The Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, has intervened in the dispute about the downgrading of Old Irish in UCD.
The Minister contacted the UCD president, Dr Hugh Brady, yesterday to voice her concern about changes to the status of Old Irish at UCD, which have already drawn an angry reaction from a wide range of distinguished Irish and international scholars.
Ms Hanafin, a former Irish teacher, is said to be dismayed about a situation in which UCD no longer offers Early and Medieval Irish as a full degree subject. The chair in the subject has also been abolished. It is understood Dr Brady promised to examine the status of Old Irish in the college in the context of an overall strategic review.
Last night, a UCD spokesman said the head of the School of Irish and Celtic Studies, Dr Liam MacMathúna, is conducting a detailed review of all aspects of teaching and learning, including the issue of student recruitment.
UCD says only two students are taking Old Irish at undergraduate level and it was in this context that the decision was taken not to offer it as a full degree course this year.
UCD's downgrading of Old Irish has attracted a huge number of letters to this newspaper.
In one, a correspondent asked: "Could you imagine Oxford University refusing to teach Early and Middle English, or Heidelberg University refusing to teach Old and Middle High German?"
In his letter, Dr George Huxley of the School of Classics in TCD said the "self-congratulatory, oligarchic, over-paid managers at UCD have been behaving as though they were CEOs of a pharmaceutical corporation or other conglomerate".
