An Gaeltacht

At long last, a thread on that institution of Irish culture, an Gaeltacht. Feel free to share your experiences, where did you go, how was it?

I went just once. I went to Waterford and disliked it hugely. Everyone had to sit in a room and do the Rosary every night. Most classes consisted of learning Mass as Gaeilge. That was for everyone... except me and one other person. We were the token Protestants. On the first evening we had our "group meeting" in a large room. This is where the Rosary was to be said each night. On the first evening the principal calls out "Any Protestants in the room, please stand up?". We were then marched out of the room and excused from the activities. A terrible way of doing it for young teenagers, it ostracised you from the start.

The social side was decent enough though.

I always remember sitting out in the hall while they did the rosary one night and one of the cinnera came up to me and asks why I wasn't in doing the rosary. I'm not a Catholic I replied. What are ya? I'm a Protestant. Oooooooooh really, we had a buddhist on the last course.

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After that it was to French College for me.

[coughs]An Ghaeltacht[/coughs]

I'm actually horrified by your experience Johnfás. I myself, never went on an extended trip to the Gaeltacht until I was in college when I couldn't imagine any overtly confessional elements being admitted. However, I can imagine such instances occurring especially since the vast majority of schools who send their children to the Gaeltachtaí are religious ones. I'm rather surprised though, I always thought, perhaps wrongly, that most Gaeltacht dwellers were rather laissez-faire in regards to religious matters. Perhaps you went to one of the schools founded by tone of the Oifigeach's in An Giall (The Hostage), who wore a pioneer badge on one lapel and a fáinne on the other.

The Gaeltacht experience was one I missed out on, being an honourary Galtee myself. But we used to sneer at the poor frightened souls coming up from Dublin, completely out of their depth. It must have been like the film Deliverance for them.

I had a similar experience to Johnfas, which caused me to pack up my things and go home. They didn't call my parents to tell them I was missing until I was back about 2 days either.

There was praying and Jesus candles and mass, catholic mass and there was no choice about it either. Awful.

cookiemonster wrote:

I had a similar experience to Johnfas, which caused me to pack up my things and go home. They didn't call my parents to tell them I was missing until I was back about 2 days either.

There was praying and Jesus candles and mass, catholic mass and there was no choice about it either. Awful.

My daughter is in Spiddle and refuses to come home. It seems in the last few years to have shifted from beatings, ostracisation and mass to learning how to smoke and kiss.

cactus flower wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

I had a similar experience to Johnfas, which caused me to pack up my things and go home. They didn't call my parents to tell them I was missing until I was back about 2 days either.

There was praying and Jesus candles and mass, catholic mass and there was no choice about it either. Awful.

My daughter is in Spiddle and refuses to come home. It seems in the last few years to have shifted from beatings, ostracisation and mass to learning how to smoke and kiss.

We had the Spanish students over for that sort of thing.

i`ve taught in a couple of different Irish colleges. I`ve no interest in religion and policing hundreds of bored kids while they shame you in front of the locals at mass is definitely a pain in the ass. My trick for escaping out of this was this: in the days leading up to Saturday evening I would drop a hint in class about the fact that if you were a non-Catholic meant that you could escape on Saturday evening. I would look at things on rolls like schools, Christian names and surnames, just in case and target potential recruits to my ragtag army like that. By saturday morning I would have enough names on my list of Protestant, Jewish, Muslim kids to justify having a teacher supervise them and I would approach the principal to say that maybe it wouldn`t be the best thing in the world for the college to be seen coercing these people into religious practises not of their faith. I would suggest their supervision by myself. The principal stressed with the million and one things going on in an Irish college would gratefully accept my immediate solution to an unforeseen problem. Then as verybody else went to mass I`d play pool or table tennis with the kids or bring them down to the beach and have one of them who was an expert on the fauna of the seashore tell me all about crabs and mussels etc.

Sounds like a very nice thing to do. If only they had been like that where I went.

I got to sit in a corridor on the evenings and the same occurred if you didn't go to mass (which was held in the college itself). I was never around on the Sundays though, my parents came down and brought me to church and out for lunch - yummy!

On the general issue of Irish colleges I think they are hugely beneficial to most children who go. They`re forced out of their comfort zone at home, forced to make decisions and choices for themselves. They are forced to integrate quickly with total strangers and to adapt to new surroundings. those with limited social skills will struggle but for the vast majority, once they settle in, the experience is overwhelmingly positive. A repeat visitor will learn a good standard of Irish in an atmosphere where supervision is actually a lot better than at home in may cases. I`d definitely recommend it to kids over the age of about twelve. Younger than that, although I`ve seen kids prosper who were under that age, I wouldn`t recommend.

I was 12 when I went. Not that I didn't like the independence and the activities etc, in fact I relished that aspect and throughout my teenager years I went away on various activities, french college etc. However, I got put off Irish college by my experience there.

johnfás wrote:

Sounds like a very nice thing to do. If only they had been like that where I went.

I got to sit in a corridor on the evenings and the same occurred if you didn't go to mass (which was held in the college itself). I was never around on the Sundays though, my parents came down and brought me to church and out for lunch - yummy!

It was motivated by pure selfishness John

johnfás wrote:

I was 12 when I went. Not that I didn't like the independence and the activities etc, in fact I relished that aspect and throughout my teenager years I went away on various activities, french college etc. However, I got put off Irish college by my experience there.

And I can understand why but I`ve never really come across anyone that tactless in my time teaching in them. Normal standard for us would have been to prepare everybody collectively as if they were going and then give them the option of going. By and large people of non-catholic backgrounds would then opt out but you did get the odd maverick going out of curiosity and then interrogating the catholic kids with questions they couldn`t answer.

anmajornarthainig wrote:

johnfás wrote:

I was 12 when I went. Not that I didn't like the independence and the activities etc, in fact I relished that aspect and throughout my teenager years I went away on various activities, french college etc. However, I got put off Irish college by my experience there.

And I can understand why but I`ve never really come across anyone that tactless in my time teaching in them. Normal standard for us would have been to prepare everybody collectively as if they were going and then give them the option of going. By and large people of non-catholic backgrounds would then opt out but you did get the odd maverick going out of curiosity and then interrogating the catholic kids with questions they couldn`t answer.

I taught for one summer in the Gaeltacht (and those of you who know my level of Irish will be stunned at that) after I'd spent a year teaching LC pass and first year Irish - despite not having any 3rd level qualification to prepare me for either. My LC class did really, really well - the five who were sent to do foundation but refused and did pass instead all got Cs and Bs, which I felt was a great success for them in proving the unbelievers wrong, and for me in getting them that far.

But the Gaeltacht experience was not so positive for me, I took over from someone who couldn't go at the last minute for family reasons and while my classes were good and well prepared and the cigire was perfectly happy, my general Irish showed me to be an absolute fraud. I found it very, very difficult.

But the programme itself was pretty lame too. There could have been a lot more done for the kids, considering what they paid - and what we were paid!

Racketeers.