The 6th of June will stand out in the minds of many (including me) who, due to the remarkably catastrophic failure of a single person to carry out their duties, had to sit a re-scheduled, alternate higher-level English paper 2 for their Leaving Cert in 2009.

At a cost of over one million euro to the already strapped taxpayer, this has to go down as the most Irish thing to happen, ever.

The famous 'Paper three' incident

As part of the investigation into why and how such a basic error could be made, the State Examinations Commission has published this report detailing what the investigation discovered, what actually happened on the day and what may have caused it to happen, what should have happened on the day, and how such a disaster will be prevented in the future.

Some of the more hilarious extracts are

A number of changes were made to the examination timetable in 2009. Arising from these, the SEC
included in the 2009 General Instructions for Superintendents a specific section entitled
‘Significant Changes of Procedures’ on the inside cover of the document. This section made
specific reference to the timetable changes and to the fact that ‘Leaving Certificate examination
paper boxes will contain two green packets of papers for English – Paper 1 for the morning of
Wednesday 3 June and Paper 2 for the morning of Thursday 4 June.’ It was also highlighted, in
bold, that ‘it is essential that the Day to Day Instructions for Leaving Certificate and Junior
Certificate be carefully consulted before each examination session to ensure that you correctly open
and distribute the appropriate examination papers’.

and

Superintendents were also instructed not to proceed with undue haste at the
commencement of an examination session and it was indicated that it was preferable to commence
the examination a few minutes late, ensuring that the candidates are given back this time at the end,
rather than open the wrong packet or distribute the wrong papers under pressure.

As if that wasn’t enough, the day-to-day instructions for the 6th of June specifically stated:

ENGLISH Paper 1

Morning 9.30 – 12.20

Important: The examinations in English Paper 1 and English Paper 2 are morning examination
sessions and both packets therefore are coloured GREEN. Before opening the packet this morning
ensure that you have the packet for Paper 1 and NOT Paper 2

Naturally, the SEC seems to be thoroughly embarrassed. It proposes a number of things that will supposedly stop this from happening again, including putting the papers face-up on desks, so that candidates can immediately spot any mistakes.

In any case, I’m still amazed at how something as basic as reading a label on a packet can have such far-reaching consequences. Thank God John Montague came up!

So says this blog post by Bob Byrne. I will be the first to recognize that Irish really is in dire straits. But I couldn’t contain my anger at the sheer hypocrisy of this post.

It would have been a perfectly reasonable argument, were it not for two sentences:

I would love to be able to speak my native language.

I wish everyone spoke it. But nobody speaks it.

Byrne then goes on and on about how much the language costs the taxpayer, and how ineffective school classes are. This is the typical weapon in the armoury of the anti-Irish punter, nattering on about póg mo thóin and ár nAthair atá ar neamh down in the pub over his Guinness, and it just doesn’t make sense. My question is, if you really would love to speak your native language, and if you really do wish everyone spoke it, then why are you advocating its obliteration from the face of the earth?

It is disgraceful that some couldn’t ask for directions in the street after 15 years of study. It is disgraceful that the education system is under-funded and fails those in disadvantaged areas. But it simply doesn’t follow that we should cut Irish out of our lives altogether.

Bryne makes the point that it’s pointless to translate road-signs, public documents and announcements into Irish. How can we even hope to learn a language for 15 years without being exposed to it? If we’re surrounded by a language, learning it ceases to be a hobby; It becomes a necessity. It is only by taking pains to surround the public in Irish that we can ever hope for its revival.

I do agree however that our Irish courses are pathetic. Irish literature could be some of the most fascinating and enthralling material in existence, but we somehow manage to suck all the fun out of it.

Despite this, according to Byrne:

[He has] friends who pursued learning Irish after leaving school, really embraced it and they will pay the cash to send their kid’s [sic] to an Irish school. Fair play to them. They’re footing the bill. So let’s remove Irish from normal national schools. If you want to learn it you can choose to.

What a sweeping statement. Why should we remove Irish from national schools? We haven’t a hope of saving it if we remove it all together. But we do need to crawl before we walk. Stop attempting to force-feed hundred-year-old poetry and complicated prose to uninterested students, and get busy on communication. Look at the contrast: In other language classes (French, German, Spanish, Italian) you learn about grammatical gender right from the off. You learn and get tested on every-day vocabulary. I never knew that Irish had masculine and feminine nouns until 4th year in secondary school. And how is it that everybody fears an modh coinníollach and an tuiseal ginideach, yet they master le conditionnel in French and Deklination in German? Let’s start with the basics, and work up, just like we all did when we learned English.

He is apparently capable of language-learning (‘I have taught myself two languages since 2003′), so why not learn it? If he truly wishes he could speak it, and learned, at the time of writing, two languages in six years, he shouldn’t have much trouble. Regardless of the stories about it being hard, Irish grammar is quite unremarkable for that of a European language. If you shut out the literature, the history and the Catholic rituals, and take a step back, you’re left with a perfectly normal modern language.

And there are so many resources out there for you to learn it. Go to Club Chonradh na Gaeilge on Harcourt Street and a room of Irish-speakers will help you out. Buy an Irish book. Read Foinse (Sorry, Fianna Fáil can’t afford to bail Foinse out anymore). search ‘Gaeilge’ on YouTube. Watch TG4 and work out the subtitles. Do something. That’s the only way we can ever hope to save it.

Feachtas nua ar son athbheochan na Gaeilge atá i gceist le ‘Caint’. Cúpla laethanta ó shin nuair a bhí mé ag brabhsáil ar Facebook, fuair mé ar an suíomh seo, caintcampaign.com. Is sort blag é, le nascanna a bhaineann leis an teanga, agus siopa earraí. Tig leat t-léinte agus geansaithe cochaill a cheannach, mar aon le málaí agus hataí le sluáin mar iad seo a leannas: ‘Rith an modh coinniolach!’, ‘Is mise an puc ar buille’, nó ‘Scaoil amach é’.

Éifeachtach?

Feachtas rathúil é? Nílim ró-chinnte. Suíomh trom é ar aon nós, agus b’fhéidir go mbeidh tionchar aige orm t-léine a cheannach dom féin. Ach ar ndóigh is é sin an plean atá acu: Deirtear nach bhfuil ann ach duine amháin as caoga atá ábalta an Gaeilge a labhairt. Cás de ‘mais chriticiúil’ atá i gceist.

Bhuel, sin é: Scaoil mé amach é!

Founded in 1947, the Foreign Service Institute is a facility of the US military which trains diplomats and officers to operate overseas, which tends to involve speaking different languages. To this end, since the ’60s it has been producing and publishing loads of audio language courses, designed to deliver quick results, which as government works are in the public domain (so they’re free).

Most of them are quite old, and there are probably better commercial ones out there, but it’s worth a look nonetheless, if only for a bit of cold-war-era nostalgia. You can download dozens of them here.