Lecturer calls for a national review of Gaeltacht

The Government should initiate a national review of the Gaeltacht, the Galway lecturer and journalist, Mr Nollaig O Gadhra, has said.

In a lecture to the 19th annual Celtic Colloqium at Harvard University yesterday, Mr O Gadhra said there was an urgent need for "a "radical rethink" on all aspects of public policy towards the Gaeltacht, including the wider educational, legal, cultural, civil and community rights applying to Gaeltacht communities on a daily basis.

Mr O Gadhra, a humanities department lecturer at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, also criticised the postponement of the forthcoming elections to Udaras na Gaeltachta. The elections, which were due to take place on the same day as the European and local polls on June 11th, have been deferred until October, pending legislation to change boundaries.

During the recent debate on regionalisation in relation to EU structural funds, no thought was given to the Gaeltacht communities, Mr O Gadhra said. Gaeltacht areas in three counties, Donegal, Mayo and Galway, will remain in the EU's Objective 1 area, while four smaller Gaeltachts in Cos Kerry, Cork, Waterford and Meath are on "the other side of the line".

The "marginalisation" of the Irish language and culture was now evident in many areas from religious instruction to "mass media practices", Mr O Gadhra said. is na Gaeilge represented signs of hope, he added.