Want to Send Your Child to an Irish Speaking School?

Image: An Sionnach Fionn Was delighted to converse on Twitter the other night with Liam from the ever popular "Got Ireland" Blog.

His family will be moving back to Ireland from the States, and although his son has started in an American school, he plans to send him to a Gaelscoil for his Senior Infants' year once they are home.

When my girls were young, we lived 15 miles from our Gaelscoil in Roscommon town, and I drove the 60 mile per day round trip to get them in and out, only stopping when a full time job made it impossible to continue.

I offered to dig up an article I had published in the Irish "Woman's Way" magazine a few years back, which was later picked up by the Canadian "Celtic Life International" magazine. 

Nice to see it doing the rounds again today. The Gaelscoil initiative is growing in support every day, with schools in every Irish county.

The oft-repeated complaint - that pupils educated in primary school through Irish Gaeilge are at a disadvantage in English and Maths when they reach secondary - is fast losing credence. It seems to stem from the older system in Gaeltacht areas, when parents were told over and over that Irish was a backward, barbarian language that needed to die a definitive death so the next generation could succeed and prosper in the new, modern (English) era.

We can see that now for the bollox it always was, and thankfully there are facilities available and excellent results emerging as testimonial to the benefits of early dual language education. You Can Read the Full Article Here... Please Share and Comment if You Like it!