Seabird
07-23-2007, 12:13 PM
The language is in safe hands (http://www.irelandclick.com/index.tvt?_ticket=R1LS39KACK3SMLDEIOQNDWSEAOWO96RG UU4HIOUAHPWGBLSDLGSGX2DPUNNAD0TE9LLCPIUFURTSL3MAAP 6SMKLAEU4OTRRHV1Y9ANWP43Y9CHVTYYQFIRY4X9SEAOY9CHYH TRRMMNNAG1SEAOWP4BF&_scope=atown/Content/News/Features&id=2846&_page=&psv=20)
Diarmuid ó Tuama reflects on the revival of Irish as he looks forward to his retirement
By Evan Short
The recent educational successes of Irish language schools has seen the sector register a growth in numbers that has had mainstream education look on in envy.
Amid falling pupil numbers reported in state and maintained schools in the North, Irish medium education continues to buck the trend, boasting increased rolls year on year.
When Diarmuid Ó Tuama was growing up, even the notion of a bunscoil was a concept few had heard of, but last week Diarmuid retired after spending 30 years as teacher and headmaster of Bunscoil Phobal Feirste.
He believes that the recent explosion of interest in the language has guaranteed its survival and opened up a whole new world of opportunity, both in education and private sector jobs.
It is a long way from the days when he had to argue with the headmaster of his grammar school to even study the language.
“I went to St Malachy's College and I did Irish as an ordinary subject, but I remember having to battle with Walter Larkin - who was the priest in charge of the place at the time - to continue learning it.
“Walter was the president of the school and he told me I wasn’t to do Irish because nobody spoke it and it was a dead language. He recommended learning Greek.
Determination
“I told him not doing Irish wasn’t an option so he eventually relented, but told me he didn't think I would get very far. I often think about him because I reared my three children through the Irish language and have a nice house, a nice life and a nice job out of it,” said the retiring principal.
Diarmuid's love of the Irish language and determination to lead his life in that medium came from having a strong Irish ethos in his family.
“My mother and father were both in jail in the 1940s – my mother was a bank robber and my father had planned a bombing campaign and that's where they both learned Irish.
“When I was ten, me and my sister Patricia, who was 12, were sent to the Gaeltacht for summer college.
“That was 1964, you went for a month then and found yourself in a world where you stayed with these people who spoke a strange language that you couldn't understand and I remember that first week I was really homesick.
“But after that I started to twig on what they were saying and got into it, so the first week I spent crying and the last two days I spent crying because I didn't want to go home!”
With such a strong background in the language, Diarmuid says he found A Level Irish quite straightforward and this led to a career in education via St Mary's Teacher Training College where he enrolled in 1973.
“The bunscoil had been founded in 1971 but I didn't start working there until September 1977 and I was there until last week.”
The growth Diarmuid was to witness in Irish language education over the next three decades was enormous.
“In 1971 when the bunscoil started there were six pupils, and in 1977 when I arrived there were 29 and it kept growing.
“The 80s was a very big growth time for us and at one time there were 390 kids, but then with the growth of the other gaelscoils and other schools we ended up with around 300 pupils.”
Continued growth
This growth, and the growth of Irish language institutions both on television and radio, has opened up a world of opportunity according to Diarmuid.
“It has been a great increase, and the good thing about that is the new work opportunities that have been created.”
He adds that the success of the school has also quietened negativity about the bunscoil system – one of the many highlights of his tenure.
“At the time we had to prove we were educationally viable and I remember we put 26 kids in for the 11 Plus – I think it was in 1988 or 1989 – and we got 26 passes.
“Another great memory was between 1994 and 1996, we had a hurling team that was undefeated in three years – we beat everybody in Belfast and in Ulster.
“I would be a GAA fanatic so that was a big highlight, but over the years just seeing the kids’ progression, and then having kids who you taught coming back as teachers is great because it proves that the system worked.”
The Irish language has found itself at the centre of many political battles but despite it attaining a certain stigma among unionist politicians, Diarmuid says only some pupils are sent to Irish medium schools for political reasons.
“There were three main reasons why people came to our school. There were people who genuinely were interested in Irish, then there were the people who were educational fanatics who saw the early results we got and wanted their children to get their 11 Plus, and then in the 80s there were a lot of people who made a political decision to send their children to our school."
In 30 years of teaching in sometimes difficult situations, Diarmuid says the biggest compliment they received on their work came this year, only a couple of weeks before his retirement.
“There was an internal inspector from Dublin who came in this year and she told us that her father had been an Irish teacher in Kerry and he was now 87-years-old.
“She said she had told him that he had to come up and see us because it was an amazing school.
“Hearing that was better than any general inspection we could have had.”
Now Diarmuid says he has no fears for the future of the Irish language thanks to the urban revival.
“I think it is safe now. In my father’s time it wasn’t, then there would be another military campaign and it would all become important, but then it would die away again. But this time it is going on and on and it will survive.
“You can now spend your life on the Falls in the medium of Irish. If you don't want to speak English you don't have to which is amazing."
He traces this success to the Shaws Road Gaeltacht.
“When the Shaws Road people founded that Irish area they did a great service to the language and it was those people who kick-started it.
“They are the ones who should be applauded because they started the whole Gaelic revival and the likes of myself are reaping the rewards.”
Diarmuid ó Tuama reflects on the revival of Irish as he looks forward to his retirement
By Evan Short
The recent educational successes of Irish language schools has seen the sector register a growth in numbers that has had mainstream education look on in envy.
Amid falling pupil numbers reported in state and maintained schools in the North, Irish medium education continues to buck the trend, boasting increased rolls year on year.
When Diarmuid Ó Tuama was growing up, even the notion of a bunscoil was a concept few had heard of, but last week Diarmuid retired after spending 30 years as teacher and headmaster of Bunscoil Phobal Feirste.
He believes that the recent explosion of interest in the language has guaranteed its survival and opened up a whole new world of opportunity, both in education and private sector jobs.
It is a long way from the days when he had to argue with the headmaster of his grammar school to even study the language.
“I went to St Malachy's College and I did Irish as an ordinary subject, but I remember having to battle with Walter Larkin - who was the priest in charge of the place at the time - to continue learning it.
“Walter was the president of the school and he told me I wasn’t to do Irish because nobody spoke it and it was a dead language. He recommended learning Greek.
Determination
“I told him not doing Irish wasn’t an option so he eventually relented, but told me he didn't think I would get very far. I often think about him because I reared my three children through the Irish language and have a nice house, a nice life and a nice job out of it,” said the retiring principal.
Diarmuid's love of the Irish language and determination to lead his life in that medium came from having a strong Irish ethos in his family.
“My mother and father were both in jail in the 1940s – my mother was a bank robber and my father had planned a bombing campaign and that's where they both learned Irish.
“When I was ten, me and my sister Patricia, who was 12, were sent to the Gaeltacht for summer college.
“That was 1964, you went for a month then and found yourself in a world where you stayed with these people who spoke a strange language that you couldn't understand and I remember that first week I was really homesick.
“But after that I started to twig on what they were saying and got into it, so the first week I spent crying and the last two days I spent crying because I didn't want to go home!”
With such a strong background in the language, Diarmuid says he found A Level Irish quite straightforward and this led to a career in education via St Mary's Teacher Training College where he enrolled in 1973.
“The bunscoil had been founded in 1971 but I didn't start working there until September 1977 and I was there until last week.”
The growth Diarmuid was to witness in Irish language education over the next three decades was enormous.
“In 1971 when the bunscoil started there were six pupils, and in 1977 when I arrived there were 29 and it kept growing.
“The 80s was a very big growth time for us and at one time there were 390 kids, but then with the growth of the other gaelscoils and other schools we ended up with around 300 pupils.”
Continued growth
This growth, and the growth of Irish language institutions both on television and radio, has opened up a world of opportunity according to Diarmuid.
“It has been a great increase, and the good thing about that is the new work opportunities that have been created.”
He adds that the success of the school has also quietened negativity about the bunscoil system – one of the many highlights of his tenure.
“At the time we had to prove we were educationally viable and I remember we put 26 kids in for the 11 Plus – I think it was in 1988 or 1989 – and we got 26 passes.
“Another great memory was between 1994 and 1996, we had a hurling team that was undefeated in three years – we beat everybody in Belfast and in Ulster.
“I would be a GAA fanatic so that was a big highlight, but over the years just seeing the kids’ progression, and then having kids who you taught coming back as teachers is great because it proves that the system worked.”
The Irish language has found itself at the centre of many political battles but despite it attaining a certain stigma among unionist politicians, Diarmuid says only some pupils are sent to Irish medium schools for political reasons.
“There were three main reasons why people came to our school. There were people who genuinely were interested in Irish, then there were the people who were educational fanatics who saw the early results we got and wanted their children to get their 11 Plus, and then in the 80s there were a lot of people who made a political decision to send their children to our school."
In 30 years of teaching in sometimes difficult situations, Diarmuid says the biggest compliment they received on their work came this year, only a couple of weeks before his retirement.
“There was an internal inspector from Dublin who came in this year and she told us that her father had been an Irish teacher in Kerry and he was now 87-years-old.
“She said she had told him that he had to come up and see us because it was an amazing school.
“Hearing that was better than any general inspection we could have had.”
Now Diarmuid says he has no fears for the future of the Irish language thanks to the urban revival.
“I think it is safe now. In my father’s time it wasn’t, then there would be another military campaign and it would all become important, but then it would die away again. But this time it is going on and on and it will survive.
“You can now spend your life on the Falls in the medium of Irish. If you don't want to speak English you don't have to which is amazing."
He traces this success to the Shaws Road Gaeltacht.
“When the Shaws Road people founded that Irish area they did a great service to the language and it was those people who kick-started it.
“They are the ones who should be applauded because they started the whole Gaelic revival and the likes of myself are reaping the rewards.”