Controversy Over Fine Gael's Language Policy

Fine Gael, Ireland’s second largest political party, has recently proposed to abolish Irish as a compulsory subject for the Leaving Cert.  Would this policy bring salvation to thousands of unsatisfied students around the country or drive the native language to extinction?

The 2011 Irish Elections are critical as Ireland faces its worst crisis since the Civil War.  The nation’s problems are so severe that any incoming government will be forced to make drastic changes in the education system or watch helplessly as Ireland falls further behind the rest of the world.  While voting is set to take place in less than a week, the ongoing debate over Fine Gael’s language policy becomes even more intense.

        

         Fine Gael’s proposal to make the teaching of the Irish language optional for the Leaving Certificate, the final examination in the Irish secondary school system, has left many feeling unsettled.  As of now, students are required to take five traditional subjects, one of which must be Gaeilge.  Surveys completed across the country have proven that compulsion is only way to ensure survival of the ancestral tongue.  Poll after poll has confirmed that the majority of people believe that the state must implement policies to protect the language, which is considered imperative to the Irish identity.  So then, why would Fine Gael draft a policy considered ludicrous to so many? 

         Currently, many inadequacies exist in the teaching methodologies, which has resulted in many people with negative feelings about the language.  In a recent televised debate, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, Fine Gael's Enda Kenny and Fianna Fáil leader Mícheál Martin exchanged views on national and regional issues including agriculture, the future of the Irish language. Ironically, they were debating the flaws of Irish in schools while speaking excellent Irish themselves. 

Kenny believes that his policy would advance the language by recruiting students who are truly passionate.  “You are trying to make it sound as if I am trying to do away with Irish altogether," he said.  "That is not the case, I am trying to strengthen it.”  Students who take the initiative to learn it because they find it enjoyable, rather than being forced to study it, would ensure retention and productivity of the language.  Furthermore, Kenny insisted that the current education system was not serving students or the language satisfactorily.  Although it is mandatory for students to study Irish five hours a week for 14 years, they only need to learn a certain level of fluency to pass their Leaving Cert exams.  Once their results are posted, there is no practical use for the language anymore.

The number of speakers is declining, even in very Gaeltacht areas, where it was once flourishing.  Each year, thousands of graduates emigrate to pursue career opportunities in foreign countries.  It would be more beneficial to possess the ability to speak languages such as Spanish, French, or Mandarin, as opposed to one that has essentially become little more than a hobby.    

Defenders of the language assert that making it optional would have detrimental effects, stating that if it is not mandatory to know the subject for the Leaving Cert, students aren’t going to study it.  Cormac Ó HAlmhain, a third year Education major at Mary Immaculate College, believes that the language must be preserved by remaining compulsory.  HAlmhain is originally from Inis Oírr, the smallest of the Aran Islands, where Irish is the main spoken language.  Even his Facebook page is set to Gaeilge as the default language.  “I learned Irish before English,” he said.  “If Gaeilge becomes optional, students as young as 14 years old are forced to make a lifelong decision. There are many college courses you would be restricted from if you didn’t pick to study Gaeilge. Teaching is one of them. I don’t know about you, but when I was 14, I had no notion of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”

Optional or not, the supporters of Gaeilge are only delaying the inevitable fate of the language that is unique to Ireland.  If they wish to maintain and restore the language, social supports must be implemented to make speaking it habitual and essential to everyday life.  According to Eilis O'Hanlon of the Irish Independent “If you're not making the effort to speak Irish regularly, then your advocacy of the language carries no more weight than the views of a deaf man on how loud the juke box should be played in bars.”