Fianna Fáil joins the Irish-language fight

Yesterday Fianna Fáil became the second of the main parties to officially committ to Conradh na Gaeilge’s three pre-election demands.

The biggest electoral fish still remains at large, however, and whatever excitement exists in Conradh na Gaeilge at the prospect of a clean sweep will be tempered by the memory of an interview the Taoiseach gave to Raidió na Gaeltachta late last year.

On that occasion, Enda Kenny stoically resisted broadcaster Cormac Ó hEadhra’s entreaties to agree to even the relatively mundane demand for the establishment of a full Oireachtas committee to deal with Gaeltacht and Irish language affairs.

Meanwhile, Micheál Martin was the first leader to pledge himself to Conradh na Gaeilge’s three demands, and yesterday Fianna Fáil put it in writing that they would establish the Oireachtas committee, appoint a senior Government minister with primary responsibility for the Gaeltacht and provide extra funding for Foras na Gaeilge and Údarás na Gaeltacha.

According to the party's manifesto, An Ireland for All, the senior government minister would serve in a newly formed department for community, rural and Gaeltacht affairs.

Such an entity already existed during the long reign of Éamon Ó Cuív whose Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs was affectionately known by some smart alec journalists as Craggy Island.

While the proposal to re-establish Ó Cuív’s old fiefdom might have a retro, rustic Celtic Tiger feel to it, the beginning of Fianna Fáil’s Irish language policy appears to take its inspiration from the type of dewy rhetoric that dates back as far as the Celtic Twilight.

“Our national language is an immeasurable cultural treasure,” we are told in the very first line, but, mercifully, it’s mostly straight-talking from then on.

An Ireland for All even tries gamely to put some actual figures on the value of our "immeasurable treasure". The implementation of the 20-Year Strategy for the Irish language, for example, is worth about €3 million a year, a substantial increase on current – woefully inadequate – funding.

The education section of the policy begins with the claim that Fianna Fáil would “ensure Irish remains at the heart of our Junior and Leaving Certificate Curriculum”. That might be no more than a subtle reminder of Enda Kenny’s reluctantly abandoned plan to scrap Irish as a core Leaving Cert subject, which made headlines during the last general election, but the next part is more interesting.

Though it doesn’t exactly qualify as a fully-fledged promise the commitment “to examining the possibility of introducing a second Irish-language option for the Leaving Certificate and Junior Certificate” is certainly eye-catching.

Many educationalists concerned with how the status quo fails the native speaker in particular would regard the introduction of an extra optional subject as a possible game-changer for the future of a language that is being diminished by an insistence on a one-size-fits-all approach in our schools.

Also welcome, though in need of fleshing out, is a pledge to tailor educational policy to the specific needs of native speakers and other fluent speakers, and to give Gaeltacht schools “the freedom and resources” to teach Irish “in a manner that is appropriate and effective”.

Fianna Fáil also promises to protect the independence of the office of An Coimisinéir Teanga and to introduce legislation to “strengthen” the Official Languages Act, and the party would “work to ensure the Irish Language has full parity of esteem with other EU languages”.

An Ireland for All accuses the outgoing government of lacking "any real commitment to the language or the protection of language rights", claiming that Fine Gael and Labour have "continuously downgraded the status of the Irish language".

Even casual observers of Irish language issues would probably agree with that assessment of an administration that oversaw the resignation of a language commissioner in protest and the appointment of a junior minister for the Gaeltacht who had to learn the bit of Irish on the job.

The difficulty for Fianna Fáil, as always, is that a lot of their promises address problems that also existed during the many prolonged periods they enjoyed in power.

Overall, though, the party’s Irish-language policy, while hardly comprehensive, has a good deal to recommend it.

As with Sinn Féin's policy, also released this week, An Ireland for All contains measures that if implemented might at least help lift the mood of retreat that surrounds the language.

Will the big fish take the bait?

Seán Tadhg Ó Gairbhí is the Editor of the online news service, tuairisc.ie