Madam, - How amusing it is that it takes a man from Flushing, New York (Des Bishop) to arouse even a bit of interest for our young people in the Irish language?
How typical is it that the RTÉ programme aired last Thursday (In the Name of the Fada) ends with Bishop - alias Mac an Easpaigh - trying to get explanations as to the inexplicable lack of spoken Irish in our schools, with the Minister for Education waffling on about change. And the conversation about Irish was in English!
How frustrating is it that we have been carrying on with this charade for the past 50 years and more and that my son who, 38 years after me is in fifth year, cannot string one sentence together in a language that he has been learning for 13 years?
Could we please come to our senses and either confine the poor, even wretched, teaching of this beautiful language to gaelscoileanna or teach it so that people can actually speak it? If it took Bishop only one year to get there, why do we not have one or two years in primary school where everything is taught through Irish? - Yours, etc,
PHAEDRA KEOGH, Killiskey Cross, Ashford, Co Wicklow.