Sir, - Your correspondent Mrs Kitty Brennan (March 8th) complains of time wasted on Irish at the expense of acquiring real skills, such as another European language. My own children never had difficulty learning other European languages - perhaps because they are taught through Irish and, as bilinguals from birth, have had more opportunities to improve metacognition than their monoglot counterparts.
Having the necessary skills to get through life frequently revolves around self esteem and self confidence. These blessings, I have observed, are frequently denied to those who denigrate their ancestral culture.
A leading expert on this matter, Joshua A. Fishman, in his Language and Ethnicity in Minority Soeiollnguistic Perspective (1989), quoted Fr. M. Brennan as claiming that by knowing Irish "we can still share through it the desires and hopes, the failures and successes, the nobility and even, in a healing manner, the human weakness of practically the whole of our recorded history..." Hardly a waste of time! - Is me agat go buioch beannachtach,
Gleann na gCaorach,
Co Atha Cliath.