Smith: ‘The life of the language is to speak it’

The life of the language is to speak it,” said Fianna Fáil Councillor Áine Smith in demanding more is done at local and national level to promote the use of Irish.

Her motion follows the release of Census 2022 results, which found Cavan has one of the lowest rates of daily Irish speakers in the country, with just 479 people saying they spoke in their native tongue daily; while 1,415 spoke Irish weekly.

Addressing the June monthly meeting of elected members, Cllr Smith pointed out the Irish language is accorded “special status” in Ireland and is “protected” by various pieces of legislation, in particular Article 8 of the Constitution.

In recognising the “linguistic, social and cultural importance” of Irish and English in Ireland, she noted both languages are included as core subjects in the national curricula at primary and secondary level, and this has been the case since the foundation of the State.

While the importance of teaching Irish has been re-affirmed on a number of occasions by the State, including most recently in the 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010-2030, Cllr Smith believes a new approach is needed.

“Why is it after eight years in primary school and five to six years in secondary school studying Irish, do we not have more fluent Irish speakers?” she asked.

“I believe that Irish should be taught as a language not as a subject. Children are best able to learn languages in their early years and can be multi-lingual within a very short space of time, and the reason for this is, the language is spoken to them.”

Cllr Smith said she would like to see “change” in how the language is taught. “We can see that in primary schools, a foreign language is being brought into the curriculum and will be taught with an expert coming in. Why can this not be replicated in primary schools in the teaching of the Irish language. In order to learn to speak a language, you must be immersed in the language.”

She concluded by saying that students attending secondary school are “expected to understand” poetry and prose as gaeilge without ever having an “understanding” of the language itself.

“When we all learned our first language, we learned it by listening and speaking the language in our day-to-day activities,” said Cllr Smith, calling on the council to write to the Minister for Education Norma Foley to overhaul the approach to teaching Irish in primary schools.

“We cannot expect to see improvements if we keep doing the same thing and retaining the same approach to the promotion of Irish as a widely spoken language.”

Cllr Smith’s motion received widespread support from within the chamber.

Sinn Féin’s Paddy McDonald voiced disappointment at learning of the census results, while Philip Brady (FF) suggested that, when he is elevated to the Dáil, he’ll “have to become fluent”.

There was support too from Fine Gael’s Madeleine Argue who lamented how she had failed to become a fluent Irish speaker when other members of her family were, while Patricia Walsh (FF) said the council had hosted sessions for councillors but she was unaware of how many had attended.

Aontú’s Sarah O’Reilly, said the problem for her was she had no outlet for using the language regularly. She fumed at the manner in which Irish is taught in schools, and asked that more be done to use the language in the council chamber also going forward. Cllr Clifford Kelly (FF) also supported the motion.