I always love watching “When Seemingly Innocent Girls Attack” on Fox.

1 December 2005


Jayne1First off in a collection of oddments I bring you Hand Puppet Jayne, and you can go check out Serenity as performed by more hand puppets by clicking here. Of course there are major spoilers, cause its, you know, like, the whole film thing.

A while back one of the politicians here[1] said he thought that Irish should no longer be a compulsory subject for the Leaving[2] which prompted much discussion, including this post on wysiwyg. Personally I’d say keep it compulsory, but then again maybe everything should be voluntary after the Junior Cert?. Anyways, today the Irish Times published the results of a telephone poll, and what I found interesting was the breakdown by age group.

The proportion favouring the retention of compulsory status is highest among the 18 to 24 age group (52 per cent), followed by the 25 to 34 group (37 per cent). It falls to 30 per cent among those aged 35 to 54, 25 per cent in the 55 to 64 age group and 30 per cent among the over 65s

So do the 18 – 24 age group think Irish is a good thing? Or do they simply want everyone else to suffer through it because of what they went through ;) As far as I am concerned, Irish was no harder than any other subject, but no easier either

And finally, a pointless quiz borrowed from Lemuel


take the WHAT BAD BOOK ARE YOU test.


and go to mewing.net. not as good as reading a good book, but way better than a bad one.

Linknotes:

  1. Enda Kenny, Fine Gael
  2. major exams, end of school, decide if you go to college and what you can study

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13 Responses

  1. anne says:

    No one asked me, but i have an opinion that I'm eager to share. Irish should stay compulsory. It's part of your heritage, but it'll disappear once it's optional. I can't believe the older you get, the less in favour of it you are. Is that sentence even grammatical?
    Anyway. Not surprised about your "action movie book" status – the way I mean it, it's a good thing.

  2. NineMoons says:

    I wouldn't mind it not being compulsory after the Junior (it yanked my Leaving results way down, which is why I dropped it in Repeat) but they should really concentrate on making sure that people can speak and understand it. Although I believe the young wans of today are all over the Gaeilge and caint as it an t-am ar fad. Blame Hector…

  3. maca says:

    I think it should remain compulsory, at least for now. The REAL problem, which Kenny seems to ignore, is why is our language teaching so dismally poor that most of cannot speak a 2nd language fluently, even Irish. That is what we should be looking at.

  4. Fence says:

    And if Bertie is anything to go by, few of us can even speak English properly. Take a look at the today's <a> and read about his "deepest sympaty" and some thing called a goverment ;)

  5. Carl V. says:

    I too am the bad book Beowulf…hooray for me!

  6. Misty says:

    I'm Beowolf as well, Yay! :)

  7. mish says:

    i'm the crying of lot 49 strangely enough!

  8. Fence says:

    Thank god Mish is something different. I was begining to think there were onlty two options :)

  9. thebee says:

    Beowulf! Arrggh, that was a pain to go through in school! I don't think you are a Beowulf type at all. No offense meant. :)

  10. Fence says:

    No offence taken thebee. I didn't study Beowulf till college but I enjoyed it then.

    Course I didn't really read anything that didn't interest me after 1st year.

  11. JL Pagano says:

    I am with NineMoons. Keep it compulsory to the Junior Cert. Anything learned after that in ANY language subject is not about learning the language itself, it's more about appreciating its literature, and should thus be optional.

    I can't understand why people think it is a simple dubh agus bán issue where by it is either compulsory or it isn't. There is a simple compromise, and optional after Junior Cert level is just that.

  12. Fence says:

    Oops, forgot to reply to anne way back when. So I'll do so now.

    As a reader of this here blog, you have, of course, been asked for your opinion.
    The suggestion from Kenny was that Irish be made optional for the leaving cert only, which means it would still be compulsoary up to Jnr cert. Meaning you's still have to study it for 9 (?) school years. And then 2 without, if you dropped it.

    But I think that the reason the older people in the survey were opposed is that the way Irish is taught has changed a lot over the years. And, from my pov, Irish isn't the hated subject it once was. There are more Irish-speaking schools that parents can send their kids to, we have an Irish TV station. In meeja-speak, Irish is cooler than it was :)

    But it is still regarded by many as a difficult subject for the Leaving, and considering that all anyone is trying to do it get as many point as possible so they can head off to the college and course they want to, many would see irish as holding them back.

  13. Fence says:

    JL Pagano I think the reason for the black or white issue has to do with the media. So much more exiting to create two opposing (warring) factions than looking at the issues.

    I tend to agree, compulsory till the Jnr. (including transition yr) then optional.