Trouble at Derry vs. Rovers and Irish language debate!!

[OneRedArmy]

there really wasnt a lot to it, not even in the handbags column. two drunks got pulled apart by rovers fans and the stewards initially went in hard and fast on the peacemakers. the more senior stewards/rovers security arrived and calmed it down. a couple of derry stewards were escorted away before they made it worse.
the point wiseguy is that we did sort it out and the stewards came flying in anyway.
Interesting view.

Given your view that what happened on Saturday was "not even in the handbags column", what exactly would you define handbags as?

And the general feeling on your forum is that our stewards did a reasonable job of calming it down. The main mistake they made in my view is that they let these guys into the ground in the first place.

But then again, its always somebody elses fault.......

[Wiseguy]

there really wasnt a lot to it, not even in the handbags column. two drunks got pulled apart by rovers fans and the stewards initially went in hard and fast on the peacemakers. the more senior stewards/rovers security arrived and calmed it down. a couple of derry stewards were escorted away before they made it worse.
the point wiseguy is that we did sort it out and the stewards came flying in anyway.

Thats fair enough but some of your own fans should have given them a kick in the hole and tell them to cop themselves on.It's like they say "there's always one"

[Macy]

The irony is that I'm convinced that the Irish language would have been more secure now if the Republic was still under British rule (just like happened with Welsh).
Wouldn't have thought it that surprising that when a language is seen as a way of rebellion and a way of showing your independance that it is stronger. No doubt that's part of what's driving the Welsh language revival.

[manic da hoop]

The main mistake they made in my view is that they let these guys into the ground in the first place.

But then again, its always somebody elses fault.......

This, I believe, is true, although I don't want that excuse to deflect away from the core issue: there was a considerable number of intensly drunk people at the game who had reached such a state that they were literally incapable of seeing the match in front of them. One individual stumbled down three rows of seats next to me. These idiots were always going to cause some level of trouble, it was just a question of when, and who would be on the recieving end - stewards, Derry fans or the rest of the Rovers support. I'm all for having afew pints before the game, and there's nothing wrong with being slightly under the influence going into the ground, but surely there must be some cut-off point, and way too many people crossed that point before last Saturday's game.

[Roverstillidie]

Thats fair enough but some of your own fans should have given them a kick in the hole and tell them to cop themselves on.It's like they say "there's always one"

agreed and that was precisely what happened, hence the 'fighting amongst ourselves' byline.
it was the initial intervention by the stewards that exacerbated the situation (leaning in across the hoardings pointing the finger etc), calmer heads arrived and the situation diffused itself.
again, no injuries, no arrests, just drunken fools.

[anto eile]

In practice though, who actually speaks it - its a dying language and the sooner they make it optional in secondary schools rather than compulsary, the better
its not a dying language at all.of the 3000 or so languages still in use, many are dying- mostly tribal languages in africa. most minority languaes will die out, but irish is strongly placed to survive over the next 100 years

the main problem was "how" irish was taught for years. today i think theres an improvement in that regard. one example is that 200 schools have recently taken ros na rún onto the curriculum and teaching irish trough that tv programme.ireland on sunday had an article on it, it gets 300,000 viewers now, as opposed to 14000 when it started.and the wybe network, which reached 2.9 million viewers, in philadelphia have bought the rights to it. its a big improvement on the old peig sayers etc courses

surprised no one has mentioned this before but, look at the differnce in how french/german/spanish is taught in secondary school, compared to how irish is taught. irish is taught along the same lines as english-poems novels etc.to improve the irish course the subject should be taught like the european languages

[manic da hoop]

its not a dying language at all.of the 3000 or so languages still in use, many are dying- mostly tribal languages in africa. most minority languaes will die out, but irish is strongly placed to survive over the next 100 years

Modorators please take note...

What the fcuk has all this got to do with the title of the thread??? :mad:

[anto eile]

Modorators please take note...

What the fcuk has all this got to do with the title of the thread??? :mad:
so ****ing what. its an interesting debate.
do you be sitting in the pub and when conversation changes from one subject to another start giving out about straying off-topic??i doubt it. complaining about this on-line is just pedantic

[Eire06]

the main problem is the department of education. Schools should teach conversational Irish not poetry, novels or essay writing. You need to know how to walk before you can run.

You learn conversational and basic Grammer in primary school and then its poetry, reading and writing Irish in secondary!! (Well thats how it was planned)
I loved Irish in school and still love it now! At the end of the day I think its was the teachers that were the problem moreso than the subject.. if a nice and good teacher was teaching you you'd prob love Irish like with other subjects..

I live in Galway city and still speak Irish every day in work and at home, even if it is just a cupla focail here and there.
It is far from a dead language, it seems to be getting stronger and more popular every day as Gaelscoil's and Irish speaking bars and resturants are popping up all over the place (well in Galway city they are)


Mods:: This thread should be moved to Off topic and the title changed

[manic da hoop]

do you be sitting in the pub and when conversation changes from one subject to another start giving out about straying off-topic??

Eh, that's why we have a few different threads ongoing at the same time. The whole point being that you read and reply to the threads whos titles draw your interest - kind of pointess if it bears no relation whatsoever to what's actually being discussed in it. There's no way Ste would tolerate this over on the Rovers MB.

[Macy]

It is far from a dead language, it seems to be getting stronger and more popular every day as Gaelscoil's and Irish speaking bars and resturants are popping up all over the place (well in Galway city they are)
Gaelscoil's are becoming more popular because of the smaller class numbers compared to normal national schools. Certainly that's the reasoning with several parents I know who send their kids there - the language is a factor, but the quality of the overall education due to smaller class numbers is the over riding one (on the east coast anyway).

[Eire06]

Gaelscoil's are becoming more popular because of the smaller class numbers compared to normal national schools. Certainly that's the reasoning with several parents I know who send their kids there - the language is a factor, but the quality of the overall education due to smaller class numbers is the over riding one (on the east coast anyway).

Ya I agree that is part of the attraction in some places but it is not the main one there is now a new generation of people who want their children to speak our national language and regret themselves not paying attention in their school days to Irish and struggle with it now. They are encouraging their children not to make the same mistakes they made..

A lot of GaelScoils in citys now have class numbers just as high as Irish speaking primary and secondary schools and even go as far to have waiting lists for entry to the schools.. So small calss sizes cannot be a factor there

[Cosmo]

Look, Im not anti Irish language but I wouldve liked to have got the option of dropping it in secondary school just in principle and also as Macy suggested without it effecting what collage course i couldve done.

If given the choice I wouldve dropped it and concentrated more on a foreign laguage as it wouldve been more beneficial to me than speaking a language that ill never need.

Ended up getting a C1 in honours irish :) and only a pass in French but I could speak more french id say and if given the choice would prefer to be able to speak fluent french than fluent irish as it would give me an option to live in a non english speaking country.

However in an ideal world we would be having this debate in irish but hey thats life ;)

[mypost]

Ya I agree that is part of the attraction in some places but it is not the main one there is now a new generation of people who want their children to speak our national language and regret themselves not paying attention in their school days to Irish and struggle with it now. They are encouraging their children not to make the same mistakes they made.

About 1% of people in this country speak Irish on an everyday basis. Irish is no use to us outside our country, so it's no wonder that people want to learn French/German/Spanish instead, languages that they may/will need to speak at some point. Irish is too hard, too complicated, with too many rules, it has too many different dialects on how you should speak it, and with it being compulsory in schools, kids don't want to know about a language they don't really need in later life. We must be the only country in Europe, where domestic football is covered in a language, that the locals don't understand.

In Dublin, practically nobody speaks the language on a daily basis. Quite what it has to do with "trouble" at a NL match boggles me. :confused: Talking about the Irish language is all very well, but it's in the wrong place. Split the thread.

[Eire06]

In Dublin, practically nobody speaks the language on a daily basis.
From what I've seen of dublin lately not many speak English never mind Irish :rolleyes:


Thats the point, you've learned nothing if you've no practical experience of having a conversation in irish.
you may not have had any practical experience but all lot of us do.. I regularly had conversations in Irish growing up and was sent to an Irish college every summer..
Its up to your parents and teachers to help teach you the language and if you have a poor teacher or parents who don't feel it is necessary for their children to speak their native language the child is less likely to show any interest or make an attempt to learn it and try to incorporate it into their daily lives

[pete]

When we "learn" irish from age 5 til 17-18 & still the vast majority of people can't speak a word of it shows a complete & absolute failure of the educational system. Imagine if the same happened with Maths?

Still we do about 5 years of french/german etc... & will have better oral skills.

[Philo]

According to Newstalk last week, there's more people speaking Chinese as their first language than Irish in this country. Pretty soon Irish will also be overtaken by Polish and beaten into fourth place. What's the point of Irish? Nothing against it personally, but in reality it's just a museum piece.

The Irish language requirement has been dropped by the police to recruit from immigrant communities, though they are offering Irish classes to new gardai in Templemore as an excercise in pointless tokenism to keep a dwindling number of fanatics happy. What a waste of valuable teaching time... I can't imagine Irish EVER gets used by the law unless some looper decides to be irritating by demanding all procedures are carried out in the language.

[redgav]

When we "learn" irish from age 5 til 17-18 & still the vast majority of people can't speak a word of it shows a complete & absolute failure of the educational system. Imagine if the same happened with Maths?

Still we do about 5 years of french/german etc... & will have better oral skills.

Thats it exactly - In schools,French and German and other languages are taught in a modern way that keeps kids interested , with Irish they are forced to learn things over and Over
Peig Sayers should be in a classic litrature or for people who do Irish outside of schools cos it has nothing whatsoever to do with teaching a language....If they spruced up the way its taught,you'd be surprised how quick it would catch on .....

[DruggyDrog]

I can add, subtract, multiply and divide. The vast majority of the maths I learned at school (and was quite good at) I'll never use, nor have I any wish to use. The education system fails in every subject (I've a degree in French which i would have got with or without doing french in school), so to single out the way Irish is thought is just the easy way out.

We'll cheer when England lose, we'll wear our national colours in lansdowne, but when the wafer thin cover is stripped back, the vast majority of this country have little or no interest or knowledge about their country and its identity.

[dcfcsteve]

the main problem is the department of education. Schools should teach conversational Irish not poetry, novels or essay writing. You need to know how to walk before you can run.

The key mistake the state made back in the 1920's was to believe that the language revival effort was best left in the hands of schools and the classroom. In hindsight, that was always going to be a flawed policy.

But the principle problem with the current state of the Irish language is - shock, horror - the Irish people themselves ! The people have to take a very large degree of the blame - not just systems and policies.

We don't learn and/or speak the language to any great extent ourselves, we don't apply any political pressure whatsoever to protect it (e.g. the Gardai no longer having to speak Irish is another nail in the language's coffin), and we don't go out of our way to support initiatives (financially, politically or morally) who seek to improve the standing of the language at any level. We just sit around putting the language down, then think we're great when people open a speech with the proverbial cupla focal, or some new public service or body gets named 'as Gaeilge' to remind us all that we're not actually English. Unless people's attitudes change, the language will continue to die as a living, working tongue.

[Eire06]

I can't imagine Irish EVER gets used by the law unless some looper decides to be irritating by demanding all procedures are carried out in the language.
Try taking a trip to Gweedore or An Rinn and you will see Irish being used by the 'law' :rolleyes:
But sure they're outside the pale you wouldn't know about them :rolleyes:

[mypost]

so ****ing what. its an interesting debate.
do you be sitting in the pub and when conversation changes from one subject to another start giving out about straying off-topic??i doubt it. complaining about this on-line is just pedantic

Yes it's an interesting debate, but by this stage, it has nothing to do with football, so why is it still in the EL section?? :confused: Either split the thread, or move it to where it should be, please.

[Poor Student]

There's a fundemental underlying problem in Ireland as a whole that impedes any progress with Irish and makes it a torment. Awful grammar. We do not learn our grammar in English and have no notion of linguistic concepts, terms, structures, tenses etc. I myself haven't got a clue. Do you know how many tenses we have in English? Are you aware of them? Can you name them? Like most of the English speaking world we are badly equipped to learn other languages. For the most part we can only pick them up through being immersed in them and for the main part that is not possible with Irish. Irish is a partly inflective language which means it is fundementally different to English which makes it hard to grasp. We need better teaching of grammar in schools before we even attempt to tackle other languages.

[pineapple stu]

On the language, I'm not anti it being compulsory but do have reservations about it counting towards university points...For example, is it fair that someone doesn't get into medicine because they're not that good at languages?
You do seven subjects for Leaving Cert (or at least most schools do; we were given an optional eighth as well). Only six count. You can do badly in Irish but still get into medicine. In any case, you can apply that argument to any subject. Is it fair someone doesn't get into medicine because they did badly at economics?

[Cosmo]

You do seven subjects for Leaving Cert (or at least most schools do; we were given an optional eighth as well). Only six count. You can do badly in Irish but still get into medicine. In any case, you can apply that argument to any subject. Is it fair someone doesn't get into medicine because they did badly at economics?

But dont ye need a minimum grade in irish to get into some collages or do some courses that have nothing to do with the irish language (if definitely was a few years ago anyway)

[Poor Student]

On the language, I'm not anti it being compulsory but do have reservations about it counting towards university points...For example, is it fair that someone doesn't get into medicine because they're not that good at languages?

Good point. Other states have college application systems which revolve more around the relevance of the secondary school subjects with regards to the subject you are applying for. In Ireland I think this only happens with Engineering where you get bonus points for Maths and also very loosely with subjects like Science where you must have taken and passed one Science subject to be allowed to do it at third level.

[Poor Student]

But dont ye need a minimum grade in irish to get into some collages or do some courses that have nothing to do with the irish language (if definitely was a few years ago anyway)

You need to pass Ordinary Level Irish to get into any of the NUIs (i.e. UCD, UCC, UL, UCG, Maynooth) but not for Trinity. Possibly not for the other colleges too?

[Macy]

You do seven subjects for Leaving Cert (or at least most schools do; we were given an optional eighth as well). Only six count. You can do badly in Irish but still get into medicine. In any case, you can apply that argument to any subject. Is it fair someone doesn't get into medicine because they did badly at economics?
I thought Irish had to be one of the 6, along with English and Maths (maybe just specific to the medical schools). Difference is you can drop economics, you can't drop Irish....

[pineapple stu]

Irish is no use to us outside our country, so it's no wonder that people want to learn French/German/Spanish instead, languages that they may/will need to speak at some point.
Dutch is no use to the Dutch outside Holland, Hungarian is no use to the Hungarians outside Hungary, etc., etc. and yet those languages thrive. In fact, most languages are no use to the locals outside of their country. That's an invalid argument, I think.

Irish is too hard, too complicated, with too many rules, it has too many different dialects on how you should speak it
Aw diddums. If something's hard, it's not worth doing? Have you ever stopped to consider how hard English is? No, because you pick it up naturally as a kid. Foreigners have trouble with it, though. Do native Irish speakers (over the past couple of thousand years) ever consider how hard Irish is? No, for the same reason. There are many many harder languages than Irish, but people - especially young kids - have a remarkable knack for learning. But then they get old and lazy...


and with it being compulsory in schools, kids don't want to know about a language they don't really need in later life.
Kids are idiots. Kids at 14 or 15 don't have a clue about their future life. The old-fashioned view that kids should be seen and not heard is, to an extent, correct. If kids were let do everything they wanted, they'd have TVs in every classroom and would have MTV and Coronation Street as subjects for the Leaving Cert. Many people, when they've left school a few years, are very thankful for what Irish they have learnt. For that reason alone, Irish should be compulsory.

BTW, can people stop going off topic asking for the thread to be split? It's been asked for about five times at this stage - PM the mod instead of repeating posts.

[Poor Student]

According to Newstalk last week, there's more people speaking Chinese as their first language than Irish in this country. Pretty soon Irish will also be overtaken by Polish and beaten into fourth place. What's the point of Irish? Nothing against it personally, but in reality it's just a museum piece.



For some bizarre reason we are adding languages like Chinese, Arabic and Russian to the Leaving Cert which mainly end up benefiting minorities. If you look at the results in such minority languages there is a huge success rate as immigrant families are picking up A1s in these subjects with ease, while natives often struggle to scrape a pass in our alleged native tongue.

This is not a racist or immigrant rant, just something I observed when looking at results in these subjects.

[Eire06]

You do seven subjects for Leaving Cert (or at least most schools do; we were given an optional eighth as well). Only six count. You can do badly in Irish but still get into medicine. In any case, you can apply that argument to any subject. Is it fair someone doesn't get into medicine because they did badly at economics?

Exactly but for economics isn't compulsory...
I hated English as a subject thought in school and was never any good at it but I never complained ...
Oh it's not fair that I have to do this subject cause I find it difficult..
English is compulsory too but you just get on with it and try your best..

And I know some of you are gona come back with you need English blah blah blah.. Yes you do but just conversational English and to write and read it.. you don't need to learn Shakespeare ect to get on in life and will more than likely never use it again

[pineapple stu]

I thought Irish had to be one of the 6, along with English and Maths (maybe just specific to the medical schools). Difference is you can drop economics, you can't drop Irish....
Nope. I did pass Irish and discarded it. I think you have to pass pass Irish though. If you fail pass Irish (and let's be honest - how could you?), then you're in trouble all right - I think you can't get into 99% of courses with a fail in Pass Irish. Same if you do Foundation Irish.

The Economics was just an example. You could make a bad subject choice, or the exam could go badly. If you want to include compulsory subjects, is it fair if someone doesn't get into medicine because they don't appreciate the finer points of Shakespeare and Keats?

[Macy]

The Economics was just an example. You could make a bad subject choice, or the exam could go badly. If you want to include compulsory subjects, is it fair if someone doesn't get into medicine because they don't appreciate the finer points of Shakespeare and Keats?
I suppose you're right, cosidering the standards of doctors writing on perscriptions.... :D

[Poor Student]

Aw diddums. If something's hard, it's not worth doing? Have you ever stopped to consider how hard English is? No, because you pick it up naturally as a kid. Foreigners have trouble with it, though. Do native Irish speakers (over the past couple of thousand years) ever consider how hard Irish is? No, for the same reason. There are many many harder languages than Irish, but people - especially young kids - have a remarkable knack for learning. But then they get old and lazy...




English is considered a simplistic language by foreigners which is among the if not the easiest to learn. Irish is not that hard a language, for example it only has 3 tenses. However it is an inflective language and is quite different to English. It is not apparent to us and is often badly explained. It cannot be assumed that we all have a decent basis in it by the age of 12 to carry on with more complex matters in secondary. When I went to secondary we had vastly varying levels depending on primary school. Some like mine did at least an hour a day, others treated it exotically and did it less frequently than daily. Some people are very behind in the language by the time they get to secondary not knowing their verbs and the likes.

[Poor Student]

Nope. I did pass Irish and discarded it. I think you have to pass pass Irish though. If you fail pass Irish (and let's be honest - how could you?), then you're in trouble all right - I think you can't get into 99% of courses with a fail in Pass Irish. Same if you do Foundation Irish.

The Economics was just an example. You could make a bad subject choice, or the exam could go badly. If you want to include compulsory subjects, is it fair if someone doesn't get into medicine because they don't appreciate the finer points of Shakespeare and Keats?

We have a crap system. What can you say? I think for your A-Levels in Britain you just choose 3 sujects and any three at all, you just hope they're releveant for what you are doing. A far better idea to specialise in your interests at that age than have subjects forced on you up to the age of 18.

[BohDiddley]

Watched it as a neutral ;) and I have to say I thought TG4 did a great job. Half-time discussion (what I caught of it) seemed intelligent and less formulaic than Setanta etc. Good match -- came across really well on the box, apart from the excitement over the usual brain-deads who got only a couple of seconds of fame.
Watching football in the first national tongue has the added advantage that when the game gets boring you can pass the time testing/congratulating yourself on comprehension.

[Cosmo]

Kids are idiots. Kids at 14 or 15 don't have a clue about their future life.

Depends on the person though - what about kids that are more into practical stuff who find learning from a textbook tough as it is never mind having to tackle the irish language?

And in fariness at 14/ 15 I was old enough to know that Irish would be of no benefit to me after school and the amount of studying that had to be done in it was very disproportionate to studying time for other subjects :( - thought at the time it was a waste of time and still do (but maybe ive never grown up :o )

Seriously, I think it would be great if we were all going around nattering in irish but today i think students in secondary school should be given a choice on if they want to keep doing it seen as very few people speak it.

[pineapple stu]

English is considered a simplistic language by foreigners which is among the if not the easiest to learn.
It's a relatively simple language, possibly among the simplest, yes. But that doesn't mean it is simple. Many foreigners - German speakers for example - have huge trouble with the fact that there are no genders in English, or that there is no declination of the word "the". In German, "the" can be "der", "die", "das", "den" or "dem", depending on the case and gender of the relative word.

Languages, by definition, though are complicated. They have to be when you consider that they describe everything which can happen. To dismiss a language because it's hard is silly.


However it is an inflective language and is quite different to English. It is not apparent to us and is often badly explained.
Definitely. Something the Department of Education really need to look at. That said, some phrases in English-Irish are unique to Ireland - "I'm after leaving my book at home", "Myself and Joe went to the game" for example - the reason being that they are literal translations of the Irish ("Táimse tar éis mo leabhar a fágáil sa bhaile" and "Chuas Seósaif agus mé féin go dtí on cluiche"). Those phrases look normal to us, but (apparently) would be frowned upon/would confuse English speakers abroad. Similarly with words like "Sláinte" or "amadán". So it isn't as hard as it first seems either.

The Government's record on promoting Irish is very poor though. There are many simple ways you could encourage the cúpla focal. Change road signs, for example. Why have "Stop" signs when you can have "Stad"? Why have "Yield" when you can have "Géill Slí"? The shape and colour is a world-wide standard, so no-body'd be particularly confused.

[pineapple stu]

I think for your A-Levels in Britain you just choose 3 sujects and any three at all, you just hope they're releveant for what you are doing. A far better idea to specialise in your interests at that age than have subjects forced on you up to the age of 18.
I don't agree, to be honest. Better to get a broad education until you're 18 and then specialise. How many people know what they want to be at 14/15?


And in fariness at 14/ 15 I was old enough to know that Irish would be of no benefit to me
So was I. Maybe I'm just older and wiser than you. ;)

[Éanna]

Thats it exactly - In schools,French and German and other languages are taught in a modern way that keeps kids interested , with Irish they are forced to learn things over and Over
Peig Sayers should be in a classic litrature or for people who do Irish outside of schools cos it has nothing whatsoever to do with teaching a language....If they spruced up the way its taught,you'd be surprised how quick it would catch on .....
spot on

[Poor Student]

Languages, by definition, though are complicated. They have to be when you consider that they describe everything which can happen. To dismiss a language because it's hard is silly.

Well yes and no. Some people are naturally untalented for languages and secondly due to our awful teaching in English we lack the sufficient knowledge to tackle a language. When you consider these two things it is unfair to not have the choice not to take a language. You know yoourself, some people are so bad at Irish they genuinely have to get the exemption.



Those phrases look normal to us, but (apparently) would be frowned upon/would confuse English speakers abroad. Similarly with words like "Sláinte" or "amadán". So it isn't as hard as it first seems either.

There's no would be about it. Gaeilge syntax and such thing have been imported into our dialect Hiberno-English. However some of the syntax is still quite different. For example "I went to the shops in order to buy the book", "Chuaigh mé go dtí na siopaí chun an labhair a cheannach" (please correct me if I'm wrong). Literally "Went I to the shops in order book to buy". Hard things to grasp if you have neither the inclination or the ability.


The Government's record on promoting Irish is very poor though. There are many simple ways you could encourage the cúpla focal. Change road signs, for example. Why have "Stop" signs when you can have "Stad"? Why have "Yield" when you can have "Géill Slí"? The shape and colour is a world-wide standard, so no-body'd be particularly confused.

The government's approach has been poor since the formation of the state. These token things you suggest are useless though. If anything they would confuse the even increasing non-Irish speaking contingent in the state. One thing that is necessary is a thorough teaching of English grammar and structure to give us the framework to understand other languages.

[Poor Student]

I don't agree, to be honest. Better to get a broad education until you're 18 and then specialise. How many people know what they want to be at 14/15?




It's phases if you ask me. You're wise enough to know what to specialise in at 14/15 then wiser at 18 to choose a future deciding degree. I wasted my time with a lot of subjects I had no interest in for the last few years of secondary that had advanced to a difficult enough level to make them a chore and annoyance.

[Dodge]

For some bizarre reason we are adding languages like Chinese, Arabic and Russian to the Leaving Cert which mainly end up benefiting minorities. If you look at the results in such minority languages there is a huge success rate as immigrant families are picking up A1s in these subjects with ease, while natives often struggle to scrape a pass in our alleged native tongue.

This is not a racist or immigrant rant, just something I observed when looking at results in these subjects.
Have a friend who's a primary school teacher and she says in her class the "non national" (for want of a better word) children are generally excellent at learning Irish. She reckons its an amage thing. They don't think irish is "stupid and pointless" so they just get on with learning it

[Poor Student]

Have a friend who's a primary school teacher and she says in her class the "non national" (for want of a better word) children are generally excellent at learning Irish. She reckons its an amage thing. They don't think irish is "stupid and pointless" so they just get on with learning it

There's a higher and higher % of people not taking Irish and that's partly due to more non-natives coming through the education system.

[bigmac]

Just wondering, why are we not having this conversation about Maths? It's compulsary but very few people use more than primary level addition/subtraction/multiplication etc. When was the last time you calculated the derivative of a function? Or applied probability theory to your racing bets? I happen to work in a field where I use mathematics day in and day out, but why do the same arguments about Irish not apply for Maths? How come you need to pass Maths to get a place studying English in University? For some reason, Irish seems to be a much more divisive subject matter.
Personally, I hated Irish but I still think it should be compulsary. But I also think that up to Junior Cert Science should also be compulsary, along with Business Studies, History and Geography. You should also be required to study another foreign language. Incidentally, people who already speak a second language find it easier to learn a third. Also, for EU jobs, Irish counts as a separate language when applying. Therefore, Irish people, who usually would have French or German as well, can apply with three languages.

[Ambaiste!]

I can't imagine Irish EVER gets used by the law unless some looper decides to be irritating by demanding all procedures are carried out in the language.

What an ignorant statement. Men were put up against the wall and shot so we could have the right to speak our language. No one should be belittled or labelled a "looper" for exercising this right.

Could you imagine a French or German person giving out because people want to conduct their business in their native language?

As steve said above, only in Ireland....

[ORPCS]

Irish was optional at my school. Had the choice of German, Spanish or Irish. I Chose Spanish. I have no regrets cos most of the Irish teachers at our school were nuns, gimps, retards or all of the above. As soon as the Irish language reaches out beyond Shinners, begorahs and boggers ... I'll consider learning the language.

As for the minor fracas at the Brandywell on Saturday night.... well it was nothing compared to all 17 yr olds running around the Guildhall Square and Strand Rd thinking they were all Al Capone after 11pm on Saturday night in Derry (just like any other provincial Irish town on a Sat night).

[OneRedArmy]

As for the minor fracas at the Brandywell on Saturday night.... well it was nothing compared to all 17 yr olds running around the Guildhall Square and Strand Rd thinking they were all Al Capone after 11pm on Saturday night in Derry (just like any other provincial Irish town on a Sat night)......which in turn is nothing compared to what passes for a nights entertainment in North Belfast.

Anyway, as away fan tickets for the League match in a few weeks will be distributed only through the club, it will be interesting to see who Rovers give the tickets to.

[ORPCS]

Anyway, as away fan tickets for the League match in a few weeks will be distributed only through the club, it will be interesting to see who Rovers give the tickets to.

Derry will sell tickets for that match to whoever wants one from that shop beside the Bluebell.

As for the trouble in Derry town centre being small compared to North Belfast on a Saturday night - incorrect at least 50 out of 52 weeks of the year.

The 1 minute fracas at the Brandywell was only considered newsworthy because it was Rovers.

[mypost]

Dutch is no use to the Dutch outside Holland, Hungarian is no use to the Hungarians outside Hungary, etc., etc. and yet those languages thrive. In fact, most languages are no use to the locals outside of their country. That's an invalid argument, I think.

:rolleyes:

The difference is, Dutch is the everyday language of Holland, there is a reason why people there need it. You need to speak Dutch if you want to live and work in Holland. Do you need Irish to live here? No. Do you need to speak it to work here? Usually no. That's the difference. Irish is a language of convenience only. That's why kids are not interested in learning it, as they rarely need it.