Madam, - Ye gods! According to your Editorial of 18th March, because Irish speakers are not given the opportunity to speak Irish to Government officials they have no opportunity to speak Irish at all. Can't they talk to the 1.6 million Irish speakers you refer to? Or they could try talking to the TDs who to a man and woman support the revival of Irish. But what's this? According to that same Editorial they spend less than 1 per cent of their time actually speaking it!
This is the pathetic outcome of decades of compulsion, browbeating, discrimination, money down the drain and wishful thinking. Now, we are talking about new teaching methods, about making the language "more relevant", making it a "fun pastime" and "fashionable". We look to Europe to give it "status".
Instead of all this, it's a pity we haven't considered a hard-headed appraisal of 80 years of abject failure. We have yet to learn that you can force people to learn Irish, you may even get them to express a sentimental attachment to it, but you will never get them to speak it. - Yours, etc.,
DAVID HERMAN, Meadow Grove, Dublin 16.