Generations of pupils were failed by the education system and sacrificed on the altar of nationalist ideology because of the compulsory Irish policy in schools, a new book has claimed.
The book on compulsory Irish by Dr Adrian Kelly, which draws on recently released State papers, says the education of thousands of students was compromised by the policy, which was supported by all the main political parties and most of the academic establishment.
He says the State's policy from 1922 onwards was to revive the language via the primary schools, but this spectacularly failed and was detrimental to educational standards generally.
Dr Kelly is a graduate of NUI Maynooth and has also studied at the University of Helsinki. He has spent several years on the project.
"The policy increasingly became associated in the public mind with compulsion and examination and resentment built up over the necessity of passing Irish in order to be awarded school Leaving Cert examinations or to qualify for state employment," says the book.
Dr Kelly says the emphasis on Irish led to "intellectual and educational wastage" because it weakened pupils' achievement in other subjects, limited the scope of the curriculum and took the focus away from other areas of the education system.
The book, Compulsory Irish - Language and Education in Ireland 1870s to 1970s, says the policy was mistaken because it failed to interest people in the language.
The books also charts the history of the Language Freedom Movement and other critics who in the mid-1960s challenged the compulsory policy.
"Opposition to the method of revival was neatly equated with opposition to the language, and it was claimed that opposition to the Irish language was opposition to the very idea of the Irish nation," says the book.
"Critics of the methods used to revive the language were labelled anti-Irish, anti-Gaelic and anti-everything else."
He said even writers such as John B. Keane, an Irish speaker who questioned the policy in the 1960s, were described as "west Brits" for their stance.
In the foreword to the book, which is due to be published next month, the general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, Senator Joe O'Toole, says Dr Kelly is going to need "a suit of mail to prepare for the certain onslaught". "There is no doubt that the publication of this book will bring the zealots out of the woodwork once again," he says.
The book is published by Irish Academic Press.