By Joseph E.A. Connell
On 3 July 1924, Minister for Education Eoin MacNeill announced that the teaching of Irish was to be made compulsory in all schools.
A key figure of the Gaelic revival, MacNeill was a co-founder of the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge) in 1893. He has been described as ‘the father of the modern study of early Irish medieval history’ and was among the first to study the Brehon Laws, offering both his own interpretations, which at times were coloured by his nationalism, and translations into English. He was also the first to uncover the nature of succession in Irish kingship, and his theories are the foundation for modern ideas on the subject.
As a language, Irish is unique to Ireland and is therefore of crucial importance to the identity of the Irish people, to Irish culture and to world heritage. Since the foundation of the Irish Free State, the education system has been targeted as the agency and model for Irish-language planning, education and revival and has had a critical role in generating linguistic ability in the language.
Under the first Cumann na nGaedheal government, Irish had already been made a compulsory subject in all national schools in 1922. Knowledge of Irish had also been made compulsory for entry to the civil service (re-enforced in 1926). It was made a necessary subject for the awarding of the Intermediate Certificate in 1928 at a time when very few pupils went beyond Inter Cert level.
For several years, Conradh na Gaeilge, Gaeloideachas (the advocacy body for Irish-medium education) and others have been calling on the Dublin government to put together ‘an evidence-based comprehensive policy, for the first time since the foundation of the state, for the Irish language in our education system from pre-school to third level’.
Since its inception compulsory Irish has been a controversial subject—a proxy war about the very nature of Irishness itself. There are some who believe that many of the men and women who founded the Irish state a century ago wanted to see the Irish language thrive in a free and independent nation-state. There are others, however, who have nothing but contempt for the language and who reject any association between it and Irish identity. They say that they only want to allow people to choose whether to study Irish, but how many of those people would support the right to choose to conduct business with the State through Irish? Many would not.
In recent years there has been a resurgence of primarily Irish-language schools. Over 50,000 students attend Gaelscoileanna at primary and secondary level on the island of Ireland. A further 13,000 students are receiving their primary and secondary education through Irish in the Gaeltacht. Gaelscoileanna have undergone a striking expansion over the last few decades, although there are now concerns that rules limiting the founding of new schools are affecting the establishment of Irish-medium education in areas where there is a competition amongst educational patrons. Their success is due to effective community support and an efficient administrative infrastructure. They are distinguished by being the product not of State policy but of a genuine community movement.
Joseph E.A. Connell is the author of The Terror War: the uncomfortable truths of the Irish War of Independence (Eastwood Books, 2022).