On the last occasion I gave a quotation from a Press report. It now occurs to me that I was wrong in stating a moment ago that it was Deputy Patrick Hogan who made the statement. As a matter of fact, the statement was made by Cormac Breathnach, last year's President of the Gaelic League, who is probably a higher authority, and who comes from an Irish-speaking portion of the country. Gaelic Leaguers, between themselves, have probably opposite points of view on this matter. We have had it to-day, on the authority of Senator Comyn, that it is impossible to conduct certain business of the courts in the Irish language. That comes from a man who is himself a Gaelic enthusiast. Of course, I admit that we had absolutely contrary statements from the Minister for Finance and from Senators who supported this Bill. We, at any rate, should do our utmost to take what we believe to be the correct view on this matter. There have been different points of view from the same body of supporters. I think that to-day Senator Comyn gave a very honest and intelligent exposition of the difficulties to be overcome, certainly a more honest and intelligent exposition than has come from any other source on that side.
The position, at any rate, is that boys and girls who are fourteen or fifteen years of age to-day have, in many cases, been taught the language by teachers who are themselves only pupils, and although they may pass an elementary test in the language it is impossible and unreasonable to expect them, not being native speakers, to have a fluent speaking knowledge of the language. I was in the South of Ireland last week-end and visited six schools. The teachers showed the party that I was with the work of the pupils both in Irish and in English. I have to say this in reference to some statements that are being made, that in the schools we visited we found that the boys who were very good at Irish have also proved themselves very good in other subjects, and passed their examinations exceedingly well. The teachers referred to the lamentable waste of energy that is involved. They pointed out that they could not help it. They were giving the boys what was probably a fairly good literary knowledge of Irish up to fifteen years of age. The boys then left school, and it was pointed out to us that once they left school they did not speak the language at home. They never used it in their conversation with other boys after they left school, and the result was that a year after they had left school they had forgotten a lot of the Irish they had learned, and in the course of a couple of years they had forgotten all of it.
That is the case with regard to the ordinary civilian population, and that, I am afraid, is what will continue to happen unless things change considerably, so that even if barristers and solicitors acquire a perfect knowledge of the language, it will be of very little use to them as far as courts are concerned, except of course, in the Gaeltacht. Therefore, making a knowledge of the language compulsory five or six years in advance will make little or no difference at all so far as spreading a knowledge of the language is concerned.
The position is, I think, that we are running ahead of the times. It is quite unreasonable to expect that in six or seven years' time there will be any demand in any district outside the Gaeltacht for a knowledge of Irish in the case of lawyers, except on the part of somebody who may go into court and, just out of cussedness, wants to have it spoken as he may do to-day and is quite entitled to do. He may do that not exactly because he wants it, but merely to demonstrate his patriotism. I do not think that we should legislate for the odd individual out of the ten thousand or twenty thousand individuals that we have to do with. At the present moment there are regular classes in Irish in the training colleges for teachers undergoing their ordinary training. These teachers when they get schools will be better equipped and more proficient in the matter of imparting a knowledge of the language than many of the teachers who have been teaching it for some years, many of whom had to take up the study of it when they had reached middle age. They have been teaching it for the last seven years, but it is only reasonable to assume that the teachers now in training, in view of the more adequate provision that is being made for instructing them in the language, will turn out more competent pupils as regards a knowledge of the Irish language. If, say, in ten years' time a knowledge of Irish becomes absolutely compulsory in the case of the legal profession, then according to an amendment passed a short time ago we have set a very high standard for the students taking the examination, and I think it is worth waiting for an extra five years. If it is not worth waiting for, then certainly the whole thing is a failure. It is a confession of failure. If we can bring off in that period what is aimed at, then the most sincere and even the wildest enthusiast for the language can congratulate himself on not having lived in vain.
