An Irish-language college in the Connemara Gaeltacht has defended its policy of expelling students for speaking English, after a 15-year-old girl was sent home for speaking four sentences as Bearla.
Marian O'Hanlon from Fortane, Co Clare, and her parents were shocked when she was sent home halfway through her course because of her remarks in English, one of which was a spontaneous response while playing basketball. She had been enjoying her three-week Irish-language course in Colaiste Sheosaimh Teo, in Cill Chiarin, about 40 miles from Galway.
Her father, Mr Michael O'Hanlon, said he accepted that colleges had to have rules but thought her punishment was too severe in the circumstances. He was sorry she missed the last 11 days of her course, for which he had paid £300.
"Our daughter was in tears the whole way home after her dismissal," he said. "As soon as she realised she had spoken English she apologised straight away with `Ta t bron orm', and because she is a spontaneous person, her English responses, especially on the basketball pitch, came naturally to her.
"We sent our children to the Gaeltacht so that they could hopefully develop a better understanding and knowledge of the language. Many of us learned it through the medium of fear . . . We wanted our children to learn it through the medium of understanding.
"Unfortunately fear still plays a part, the fear of being sent home if you speak English. It has to be remembered that it is children we are dealing with here."
However, the headmaster, Mr Padraic O Dufaigh, said there were no exceptions to the rule and parents had signed them.
He said strict rules had to be laid down in a college responsible for hundreds of students on each course and suspension, as had been suggested to him by Mr O'Hanlon, would not be as effective.
If the rules were relaxed the students would be tempted to lapse into English all the time, he said, depriving them of learning the Irish language.