Jared wrote: Fergus & Sean, did either your generation or your kids learn any Gaelic in school in Dublin? My impression was that it was only really an active language around Kerry and Galway? Is there a movement to make it more widespread these days?
As Seán says Jared there are different points of view regarding our National Language. The spoken language is not just confined to Kerry and Galway. In fact one is very likely to hear it spoken in my local supermarket (and I frequently do hear it there).
Unlike Seán I love our language and culture. I was a semi fluent speaker at one time. At one time, long long before we aspired to be the 51st state of the USA we had an amazing culture, language, architecture, music, literature, art and system of government. Then began 1000 years of subjugation and not just by, but mostly by, our close neighbours. Our national identity was all but destroyed. I strongly believe that to deny one's native language is to deny one's heritage and culture....but that is just me.
Curiously, the language is on somewhat of a small upward incline in latter times and even more curiously it is being taken up by the young. My daughter is a very good speaker and I never "encouraged" that. She developed a love for it in her school. Her circle of friends spoke to each other in Irish in the school yard and even got to texting in Irish to each other. It got to a point where at one stage the princilpe of her school sent letters home to the parents to ask them to get their children to stop speaking Irish....the reason given was that their English was suffering badly!
So Jared, it very much depends on one's personal viewpoint on this matter.
