GOVERNMENT PLANS to prioritise saving Irish language usage in Gaeltacht areas have been criticised as elitist by Opposition TDs who claimed the language revival was an urban phenomenon.
Minister of State for Gaeltacht Affairs Dinny McGinley (FG) said the Irish language may not last beyond the next 15 or 20 years in the Gaeltacht.
Developing Irish in the Gaeltacht “is my biggest priority”, he said. Mr McGinley was speaking during the Dáil debate on the 20-year Irish language strategy, introduced in 2006, which aims to increase the number of people speaking Irish on a daily basis from 83,000 to 250,000.
Mr McGinley quoted US president Barack Obama who said during his Dublin rally that “broken Irish is better than clever English”.
But Catherine Murphy (Ind, Kildare North) said the Irish language’s revival has not been in the Gaeltacht but in urban areas. She said it was “almost an anti-establishment revival”. The Government’s key objective was to maintain the primacy of the Irish language and its related culture in the Gaeltacht, but by being “exclusive” greater emphasis is given to “rural culture” and it ignores “new avenues for revival of the language”. She said “development of the language needs to be inclusive”.
She said many people who wanted a revival “are not particularly interested in Irish dancing or Gaelic games” but some people “believe Irish has to encompass all things or nothing. This creates a resistance in some people, which is not in the interests of the continued revival of the language”.
Former minister Éamon Ó Cuív (FF) said a review the Minister was “threatening” indicated a plan to “narrow” the powers of Údarás na Gaeltachta. He criticised TDs for showing a lack of respect for the first language of the State, the oldest language in western Europe, by failing to use earphones in the Dáil to listen to the translation when Irish was spoken in the chamber. Later Aengus Ó Snodaigh (SF, Dublin South Central) said TDs failed to wear the earphones because they were “ashamed” anyone would see they did not understand the language and he suggested “discreet” earphones could be used. Luke “Ming” Flanagan (Ind, Roscommon-South Leitrim) said he mostly did not use the earphones because it forced him to learn.
Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said “we all own the language. It doesn’t matter about our political opinions”. Referring to the words in Irish spoken in Dublin by Queen Elizabeth and President Obama Mr Adams said “there is more Irish on the Queen’s website than on the Labour Party website”.
Seán Kyne (FG, Galway West) said “conversational Irish is the key to the survival of the language” and that there should be two subjects in the Leaving Cert, one for conversational Irish which should be compulsory and the other “Irish as it stands”.
Then every student would “engage with the living language”.
The debate continues.
