Jennifer Horgan: Why can't we harness the spirit of Irish college when learning our national language? 

That Irish left the taste of salt on my lips. I loved the rhythm of it, on the pitch, in the kitchen, across the dancefloor of shuffling feet, and I gravitated towards it instinctively.

Any time I hear Cher’s ‘It’s in his kiss’ I’m back on a stage, aged fifteen, belting it out in Irish translation, shoop shooping my hips, while resting my gaze a little too longingly on Dublin boy.

Irish college. Seriously, is there anywhere better?

I loved it, just as I loved Irish as a living language. But the Irish of my classroom felt dead. Marley dead. Now, my eldest is almost fifteen, and he feels the same

Thirty years on, I can’t believe our government fails to see what I saw as a child, and what our ancestors knew over one hundred years ago: it’s the breathing language that survives, not the one trapped in textbooks.

This distinction is deeply understood by our European neighbours who are embarrassingly adept at language acquisition.

I chatted to Irish language poet and academic Louis de Paor this week who referred to this directly: “More than one hundred years ago we were aware of European models and precedents for bilingualism. Pádraig Pearse celebrated cultural diversity and language immersion — the necessity to experience the spoken language directly.”

This direct engagement is at the core of European language models. De Paor points me to academic work being conducted by one of his students — Bianca Harris — on the primary school system in Luxembourg.

“If you were bringing your child up there, they would leave primary school with a proficiency in four languages — Luxembourgish, German, French, and English,” he says.

Learning materials

In Luxembourg, a diverse student population doesn’t impede upon language learning. De Paor believes our failure to manage our increasing multilingualism here is proof that we failed to take advantage of what should have been a natural project in bilingualism.

“We could have redressed the harm of our colonial past, but we didn’t. We didn’t invest in Irish medium education properly. We need additional training and resources for Gaeltacht schools so that students have all the necessary learning materials in their first language and are taught business or woodwork or French or physics by teachers who are comfortable teaching those subjects through Irish.”

In Ireland teachers are indeed fearful of teaching through Irish in the context of having so many other languages, as was highlighted in Michael Moynihan’s column last week, about secondary school Synge Street becoming a co-educational Gaelcholáiste. Moynihan sees it as a class issue — the needless worry that working class and immigrant kids won’t manage a switch to Irish. Similarly, de Paor believes that a multilingual setting is ideal for language acquisition as it provides a richness, allowing a kind of cross pollination.

But perhaps there is more to the teachers’ reluctance than snobbery. It may relate to the failed project of language learning overall

De Paor is deeply disappointed in the government for its neglect of Irish speakers and the language, and the figures don’t lie. The 2020 programme for Government promised to double the number of young people in Irish medium schools. The number reduced during Minister Foley’s time in office.

Orlaith Nic Ghearailt is manager of Seachtain na Gaeilge and awareness campaign for Conradh na Gaelige. She agrees that teachers feel out of their depth because they are simply not resourced appropriately in a system that is broken.

“We had been given a lot of support and reassurance from Minister McHugh so we were hopeful that Minister Foley would have carried on that work. That didn’t happen. Now we are hopeful Minister McEntee will set up a consultation. We need to teach Irish in a way that falls in line with the European Framework of Languages. We need to protect and promote it through joined up thinking. There has never been a policy for the Irish language in the education system from pre-school to third level.We also need to address the growing number of students with exemptions by using the Common European Framework, which is a flexible system that can cater to a student’s abilities whilst facilitating students arriving into the system late, instead of excluding them from learning Irish, Irish culture and heritage.”

It is true that exemptions are skyrocketing. Approximately 50,000 students at second level have an exemption from studying Irish, and that figure is growing. Meanwhile, 20,000 of these students learn a foreign language. On top of this, fewer students are learning through Irish.

So how do we focus on Irish as a living language? How do we make it meaningful for all learners? Less like a chore, less about regurgitating notes and more about hearing the language caught on a breeze in South Kerry?

As suggested by ‘Gaeilge4All” a grassroots movement with national support, we teach Irish in an inclusive way.

We stop asking them to complete two papers for the ‘points’ price of one. We let students choose the course level that is right for them. Every single student keeps Irish as a core subject, but it is relative to their fluency and exposure. Students can choose to study Irish Literature as a separate, additional subject. First language speakers can sit a tougher paper and receive more points. Students with difficulties in writing can take an oral version of the exam.

The main thrust of the curriculum would be about promoting and protecting our national language — one that is growing in popularity and recognition globally, thanks to Kneecap and actors like Paul Mescal and Brendan Gleeson. This would mean including all students in Seachtain na Gaeilge, and in that precious work of building a national identity rich in diversity. It would mean bringing my experience of ‘summer’ Irish right into the classroom.

Speaking to Louis De Paor, I sensed that for him language is a visceral, fundamental thing. He’s right — neurologists identify that even before birth, babies respond to their mother’s native language. It is indisputable that language contributes to identity formation and so it must be taken very seriously.

Taking something seriously can involve having more fun. Áine Gallagher, the final person I spoke with this week, is an embodiment of this. Gallagher is a bilingual performer who is bringing her ‘guerilla’ Irish to the streets for Seachtain na Gaelige.

“All of my work in promoting Irish comes from my own experience. I understand that if you don’t grow up with Irish, you can feel nervous. I get the sense that people want opportunities to speak it. So, I go out to the streets, and I take away the door. It’s immediate.” Gallagher believes we’re better at the language than we think.

“My aim is to bring the play and the fun into it by disrupting everyday life.” That she does. I bumped into the performer last summer in Kerry when she approached my family in a seaside café, not far from where I first went to Irish college. We picked Irish phrases from a cup and guessed their meaning. My three kids (unsurprisingly) loved it.

So, to our government: it shouldn’t be that hard to get something so obvious right. Listen to students and teachers. Failing that, listen to Kneecap: “Stories are built from language. Nations are built from stories.” Without our language, you’d have to wonder what it is we’re building.