Lack of host families forces some Gaeltacht colleges to remain closed

Maria Nic Dhonncha has been a Bean an Tí hosting Irish language students in the Galway Gaeltacht since 2008.

“To be honest I love them in the house. It is hard work but they are so much fun. The innocence of it – falling in love for the first time, the excitement of every new thing they do. We are really excited to be welcoming them back,” says the mother of two, whose kids grew up in a house which was full of teenagers every summer.

Like many in Gaeltacht communities, Lettermore-based Nic Dhonncha missed the excitement for the last two summers when Covid-19 kept students away from Irish colleges. She is looking forward to the buzz of conversations on packed beaches and the sound of ceilí music in the local hall as lifelong friendships are forged.

“It is many a marriage that has been made from an Irish college,” she adds.

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But as spokeswoman for Concos (Comhchoiste Náisiúnta na gColáistí Samhraidh), an umbrella group for Irish colleges around the country, Nic Dhonncha warns there is a crisis in the sector with a sharp drop in the number of host families or “Mná Tí” forcing some colleges to remain closed while others are turning away students.

“We estimate that the number of available Mná Tí is down by 30-40 per cent this year,” says Nic Dhonncha. In 2019, the last year the Irish colleges operated, there were an estimated 700 Gaeltacht householders or Mná Tí hosting the close to 27,000 students who attended the various courses over the summer months.

Colleges are now being put in the “heartbreaking position” of having to turn students away because they have nowhere to accommodate them, according to Nic Dhonncha who says the €2,000 grant to first-time host families to make their homes compliant with safety regulations is not enough.

Conradh na Gaeilge has estimated some householders spend up to €10,000 on the necessary work. The fact the money is not paid until the first batch of students has been catered for and that the nightly rate paid by the Department of the Gaeltacht for each student (matched by some colleges) is only €11 is also a deterrent, according to the Concos spokeswoman. “It was €10.50, 10 years ago,” says Nic Dhonncha. “A 50 cent increase in over 10 years is not good enough especially when you consider how the cost of food and fuel has gone up this year.”

Last April Coláiste na bhFiannn, which runs courses in the Connemara, Meath and Donegal Gaeltachtaí, announced lingering fears about Covid-19 was forcing it to cancel all Irish courses for the third year in a row. Anxiety about Covid is believed to be one factor in the sharp drop of available host families in many Galetacht communities also.

Based on a Concos survey, Conradh estimates the combined student attendance could be down by at least 3,000 this year, a serious blow to a sector which brings in €50 million annually to Gaeltacht areas.

Mairtín Ó Méalóid, manager of the co-operative on Cape Clear island off west Cork, says the 130-strong population there is “devastated” that their Irish college won’t be reopening this summer because they cannot accommodate the 60 or so students who would have come in June, or the 40 who typically arrived in July and again in August.

“We have challenges around accommodation,” he says. “Over the years the number of houses in the system had started to reduce naturally.” With the hostel on the island now closed and few new candidates available to host students in their homes, the co-operative made the difficult decision last January to start ringing parents to tell them there would be no Irish courses this year.

Payments for Mná Tí are way too small given the requirements on them to adhere to strict fire safety regulations and other guidelines

—  Mairtín Ó Méalóid, manager of the co-operative on Cape Clear island

“It will affect the ferry, the shops, the restaurant, pub and craft shop who will miss the students and also their parents who visited them while they were here,” says Ó Méalóid. Not only were all the courses full in January but they already had a waiting list, he adds.

While some people living on the island speak only Irish, others are bilingual and some residents have no Irish. “There are people living here from all over the world,” says Ó Méalóid who adds “you don’t need a doctorate in language use to know this will affect the language”.

Students have been arriving on Cape Clear each summer to learn Irish since the 1960s and Ó Méalóid agrees with Concos that payments for Mná Tí are “way too small” given the “absolutely necessary” requirements on them to adhere to strict fire safety regulations and other guidelines”.

Maria Nic Dhonncha agrees that closure of colleges can have a detrimental impact on the language. “To preserve the Irish language in the Gaeltacht areas you need young families to be speaking it to their kids. Not all families in the Gaeltacht speak Irish unfortunately and the Gaeltacht, as it is, is getting smaller. Businesses are more inclined to speak Irish if there are students around – everyone from the bus drivers and the shopkeepers to the people on the road.”

Students and parents all over the country are delighted at least some of the Irish colleges are open again this year. Mollyann McGreevy (16) and Clodagh Daly (15), both students at Drumshanbo Vocational School in Co Leitrim, can’t wait to get to Coláiste Mhuigheo near Belmullet, also known as Coláiste Uisce because of the focus on water sports.

Both girls are members of Carrick on Shannon rowing club and also love to surf.

“I am really excited. I have a great interest in Irish and I would love to be fluent,” says Mollyann from Croghan, Co Roscommon.

“And I love being around water and they do lots of water sports there. With Covid we have not been able to do too much socialising for the past two years so we are looking forward to it.”

Both girls play traditional Irish music and Clodagh (15), a native of Arigna, is an all-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil winner who has featured on TG4 more than once. “We have missed a lot for the past two years. My family would normally go to the all-Ireland Fleadh so there’s a lot to look forward to this summer,” she says.

Mollyann’s mother, Lorraine McLoughlin, believes teenagers have missed out on so many opportunities for the past two years that a trip to the Gaeltacht is just what they need now.

“I have three teenagers and you needed to be creative to keep them safe in mind and body,” she says. “Both girls are really interested in Irish and they love the outdoors so this will be two weeks of fun and a chance to meet people from all over the country. It is very exciting for them.”

Julian de Spáinn, general secretary of Conradh na Gaeilge, agrees there is a crisis in the sector now and has called on Minister for Gaeltacht Catherine Martin to establish a taskforce to draw up a strategy for the future.

Given 20 per cent of new recruits to the public service will have to be proficient in Irish by 2030 under changes to the Official Languages Bill recently announced by the Government, he says there is huge potential there to expand the role of Irish colleges.

And while the department has increased the number of scholarships to Irish colleges from just 50 to 400 this year, he believes there is scope for further increases to give all students a realistic chance of getting to the Gaeltacht, something which can cost parents up to €1,000 for a three-week stay.

A spokeswoman for the Department of the Gaeltacht says more than €8 million has been invested by it over the past two years supporting Irish summer colleges during the Covid pandemic. As well as supporting the 40 or so colleges, it also provided aid to about 700 Gaeltacht householders or Mná Tí during that period, the department says.

This year the grant payable to Mná Tí has increased by 10 per cent, and 400 scholarships have been provided under the Deis Gaeltachta initiative, representing an additional State investment of €800,000 for the sector this year, the department adds.

The spokeswoman says the issue of attrition among Gaeltacht households from the sector will be further considered by the department together with relevant stakeholders in the autumn, and “any identified need for an increase in the capital grant available to encourage new households to enter the scheme will be fully evaluated by the department at that time, as will the need for a working group as recommended by Conradh na Gaeilge.”

The department says there is no evidence to suggest that the existing level of grant aid available to households has not been sufficient to date.

Case study: “There is a lovely atmosphere when the college opens”

At the end of 2019 Deborah Ní Ghibne decided to act on a long-held dream to become a Bean an Tí and welcome Irish language students to her home at Inverin, Co Galway.

After taking out a credit union loan and carrying out all the necessary adaptations to her house to make it compliant with fire safety regulations, the Ros na Rún script writer was ready to go “but then Covid hit and that was the end of that”.

Two years later the mother of five bilingual children, aged 11-27, is looking forward to welcoming 10 teenagers to her home on the Atlantic.

Having grown up in Limerick city, her love of Irish was awoken in sixth class by a primary school teacher and she ended up studying Irish in college where she met her future husband, a native of the Meath Gaeltacht.

The couple vowed to raise their children as Irish speakers and moved to Inverin almost 20 years ago.

“It is beautiful here. The beach is at the end of our road. It is glorious. I love it,” she says.

The former banker has always had a yearning to open her home to students attending the nearby Coláiste Lurgan and when the department arrived for an inspection two years ago to ensure everyone in the family was fluent, they passed with flying colours.

“We had started the process in 2019 dealing with the department on regulations,” says Ní Ghibne. “We had to get new fire escape windows and doors in the house.”

She knows first hand that the €2,000 grant from the department doesn’t cover the outlay. “We spent about €11,000; the credit union is great.”

While Concos (Comhchoiste Náisiúnta na gColáistí Samhraidh) believes Mná Tí are dropping out of the system because the sums don’t add up, Ní Ghibne says that as well as the €11 per night per student fee she will get from the department, she also receives the same amount from the college.

“It is not all about the money but €2,000 is quite small for someone who is starting off and has to do a lot of work on a house,” she says.

The Limerick native put her name down five or six years ago when there was an over-supply of Mná Tí in the Inverin area and was thrilled “when my number came up in 2019 to take them the next year”.

She has neighbours who have opted out of the system, some she believes because they realise how much they enjoyed the freedom when Covid hit two years ago.

“And I think some of the older ladies would still be worried about Covid. We are all still a bit up in the air about that as well.”

The new Bean an Tí says she has been getting tips from neighbours about how to deal with her charges and isn’t overly worried about it.

“Hopefully I won’t get any vegans or vegetarians, but if I do we will cross that bridge,” she laughs. Her daughters Iseult (11) and Sadbh (14) have already signed up to help and with so many Irish speakers in the house she is hoping it will come naturally to her guests too.

“I am not going to be a Hitler chasing after them but if I hear them talking English I’ll remind them they must say it in Irish.”

With the first batch of students due on June 5th she says the excitement in the community is palpable. “There is a lovely atmosphere when the college opens. You see the buses going by and all the students gathered down on the beach. The old people missed them, the noise and the craic.”