Sir, - Current pedagogic wisdom recommends a degree of cross-fertilisation when teaching core subjects. This is good. It increases the pupil's meta-cognition, bringing variety and enjoyment to learning while ensuring that the humanities and sciences are not studied in unsplendid isolation.
Thus, a teacher of English could point out that "smashing" is from the Irish "is maith sin!" as part of an introduction to etymology, as well as using a knowledge of Irish to elucidate certain idiomatic, stylistic or thematic features of certain Irish writers on the English course.
The applications of a knowledge of Irish towards deepening an appreciation of, say, History, Geography and Music, are so obvious that teachers of these subjects who are ignorant of Irish must be seen to be intellectually disadvantaged. - Is mise, e agat, go buioch beannachtach, Gabriel Rosenstock,
Glenn na gCaorach, Co Atha Cliath,