Who agrees with the complusary Irish in schools?

Question

Frankly I think its a load of rubbish. To me, Irish is a dead language and is dying out. Its not worth the trouble of learning it, and forcing a person to learn it is making them hate it. Personally after years of learning the subject I can barely count to 20 in Irish. Perhaps its the way the subject is taught as well, teaching poetry doesn't work when vocab and grammer isn't taught. Any views similiar to mine?

Answer 1

It is your heritage many people died defending it, for a very long time the Irish people were not allowed to speak their own national language & forced to speek English,  It is a very hard lanuage to master but once you have reached third year you can drop it, I did.

If you are Irish you should at least try, if not you dont even have to take it.

Answer 2

I agree, with you, it's useless, there's no one who speaks, Irish but not English, I think it should be optional at least for the leaving. I too, can barely count to ten, I was learning it for 13 years. The way it is taught, is pretty ridiculos, poems and prose, don't teach you a language.

Answer 3

The language is called Gaelic.

What country are you living in?

I think it's good to learn a language even if it's not used much anymore. Keeps the culture :)

Answer 4

Yes I do , because without it what would differ us from the English or any other race

Answer 5

Ok I'm giving away my age here but when I was at school it was worse as if you failed Irish you failed the Leaving Cert!  Honestly.

I think Irish should be replaced by an Irish culture module, teaching a bit of history, bit of music, bit of dancing (maybe) and some language.  I think more people would enjoy it then.

No Irish person I know calls it gaelic!  The real name for all you foreigners out there is gaeilge and we all call it Irish here.

Good luck with your leaving cert.

Answer 6

Some time ago I would have said forget it, but now I say yes. Try to take it in. I remember bits and pieces of what I learned in school....I think we were badly taught then....but I now watch TG4 on and off and find I know more than I thought I did.I sometimes find myself thinking in Irish hahaha, never thought I'd see the day.

There are so many people here now from so many different nationalities that I have become more Irish than I have ever been. Recently I am finding it difficult to remain the welcoming person I have always been....For instance I was reading other answers about Ireland on here and the PC thing was mentioned, and that always makes me so mad.

Why would we be expected to change one little piece of our culture or change the way we celebrate Christmas just because it might upset someone from another country. If they don't like the way we live then they can leave and go back to their native land. They are more than welcome to stay of course but they should not presume to change our way of life to suit themselves.That is another reason to keep the language alive and everything else that we hold dear.

I will always say  Happy Christmas...wear a cross whenever I want to...and have a crib at Christmas time.There are a lot of Irish natives who should be ashamed of themselves for giving in to such requests for change, and pushing for us to change the habits of a lifetime, to please people who were glad to come here because things were looking good. It is just not going to happen. We have been changed enough as it is.

It is not like old Ireland at all here anymore. Even the Saint Patricks Day Parade is changed..its like the Mardi Gra...I bl00dy hate it. Would have gone abroad if I wanted that sort. And it is the fault of our own again..bending backwards to change for the worse.

If the country is not to their liking they should go and change the country they left. It is not going to happen here. People used to visit Ireland to relax in a friendly place that was Irish...........Now I wouldnt bother coming here if I were looking for a place to visit.....We are overcrowded. Go into any shop and you will hear every language under the sun. You will be met with blank looks if you ask a question.and how they got the jobs is a mystery.If you are Irish you have to jump hoops but it seems its different for people from other countries.

We have some of our own sleeping on the streets and no-one giving a thought to them. Even Bono gets a lot of publicity for helping sort things in Africa.........Charity begins at home and he could help our own homeless to be cared for and housed first then look to Africa.

Then the governement could do the job they were elected to do and stop feathering their own nests and get the gurrier gangs off the streets and give the streets back to the decent people again.And all the while the visitors are trying to change Ireland.You know I heard about two men sitting in a cafe` reading a news item about how  things were slowing down in Ireland...One turned to the other and said 'Where will we go next?'

I'm glad the @rse is falling out of things here if that's the result. Good luck to them.

Just keep a bit of the language going...

Answer 7

I'm c**p at Irish

I've been learning it for as long as I can remember and I'm still in ordinary level

But I've been learning french for 5 years and I'm better at that

I think the problem with Irish is that teachers just except you to know the basics when you get into secondary school

But if you have not bothered with learning the basics in primary school you are screwed for the rest of the 5 or 6 years

That being said tho I do want Irish to be compulsory (and not just because I'm out of school this year and will be really pissed if ppl can get out of doing Irish when I was forced to do it)

I don't want the language to die

It's one of the oldest languages in the world and I don't want to be known as that generation that messes it up and loses it for the other generations

Answer 8

It's not a dead language, seeing as people speak it as their native language.  I think the way it's taught is part of the problem, as is people's attitude to it.  People seem to have this resentment towards it for no reason, which they don't have towards French or German or other languages.  Maybe making it optional in school would help with this.  Personally I have no problem with it being compulsory, maybe it just needs to be taught differently.

Answer 9

Dia Duit!

When my Grandparents were growing up in Ireland in the 20's all they spoke was Gaelic in school and they hated it, but now they are happy that the language is still alive in some irish families. Everyone in my family learned some gaelic, we like to speak it to keep our culture alive. I know it's hard to learn but you will appreciate it one day.

Slan Leat!

Answer 10

No it is called Gaelige or Irish NEVER Gaelic, that pisses our heads off when it's called Gaelic.

And although I hate having to study it in school and I find it hard, I think I would regret not doing it. It is our culture and who we are. We have to keep it alive some how so I think that it should be compulsory.

Answer 11

when i was doing it at school i hated learning a language that i would never use

now i live in the uk and am really embarrassed that i dont know more of it

Answer 12

Irish not taught the way it was years ago having to learn of lines of poetry its more relaxed in its teaching i think Irish should be compulsory partly because i feel us as a nation are slowly losing our identity and our culture in some schools merry Christmas not permitted for fear of upsetting others it must be referred to as winter greetings please please lets hold onto our culture and all things Irish and no i have very little Irish myself my4year old loves tg4 cartoons he in first year at school and thing have changed alto on the tea chin methods its part of all things Irish and would like him to experience it and be proud of his country and culture there is talk of taking Irish out of some schools in the future its the whole PC thing again i say no we lost enough of our identity

Answer 13

Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam.

You will appreciate it more when you don't have to do it for an exam, the new primary school curriculum has changed the way Irish is taught and children really enjoy it, I think that it is an important part of our culture and if people get rid of their prejudice against it they would learn to appreciate it.

Answer 14

you dont like it because your in school!! I definatly think it should be compulsary! were fastly loosing what makes us Irish people, I think we should hold on to what we have!

Answer 15

I agree with you , its not like its uses any more and only comes in handy if the child wonted to be a teacher - nothing much really it can be used for .

Answer 16

i'm in 6th year and i love irish! but you're right the course is ridiculous,like when are we ever going to need "bímse buan" or "an bhean óg"?? the oral should be more than 25% and the prós(6%) should be dropped altogether!

but I don't think irish is dead,I think it's sooo important for our identity and if they made it optional,I think i'd be the only one in my school keeping it on! it's the course that needs to be changed.

and to -I love being me-If you're going to correct someone on Gaelic get it right! Gaelige isn't a word,it's Gaeilge!

Answer 17

Irish is not a nice language to listen to. Whereas for example English and French flows, Irish is very rough and sore on the eardrums. Waste of time.

Answer 18

I believe that they are teaching Gaelic to keep the heritage of the Irish people.  Many places in Ireland are named in Gaelic, and yes, the Gaelic language is dying out (less than a five percent of the Irish population speaks it.).  I think that you should have a chioce of learning Gaelic or some other language that is often spoken in Ireland.  So it is a debatable subject, I think, since some people find their heritage very important and yet you coudln't get too far by knowing a language that is barely spoken.  

My opinion would be that they should have a choice.

Answer 19

I know many  people in Ireland below 45 who speak less Irish than the their parents - It seems the Irish government introduced a system in 60s and 70s which emphasized spoken language instead of written grammatical system and it seems to have been a disaster for the language.

I have a good understanding of French, German and can read both Italian and Spanish reasonably well . Yet I think it would be almost impossible for somebody with a Germanic language such as English as their first language  to guess the structure and even vocabulary of  a Celtic language which has so many idioms and a complex grammatical structure  as Irish has.

so to answer your question- yes- I don't think you will generate a cultural revival by forcing young kids to study a complex subject taught incompetently -in fcat it is and has been a much more likely to be counterproductive.

  that said I hope the Irish People - or people of Irish descend around the world can start a renaissance before it is completely destroyed.

Answer 20

i am in first year and i hate irish

there isnt one student in my class who likes it

it definatley shouldnt be in the leaving cert

it is pointless adding all that extra stress onto students

it should be an optional subject like spanish or french

to the first comment

it isnt called gaelic its called irish

or gaeilge in irish

:)

Answer 21

Actually, the language is called Irish in Ireland - FYI.

It could certainly be taught better. I've worked as a teacher of English as a foreign language, and I think that Irish could be taught along the same lines.

I wouldn't say it's dead yet - not when there's a television channel for it! TG4, don't you watch it? You can see SpongeBob and South Park as Gaeilge, it's a trip.

Answer 22

Do you have any idea how lucky you are to live in a country that cares about its heritage.....

Or wait, do you want the entire world to be just like California?

Answer 23

i agree why not learn a thriving language? the idea of learning a language is to communicate so surely the more people speak the language the better?