“Saving the Child”: The Gaelic League’s Campaign for Bilingual Education for Irish-Speaking Districts

Abstract

From its foundation in 1893, the Gaelic League engaged in a wide-scale education programme. Primarily, this involved conducting classes in the Irish language and in Irish history, dancing, music and folklore. It won significant concessions in relation to the use of Irish within the education system, and it succeeded in improving the public perception of the language. In particular, it persuaded the National Board of Education to sanction the approval of what in 1904 came to be entitled the Bilingual Programme of Instruction (the Bilingual Programme). This programme was for use both in schools in those districts where the Irish language was the first language generally spoken by the children and in schools in districts where the local population was bilingual in Irish and English. This chapter opens with an account of the Gaelic League’s campaign for its design and introduction in Irish-speaking districts. A number of issues that arose during the dissemination of the programme are also considered. Variations on the extent to which local Irish-speaking communities accepted it are then related. The chapter closes with an overview of the role of the Gaelic League’s Irish colleges in preparing teachers to teach Irish-speaking children using bilingual teaching methods.