Is le áifeala mór a léamh me an t-alt seo thuas.. Is gnáth Éireannach mé - Ní gaelgóir ó dhúchais mé agus níl Gaeilge den scoth agam ach oiread ach ba mhaith liom í a bhfeasú agus a usáid níos mó b'fhéidir, sa gnáthlá. Is ar dhaoine cosúil liom a bhfuil Fine Gael agus a urlabhraí na Gaeilge Frank Feighan ag díriú a gcuid aird anois - cé chomh olc is atá sé sin?
For the past years previous governments have directed huge amounts of "airgead, acmhainní agus fuinnimh" on the people of the gaeltactht. Few Gaeilge enthusiasts would deny the importance of the gaeltachtaí, but such resources have unfortunately not stopped the decline of the language in these areas.

I do not think it would take much "airgead, acmhainní agus fuinnimh" to get the people of Clare Island talking Irish - with just one simple prerequisite.. that they have the will to learn it and it would be insulting to suggest that the language of Irish is beyond the people of Clare Island. So if the people of the island have the desire to learn the language, how much resources would really be required to facilitate this? Dictionaries, books.. The most important thing that Fine Gael are doing is utilizing the most important resource.. the will and desire of non gaelgóirí (such as myself, although alas I am also a non resident on Clare Island) to embrace the language.

The vast vast majority of Irish people are non gaelgóirí (ar an drochuair). A proportion of us have a desire to learn and embrace the language, and the remaining proportion simply do not. Fine Gael are simply redirecting resources onto those of us that have such a desire to embrace the language. It is with great regret that I read that a superior suggestion would be to pay gaelgóirí to move onto Clare Island and move the people native to Clare Island off the island altogether. In my humble opinion it would cost much much less to simply facilitate the desires of the people of Clare Island to learn Irish.

I think there are many of us (Irish) that have a desire to embrace our own language and I think directing the same or even less public resources utilizing and nurturing this desire of the vast majority of the population that are non-native speakers is a welcome new approach in comparison to solely directing such resources "airgead, acmhainní agus fuinneamh" on the gaelgóirí alone (not at all to suggest that such resources are wasted).

Mise le meas,
Ciarán.

A Chiaráin a chara, Ba mhaith liom labhairt Gaeilge. ba mhaith liom maireachtáil in Éireann, ba mhaith liom an seans a bheith Éireannach agus Gaelach i freisin. Tabhair dom an seans. Níl an rialtas i ndairire i dtaobh an Ghaeilge, is í sin an fhírinne.

This all sounds like another futile effort to get people to magically speak Irish, which will inevitably result in lots of money wasted and failure. You cannot reasonably expect families on Clare Island will suddenly start speaking Irish again after a 100 years, no matter how much you try to persuade them. English has become their cultural language now, Irish is as alien to them in their daily lives as if you expected them to suddenly start speaking French just because they learn it at school.

This is the whole problem with the language revival strategy is that many think that by telling people that they should speak Irish because they live in Ireland, they are suddenly going to see the light and insist on speaking it to everyone they know. An individual is not going to make Irish their 'language of choice' over English because you cannot speak a language is not the language of the community. You would just look a bit mad going around speaking Irish in a village or town where everyone else speaks English.

Expecting middle-aged people on an island to start speaking Irish is just insane. It'll never work. You might get one or two competent ones but even they are going to tire of it if no one speaks Irish back to them. On the other hand, trying to colonise the island with gaeilgeoiri is just a futile effort. Why would they live there? What jobs would they do? And why should you kick people out of their homes just because they can't be bothered to start speaking a language that their great grandparents spoke? It can hardly be called the language of the people if you have to evict people out of their homes just because they won't speak it.

No. Enough with these big white elephants, the tax payer has wasted enough hard-earned money on outlandish schemes to revive Irish that just routinely fail. Enough redrawing the boundaries of present gaeltachts just because of the incompetent policies of successive government has failed to keep the language alive in these areas. The solution is simple.

Make every national school in the gaeltachts a gaelscoil.

Not just the tiny areas where they really do speak Irish. No. In the parts of the gaeltacht where they stopped speaking Irish 80 years ago. Gaeltacht area should mean that the primary language of education is through Irish. If you want to learn in English, move to the galltacht - it's huge.

The gaeltachts adjacent to Clare Island, that of Achill and Erris, are prime examples of everything that's wrong with gaeltacht policy. Vast areas of alleged gaeltacht where 95% of the inhabitants don't speak a word of Irish outside the hated Irish lessons at school. Rather than shrink the gaeltachts - make Irish the language of the community again by making the national schools gaelscoileanna. Instead of expecting people to start magically speaking Irish just because they were taught it at school, foster an Irish speaking culture. Sure, the children won't start speaking Irish at home to their parents, but by the time they grow up they might start speaking Irish as a first language to their own children. It might take 20 years before you have adults speaking Irish in gaeltachts and not feel self-conscious about it - but be guaranteed, if you don't make Irish a living language again in the schools then in 20 years Irish will be even more marginalised in the gaeltachts.

You cannot keep the pretence up that these areas are gaeltachts and all the primary language of national schools in these districts is English. In order for Irish to become a community language then we should focus on the next generation, not try and change the current one.

If you want Irish spoken on Clare Island - then make a gaelscoil there.

Bhí mé ar Inis Bigil cúpla bliain ó shin agus ní raibh Gaeilge ansin fós ach a oiread ach bhí spéis ag ná daoine í a fhoghlaim. Ní raibh aon chúnamh le fáil ón Rialtas. Cén fáth nach gcuireann siad i bhfeidhm cúrsaí saor in aisce sa cheantar mar seo. Chomh maith le seo, tá daoine ann agus ba mhaith leo maireachtáil sa Ghaeltacht. Is mithid don Rialtas “incentives” a thabhairt do muintir mar seo i dtaobh tithe nó talamh agus gnóthaí.