Sir, - Meabh Ni Chathain (September 24th), press officer of Bord na Gaeilge, writes: "Irish is no more compulsory than any other subject on any school curriculum".
Rule 21 of the Rules and Programmes for Secondary Schools specifies that Irish must be taught to "recognised senior pupils", the significance being that if a pupil is not taught Irish the school will not be given Department of Education funding for that pupil. The result is that it is compulsory for the school to teach each pupil Irish. This rule does not apply for any other subject.
It is disingenuous for the language lobby to claim that Irish is not compulsory in schools when everybody knows that it is. Everybody also knows that the long campaign by the Department of Education to change the spoken language of the Irish people has no support among the population and that it can only be sustained through compulsion. In other words, from the point of view of the Department, compulsion is virtuous and it would be contradictory to deny that it exists.
I readily admit that the revival regime in schools is softening, which is greatly welcome. And at last the Department is taking notice of our national illiteracy levels in English and is re-introducing science to primary schools, removed in the 1920s to make room for "double Irish". So the trend is right.
Ms Ni Chathain also lists contexts in which people are finding Irish attractive, such as TG4 viewing, and attendance at all-Irish schools. And why not? In these contexts Irish is being enjoyed by people who have chosen it. It is not compulsory. That is the way of the future. - Yours, etc.,
Donal Flynn, Breffni Terrace, Sandycove, Co Dublin.