BRENDAN M. REDMOND,
Sir, - What is an isosceles triangle? I don't know now and I didn't know it in 1946 either, when, as a 15-year old, I sweated over a maths paper in an entrance exam for one of Dublin's largest employers. Why? Because the maths paper was in English and I had learned all my subjects in the Christian Brothers through Irish.
I did pass the exam - but had I not, I am sure the emigrant ship would have had one more passenger going to England to work on building sites after the war.
It is paradoxical that the extreme nationalism of de Valera, which compelled Irish children to learn their native language at the expense of more worthwhile subjects, militated against their getting a good grounding in subjects that would have been a distinct advantage to them in their adopted country. And England was the adopted country for most emigrants, a country for which Dev had no great love!
Looking back, I find it hard to understand why emigration was not accepted as a fact of life and that the government of the day did nothing to have children prepared for that eventuality. Instead we learned a language that was useless after leaving school, unless one was fortunate to get a job in the civil service.
Even there, the farce continued. Letters from the civil service commenced with "A chara" and ended with "Is mise le meas", with the body of the letter in English. We also have the token nod towards Irish in the Dáil with the "Tá" and "Níl" in voting. What is wrong with voting "Yes" and "No" after a debate that has taken place in English?
Is it any wonder most people have a cynical attitude towards the language as it has generated a clique that made a career out of maintaining a situation far removed from reality? Compulsion has not worked. The challenge today is to devise a programme based on a love of the language and not instilling a hatred of all things British, which was the norm in my schooldays. Whatever one thinks about Dr Charles McQuaid, he had a good grasp of the reality of the situation at that time. - Yours, etc.,
BRENDAN M. REDMOND,
Hazelbrook Road,
Terenure,
Dublin 6W.