Unionism”.

Let me cut to the chase and make three points about the centenaries of 2012 and 2016, where Unionists will remember the Ulster Covenant, and Republicans will remember 1916.

First: both states on this island have flawed and bloody title deeds. The treasonable actions of Edward Carson in 1912, and the gun running of 1914 both fed the blood sacrifice blasphemy of Patrick Pearse. And 1912 and 1916, for all their physical bravery, ended the prospect of a peaceful evolution to home rule and an all-Ireland parliament.

Second: we should not use 2016 to cover up past abuses. Republicans should admit their historical responsibility for much of the murder and mayhem on this island since 1916. A public admission that republicans failed to honour their high calling would put pressure on Unionists to review their past actions.

Some Unionists have already tried to make amends. Gusty Spence and the Combined Loyalist Military Command went much further than the Provisional IRA when they expressed “true and abject remorse” for crimes committed against Catholics. So did David Trimble when he told his Nobel Prize audience that the Northern state “had been a cold house for Catholics.”

Third: Coming up to 2016 we need a new platform, a televised talking shop, convention, chamber – call it what you will – to facilitate a continual public conversation, not within Northern Ireland, but between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

The lack of public and popular interaction between the two states is striking. Belfast is only 104 miles from Dublin, two hours by road. Yet the majority in each society seems as indifferent to the Lives of Others as the old East and West Germany.

Neither the Good Friday Agreement, the Northern Assembly, nor the cross border bodies provide for a continual public conversation between the new pluralist Irish Republic and of the progressive currents of Northern Unionism.

The Irish Republic recently welcomed the Queen. Surely it’s time we started a permanent public conversation with her loyal subjects in Northern Ireland about every subject under the sun. We might even persuade Sinn Fein to stop using the Irish language as an ideological baton

A civil conversation between the two major traditions could only do good. As my Roscommon mother would say, “Nior bhris focal maith fiachal riamh.” (A good word never broke teeth.) Republican and Unionists could start by reviewing the record of their own side so as to produce a reciprocal response from the other side.

We could start the conversation by asking why Protestant Unionists pulled back from republicanism. Protestant Republicans invented Republicanism. They founded the United Irishmen in 1798. They put their trust in democracy and the common people. They rejected Absolute Monarchy, whether it came from King or Pope.

In recent years the Irish Republic has come to share some of these Northern Protestant fears about Papal influence. Enda Kenny’s recent blistering broadside against the Vatican is the authentic voice of that democratic republican spirit. And if we look closer we see the same democratic spirit in locally run organisations like the Orange Order and the GAA Club.

So why are we still so far apart? Some of the blame can be laid at the door of Unionist bigotry. But most of the blame belongs to Republicans who failed to follow Wolfe Tone and find a formula to unite Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter. The big question is this: Why did Republicanism lose its way?

Republicanism lost its way because it never really respected the rights of Northern Protestants to be both British and Irish. Republicanism lost its way because it mocked legitimate Protestant fears that Home Rule means Rome Rule. Republicanism lost its way by becoming a closed, conspiratorial secular religion as arrogant and atrophied as the Roman Catholic Church.

Republicanism lost its way by believing that its own secular priests, the leaders of the IRA, knew better than the common people, by defending these secular IRA priests when they murdered innocent people, by looking after republican abusers rather than their victims, and by falling into the hands of deranged republican theologians like John Mitchel and Patrick Pearse.

John Mitchel set himself up as slaver in America and sent two sons to fight for the Confederacy. His pathological hatred of Britain deeply influenced his devout disciple Patrick Pearse, who wanted to deny his own British background.

Pearse sublimated his deepest and darkest urges by taking the lusty, life loving republicanism of Wolfe Tone, and turning it into a death wish that defied mass popular democracy. From 1900, Republicans, working through Sinn Fein and the IRB, infiltrated and hijacked every mass popular movement of a resurgent Irish people and reduced them to narrow ideological instruments of the IRB and IRA.

Republican agents took over the GAA from 1884, the Gaelic League and the Co-op Movement from 1913, and the ITGWU from 1900. IRB purists pushed Douglas Hyde founding President out of the Gaelic League, marginalised Horace Plunkett and his Co-op movement as well as Maurice Davin, first President of the GAA.

But along the way, particularly in 1916, they got a lot of help from Unionism. In September 1912 Unionists challenged the constitutional rule of law which they claimed to hold dear. On ‘Ulster Day’, 28 September 1912, over 500,000 Unionists signed Sir Edward Carson’s Ulster Covenant pledging themselves to defeat Home Rule at all costs.

Carson’s challenge to constitutional rule in 1912 gave Pearse permission to play the physical force card in 1916. This twin legacy of Pearse and Carson was a moral and psychological disaster.

Because once they turned on the tap of physical force, the blood never stopped flowing.

For all its bravery, the Rising of 1916, in which my grandfather took part, began a circular process of bloodletting, pause for pardon, and renewal of bloodshed. Each generation of republicans would first defy the popular will, then murder and maim, then use the inevitable reprisals to work up a nationalist fever, then seek retrospective pardon from a temporary majority, then become armchair republicans, and from these armchairs applaud a new set of armed applicants.

This closed circle of violence, pardon, and more violence has continued for the past 100 years. Right now it is replaying with the Real IRA, the Continuity IRA, or what I call the Recurring IRA. It will continue forever unless Republicans cut the cord to the dead generations of Republican Cardinals who claimed to know better than the men of no property.

Alas Republicans are always reluctant to review their past responsibility for most of the butcher’s bill that they ran up from 1916 to the end of Northern Troubles. Although the first to start shooting, they never mourn any dead but their own.

Growing up in a republican family I was taught to remember some Irishmen and to forget others. My own grandfather, a 1916 veteran and member of the First Cork Brigade, started out as an idealist with Terence McSwiney. Back in 1913 his best friend was an RIC man who lived next door. But by 1920 he had hardened his heart and could no longer see the man, only the uniform.

So he stayed silent when on Wednesday 17th of November, 1920, Sgt. James O’Donghue who lived around the corner in Tower Street, and who never carried a gun, was shot dead on his way home. Stayed silent when every funeral home in Cork City, obeying IRA orders, refused O’Donoghue’s family a hearse. Stayed silent when his stricken wife and children had to hire a private car to [bring the] body back to Cahirciveen. For shame.

My grandfather was a 1916 veteran, a physically and morally brave man who remains my role model in all areas except one. Like most republicans he was a moral coward when it came to challenging republican peer pressure. So he went to his grave without a word of remorse about that foul deed, whatever he might have felt in his heart.

He was not alone in his selective mourning. In 1916 Republicans remember the 64 dead Irish Volunteers but not the 250 dead Dublin civilians. In the War of Independence, Republicans remember the 550 IRA volunteers – but not the scores of southern protestants they shot in sectarian atrocities or the 404 Irishmen of the RIC whom they killed for doing their duty.

Looking back at the Civil War, Republicans remember the 77 republicans executed by the Free State – but not who began the shooting nor the corrosive hatreds it left behind. And after the civil war Republicans became even more sectarian.

During the 1930’s Protestant workers from the Shankill who marched at Bodenstown had their banners torn down. During World War 2 republicans degenerated further and flirted with fascism – while berating as traitors the 6,000 brave Irishmen and women in British uniforms, who died fighting Fascism

It got worse. In 1970, the Provisional IRA pushed aside Northern Civil Rights Movement and started shooting. Again Republicans only remember their own martyrs. They make little of deaths that do not fit their mould: such as the innocent 2,000 Irish civilians, not to mention the 302 Irish members of RUC, and the 763 working class British squaddies who were sent to keep the peace.

Looking back over their actions in the past 100 years, how can Republicans avoid taking responsibility for bringing so much bloodshed and suffering into the lives of the men and women of no property. Are they as arrogant as the Roman Catholic Church, so steeped in self regard that they cannot bring themselves to say sorry?

Republicans and Unionists must do better than the Roman Catholic Church. We should not use the commemorations of 2012 or 2016 to wave the Tricolour or the Union Jack. We should start with what the Book of Common Prayer calls “an humble and contrite heart” And make a fresh start.

Whether Irish Republicanism – or indeed the Roman Catholic Church – is capable of remorse and restitution is moot. But the Irish Republic must not play the Recurring IRA’s game in 2016, by waving a green flag or glamourising the gunmen of 1916 or 1921. The cult of Michael Collins is no less lethal than the cult of Liam Lynch

Likewise, Unionists should remember that for centuries the British elites saw them as the hunchbacks of the family, best kept hidden in distant bell towers. Remember that southern pluralists like John Bruton and Conor Cruise O’Brien protected Unionists both from pan-nationalist conspiracies and from the cynical wheezes of British Prime Ministers who cared more about NATO than NICRA.

And both Republicans and Unionists should remember the dead. The first public act of 2016 should be for the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland to come together and raise a memorial on the Border to all victims of armed actions on this island, be they IRA or Loyalists, southern Protestants, members of the RIC, working class British squaddies or members of the RUC and the Ulster Defence Regiment.

Such a memorial should include the names of both the Crean brothers: Sergeant Con Crean of the RIC who was slain at Ballinaspittle and his brother, Tom Crean, the Royal Navy Petty Officer and hero of the South Pole who had to come home and keep silent.

Let us resolve in 2016 to give men like Liam Lynch the respect that is due to all men who died bravely. Let [us] treat them, however, as fallible human beings, not as infallible Popes.

Let us step out of their shadow. Our problems are our problems. Let’s start solving them. Let’s get real. Let’s raise up a real Republic.

ENDS

By Roy Garland – Thu, Aug 25, 2011

James Byrne and Thomas Duffy receivedthe VC (Victoria Cross), and their restored graves are being unveiled at Glasnevin on Saturday, 10th September 2011 at 2.00 pm. Details, which are not completed as yet, can be obtained from Liam Dodd (military Historian) through his son Conor also a military historian.

James Byrne was a private of the 86th Regiment Royal County Down in action during the Indian Mutiny at Jhansi, India on the 3rd April 1858.  He was born at Mountkennedy Wickow.  He died in Dublin on 6th September 1872 and his VC is in the Royal Ulster Rifles Museum.

Thomas Duffy was a private of the 1st Battalion Madress Fusileers which became the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and was in action at Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny on the 26 September 1857. He was born at Caulry, Athlone, County Westmeath in 1805 and died in Dublin on the 23rd December 1868.

General David O’Morchoe CBE plans to be present – of the Royal British Legion.  Friends of the Somme from mid Antrim are expected to be present.

Further information from the Victoria Cross Society (under “19th August”).

Photo: Royal British Legion, Limerick Branch 

As ever more pupils find ways to drop the Irish language, is it time to make the subject optional, asks John Burns. Additional reporting: Lorraine Wemyss.

Last year, 2,297 Leaving Cert students were given an exemption from sitting the Irish language paper because they had a “learning disability”.

For 1,326 of them, however, their learning difficulties apparently disappeared when the bell rang at the end of Irish class. They not only studied French, German or Spanish – they even sat exams in them.

“It doesn’t add up,” said Bernie Ruane, president of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI).

Ann Heelan, the executive director of the Association for Higher Education Access and Disability (Ahead), agrees. “I think a cynical attitude would be right, because in those cases people are deciding they just won’t learn Irish,” she said. Alternatively, parents may feel it would take too much energy for their child with a learning disability to do two “foreign” languages, “and decide French or German is more useful”.

Niamh Collins, a former student at Christ the King secondary school in Cork, seems a typical example. Two years ago, Collins told the Irish Independent she chose to drop Irish on entering the fourth class of primary school as her family had moved from Northern Ireland two years previously, and also because she was dyslexic. To her credit, collins studied Italian and Japanese for the Leaving Cert – sitting both exams on one day – and was planning to study philosophy and Italian at university.

So it is not necessarily that students with learning disabilities “can’t” do Irish – at least half of them choose not to. “Having dyslexia does not necessarily mean you can’t learn a language,” said Heelan. “In fact, you should be able to, because you have already learnt your first language [English], so it’s just the written part that causes problems.”

Nevertheless, increasing numbers of students are getting exemptions from irish, and every year the number sitting what is a compulsory Leaving Cert subject drops.

In 2009, for example, 57,781 students sat the Laving, of whom 45,643 (or 79%) did Irish. Of the 12,138 who said “ní feidir liom”, only 5,142 had an official exemption. Nobody can tell exactly why the other 7,000 did not sit Irish, but clearly they had no intention of attending the National University of Ireland, for which the subject is a required qualification.

In 2010, there were 55,455 Leaving Cert students, and 44,942 sat Irish. Of the missing 10,513 pupils, just over half had an exemption. This year the number sitting Irish was down again, to 44,397, which more or less coincides with the number applying to the CAO, the gateway to third-level college.

So the pattern is clear: those who don’t “need” Irish to go to university don’t sit it. Some of them get an exemption, but about half don’t bother and some presumably sit at the back of “pass” class for two years, texting their friends and updating their Facebook status.

The solution seems obvious: make Irish optional for the Leaving Cert. But Fine Gael proposed doing just that in the general election earlier this year, and it proved the least popular policy in its manifesto. In the subsequent Programme for Government talks with Labour, Enda Kenny dropped the idea, settling instead for a “review” of the way the subject is taught. An Irish solution to an Irish-language problem.

An exemption from studying Irish for the Leaving Cert can be secured on three main grounds: if you were taught outside the republic up to the age of 11, or if you enrolled in school here after at least three years abroad and you are over 11, or if you are a foreigner with no English.

Such students account for about two-thirds of all exemptions. In 2009, for example, of the 5,412 dispensations, 3,293 were granted to what we can classify as foreigners, or the children of returning emigrants. As Ruane points out: “A lot of foreign nationals do take up Irish. It’s native students [who opt out]. Maybe there should be an investigation.”

[Search for the full article at the Sunday Times website]

The allegation being levelled against private-school parents is that they want to secure Irish exemptions in order to free up time for their children to do more “relevant” language.

However, a more likely explanation is that parents of means do not wait around for the official National Educational Psychological Service to get to their child. Waiting lists can be up to 18 months long.

O’Leary says that psychologists make a recommendation as to how students use the extra time that the Irish exemption grants them.

The Department of Education insists that there is “no basis” for excluding exempted children “from learning another language”, arguing that “the function of the education system is to promote rather than restrict learning”.

However, in some schools, exempted pupils sit at the back of the Irish classroom. “That’s quite distracting and undermines motivation in the class,” said Ruane, of the TUI. “Teachers are not allowed to leave children unattended, and you mightn’t have an extra staff member to supervise them. So [sitting in the Irish class] is the only solution they can come up with.”

Irish remains an unpopular Leaving Cert subject, and we can’t blame Peig any more: the Kerry woman’s notoriously dreary memoir has disappeared from the curriculum. Yet affection for the language remains, with everyone from President Barack Obama (“is feidir linn”) to comedian Des Bishop (In the Name of the Fada) helping to popularise it.

[Search for the full article at the Sunday Times website]

Making Irish optional at Leaving Cert level would free up time for continental languages, at which Ireland scarcely excels. The need to catch up may be becoming more pressing. “when you go to Germany or any of the EU countries, their ability to speak English is excellent,” said Heeland. “Their kids are coming out of school fluent.

“So our advantage of speaking English in an EU context is going out the window, especially as our kids are not coming out of school with a foreign language.”

[Search for the full article at the Sunday Times website]

Tá sé thar am dearcadh nua ar an Ghaeilge a fhorbairt. Baineadh trial as gach seift is plean ó 1922 anonn. An laige  atá anois ann ná cúlú na Gaeltachta is laghdú an teanga i mbéal an phobail annsin. Gan an fhíor-Gaeltacht níl i sean  teanga ár muintire ach teanga eile acadúil.

Mar sin caithfear a bheith réalaíoch faoi’n chúis. Beidh an Béarla ina lingua franca sa tír amach annseo. Tá gach áis cumarsáide ag cuidiú leis. Buntáiste mór do shaol eacnamaiochta is cultúrtha na hÉireann é. Is cóir glacadh le sin. Cad atá le déanamh?

Ar an chéad dul síos an teanga a chuir ar chomhchéim leis an  Bhéarla san Bhunreacht is sna dlíthe.  Ní léiríonn sé sochaí na tíre san atá ann inniu. Bheadh sé i bhfad níos fearr filleadh ar bhunphroinsabail is acmhainní na tíre á dhíriú ar bhunstrúchtúir na fíor-Ghaeltachta. Má theipeann ar sin ní mór a admháil gur ceart a fhágáil faoi’n chóras oideachais ach gan an éigeantacht indiaidh leibhéal áirithe. Tá tacaíocht is báidh áirithe ag mionlach leis an teanga agus ní leor sin chun í a shabháil. Mairfidh sé sna mheáin cumarsáide is sna ollscoileanna ar éigean ach sin ceist don ghlún atá le teacht.

Níl sé éasca bás teanga ar bith a shamhlú. Dá bhrí sin is ceart an cur i gcéill a leagan ar leathtaobh agus tabhairt faoi chéimeanna praicticiúla smaointeacha a thiocfadh le sícheolaíocht an gháthdhuine ar an tsráid. Chuir deire leis an éilíteachas , mar shompla, ceist ‘Dingle/Daingean’. Meastar an caiteachas ó’n stát gach bliain ar thionscal na Gaeilge a bheith timpeall €1.2bn. Ní mór grinnstaidéar a dhéanamh ar an tairbhe a bhaintear as an chostas sin. Ní leor anois na tréithe a chonaiceamar le déannaí i mhódh riaracháin na tíre, an gearrthéarmachas, diomailt achmhainní, an meoin ‘is cuma liom’. An fiú an teanga seo againne a chaomhnú taobh anuigh nó taobh istigh de na scoileanna sa Ghalltacht?. Cé mhéid micléinn  a mhaígh nach raibh ach cúpla focal acha in diaidh ceithre bliana déag d’oideachas? Tá athraithe sa churraclam fé bhun i láthair. An é sin an réiteach? An bhfuil an caighdeán sásúil? Nó cé’n saghas timpeallachta ina mbeidh siad annsin, go dóchúil thar lear?

Deirtear go hoifigiúil go bhfuil Gaeilge ag milliún duine de réir an daonáirimh. Tá cúpla focal ag anchuid ach céard is brí le sin?, gur féidir leo comhrá gan stró! Ní dóigh liom é. Ní airítear an Gaeilge in úsáid mór thimpeall ach go fíor annamh; tuilleadh cur i gcéill!.

Tá a áit féin bainte amach ag ceól traidisiún na tíre, a bhuíochas do Chomhaltas Cheoltairí Éireann is moladh mór tuillte acha. Ní mar a chéanna leis an Ghaeilge.

Tá easpa critíce déanta ar an cheist. Is cóir tuairimí an ghnáth duine a thomhais agus a fháil amach an chuma leis go bhfuil ár dteanga dúchais sa bhearna bhaol nó an fiú na polasaíthe reatha a leanúint scun scan. Tá sé in am an t-aláram á bhualadh agus an tsástacht a chur ar leathtaobh.

Peadar Ó Caiside
06 Lúnasa 2011

The Irish Language: A New Approach

It is about time to develop a new attitude to the language. Every plan and initiative was tried from 1922 onwards. Meanwhile the Gaeltacht declines and without Irish speaking communities the language becomes just another academic subject.

Therefore it is better to be realist about its present condition. English will be the lingua franca here henceforth. Every communication facility contributes to its pre-eminence and it gives the country an economic and cultural advantage. That should be accepted. What is to be done?

Firstly, Irish should be given the same status as English in the constitution and laws of Ireland. The reality is not reflected in the present arrangements. Much better to return to basic principles and devote resources to the real Gaeltacht. If that fails better leave the cause to the education system and the media which will be for the future generations to oversee.

There is a certain support and love for Irish but it is a minority interest and it will not ensure its survival. Elitism as displayed in the ‘Dingle/Daingean’ episode is counterproductive. It is estimated that €1.2bn is spent by the State on the language annually. Where is the cost benefit analysis? The shortterminism, waste of resources and ‘it doesn’t matter’ syndrome as recently seen should be discarded. How many school leavers have fluency in the tongue apart from the statutory ‘cupla focal’ of so many? Changes to the curriculum are mooted. Is that sufficient? And what kind of milieu will they be part of here or more likely abroad?

It is claimed that a million citizens speak Irish according to the census figures. Again many of these have just the couple of words literally. Does that mean they have some fluency and use the language? I think not; more pretense and self deception.

Irish traditional music has found its niche in the life of the country and abroad, thanks to Comhaltas Cheoltóirí na hÉireann. Such is not the case with Irish. There is a lack of a proper critique on the subject. It is time to raise the alarm and banish complacency and hypocrisy.

Peadar Cassidy
11 August 2011