A chara, - In Prague last week the Taoiseach underlined the opportunities the EU offers the new accession states. He also reassured them that the union posed no threat to their cultures and languages, citing how Irish language and culture are flourishing within the EU.
Surely he must realise by now that this is in spite of the lack of official status for Irish and that the language and culture would be in a much healthier state if normal status had been requested in 1972-73.
Possible concerns for cultural and linguistic diversity were also discussed during the run-up to the last round of accession in 1994-95. Ingmar Karlsson was head of the Swedish Foreign Office's EU think-tank at the time and in an article in Svenska Dagbladet (August 29th, 1994) he assured Swedes that their and other countries' cultures and languages would survive in the EU as long as they did not follow "the Irish Example" ("vi inte kan taenkas foelja det Irlaendska exemplet").
Sweden saw it as a fundamental democratic issue (en demokratifraaga).
Fortunately for them, the new states have all learnt from Ireland's bad example and acquired official status, leaving Ireland's position even more isolated and anomalous and a matter of scorn in Europe.
The present discussion around the linguistic status of Irish has concentrated on the Republic, but as a Northerner with some responsibility for the education of language teachers I am particularly concerned that an Irish Government failure to achieve status for Irish in the EU now could fatally affect the language in the North.
The Northern Ireland curriculum review proposals under current consideration will reduce the time available for languages in schools. If they are implemented, there will be fewer pupils studying two languages and many schools will reduce their language provision. The lack of status since 1972 has left Irish at a disadvantage in the North and the combination of low status and curriculum realignment does not bode well for the future of the language.
The growth of Gaelscoileanna, which the Taoiseach rightly highlighted, will not compensate in the North for the loss of Irish in many of our English-language schools. - Is mise,
EUGENE McKENDRY, Director, Northern Ireland Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research (NICILT), Graduate School of Education, Queen's University, Belfast 7.