Speaking Irish
True life: What it's like speaking Irish all day.
Were you nervous on your first day of secondary school? I was, but to me I was going to a school on Mars; where they didn’t understand my language and I theirs’. On top of that, I knew no one there and had no idea what I would do.
Then I arrived and everything was fine - so what if I had to speak Irish? I was learning it everyday for 8 years in primary school! Then I remembered that everything that was new to me (terminology etc) was new to everyone else too! I was worried about pretty much nothing.
The advantages of education through the Irish language out weigh the disadvantages by a long shot.
For one, you receive 10% of the marks that you didn’t get for your Junior Cert. subjects History, Geography. 5% of the marks you didn’t get in all your languages e.g. French, German, Spanish etc. and Maths.
Along with that, it is way easier to learn another language like French or German because you’re already bilingual and your brain is used to translating from one language to another. I thought that was complete bullshit and never believed it but it actually is true!
Also, the majority of our school textbooks are in English as they are not available through Irish and the ones that are, are very outdated. And the language exam papers, French and German along with the sample papers for the new Science syllabus are not available through Irish. I think this is disgraceful but it is handy for the dictionaries, as sometimes the Irish is very difficult, even some of my teachers say so!
Having fluent Irish gives you (well it definitely gives me) a strong sense of pride! I myself am now very into Irish nationalism and I care about the rights of the Irish and I understand the huge importance of the Easter Uprising however unconventional it was! Before, I never really cared; granted, learning about it in History could have helped, but either way…
As I said, the advantages do out weigh the disadvantages by a long shot. As I’m writing this I can only think of ONE disadvantage, and I’ve been thinking about this for a while.
The one disadvantage I found is that sometimes when I’m talking about something I won’t remember the ENGLISH word for it! For example the other day, I couldn’t think of the word “province” and I had to explain what I meant by saying, “you know the things like Leinster”! And yesterday my friends and I were looking at the pH of our water and my friend said, “my pH is really high, it’s almost a bun!”
Of course she meant a “base” but we were walking past a man who heard “it’s almost a bun!” and saw a water bottle being held up and looked very confused! It was really funny though!
By: Michelle O'Connor
This article is part of the SpunOut.ie true life stories section – a space for young people to share their experiences of tough times and encourage others to seek help. This story is just one person's experience and it may be different for you. Remember that no matter what you are going through, there is help and support available. See the Find help section for more information: http://www.spunout.ie/help/
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