`The Irish language has been under pressure for four to five hundred years and it hasn't vanished yet," says Mr Tony d'Arcy, lecturer in business studies at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT), as it prepares for a new degree course in business and communications as Gaeilge.
BA (Gno agus Cumarsaid) begins in the autumn, and will replace the national certificate in Staidear Gno (Business Studies through Irish), which the college first offered in 1973.
No particular industry has been targeted, but it has a business backing, and the institute has a traditional link with the Gaeltacht, Mr d'Arcy says.
Most of the reading material and computer software will be in English, and while many English words have been "imported", Irish has some late 20th-century vocabulary of its own. A website is "suiomh", for instance, while "idirlion" is the Internet.
In the third year there will be a period of work experience, and students will also spend time on a Gaeltacht course to perfect oral Irish. Applicants will require two Leaving Certificate honours and four passes, and one of the honours must be a B3 or higher in Irish.
The institute expects no shortage of applicants for the 20 to 30 places on offer. More information can be obtained from the course co-ordinators, Mr Tony d'Arcy, Mr Cian Marnell, leachtoir le Gaeilge, and Mr Bernard O'Hara, head of the school of business and humanities at GMIT, telephone (091) 753161.