Comment by papower | Hacker News Reader

Comment by papower | Hacker News Reader

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Another Irish resident confirming that this statement is not true.

Most schools teach in English and teach Irish as a second language. Irish is rarely used in normal day to day interactions and never at work unless you work in an Irish language related area or government department that supports Irish as an official language.

There are some niche exceptions:

- "All Irish" schools where you optionally learn through Irish

- "Gaeltachts" which are pockets of Ireland where Irish is promoted and spoken. Even here the locals will happily switch to English if you prefer.

I like Irish and wish it was more widely spoken as an everyday language but in reality you have to make an explicit effort to experience it.

Indeed I was living in the Gaeltacht (West of Galway). I didn't realise the number of Irish-spoken schools was so low in the rest of the country.

My colleagues all said that all the good schools were Irish spoken (as in everything taught through Irish). I extrapolated this to the rest of the country which is clearly incorrect. Sorry. But I wasn't too much into this as I don't have any kids myself.

If I did have kids I would have left Ireland anyway... At least in the area where I lived most schools were Catholic and I would never accept my child being raised with religious values. I wouldn't want to constantly have to deprogram them.

In fact one of my colleagues had a child who was giving a presentation about the dinosaurs. His parents were called to the school and told off because this was a subject that could not be discussed because evolution was "unscientific" and they shouldn't spread this kind of "nonsense" to the other pupils. Another colleague was shunned for being a "lone parent".

And this was actually a colleague who was living in Athlone, not in the Gaeltacht at all. So forgive me if I hold the Irish education system in low esteem :) Perhaps in Dublin it's better but I've only lived in the more remote areas.

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