Gaelicisation, Education and the Gaelic Script

Abstract

On St Brigit’s Day 1922, the new Provisional Government of the Saorstát, announced the first of a series of far-reaching changes to the national education system. The first of these, known as Public Notice No. 4, was concerned with the teaching of Irish in national schools, introducing what has conventionally come to be known as ‘compulsory Irish’ (Kelly 2002). Public Notice No. 4 contained detailed practical instructions as to the provisions schools would be expected to make as of its implementation on St Patrick’s Day, but most significantly, the document cemented the position of Irish as both a core subject and a medium of instruction in the new national programme (Public Notice No. 4 1922). Bilingual instruction had in fact already been implemented in the Gaeltacht since 1904, following revisions made to the Revised Programme of 1900. A key feature of this programme not seen again until much later in the twentieth century was the gradual introduction of the second language, or even teaching ‘alternately in English and in Irish’, in the teaching of other subjects (Hyland and Milne, 1987: 163). Most national schools outside the Gaeltacht, however, as well as the government itself, proved quite unprepared for the implementation of this new directive. The manifold challenges around the preparation of teachers for this task and the provision of materials for use in classrooms are discussed in detail elsewhere in this volume. But the struggle to achieve gaelicization, using educational policy as the main instrument, has had wider repercussions not only for pedagogy, but also for questions around the printing of Irish, language variation and standardization, for the place of the language and the Gaelic script within Irish cultural heritage, and ultimately for the accessibility of this written heritage.