Éirígí Supports Demand For Permanent Home For Dundalk Gaelcholáiste
In 2019, students and parents at Coláiste Lú in Dundalk, Co. Louth, staged several high-profile protests which drew national media attention. Their anger stemmed from the systematic running down of the Irish language post-primary unit, Coláiste Lú, which operates within the larger English-speaking Coláiste Chú Chulainn.
Parents and students highlighted the impact cuts in the school budget had on the provision of Irish language education at Coláiste Lú. The protests, which were directed at the Louth Educational and Training Board and the Department of Education, fell largely on deaf ears.
Some of the students have since left to attend Coláiste Ghlór na Mara in Balbriggan, County Dublin, to avail of a full education through Irish. These students travel over 50 kilometres twice a day and spend nearly ten hours a week on the road..
To those familiar with the history of the Gaelscoileanna these types of scenarios are all too familiar.
During the emergence of new Gaelscoileanna in the 1970s and 80s, language activists and parents – often one and the same – frequently found themselves at loggerheads with the state over the provision of Irish-language schooling and the services within it.
The bitter reality is that nearly 50 years after these struggles, the Department of Education, and other state bodies, continue to suppress Irish-language schooling.
Department mandarins claim they are merely following protocol - that ‘demand’ for Coláiste Lú is not sufficient to warrant its own school building. Therefore, it must continue to exist as a sub-unit of an English language school without the same rights as a fully-fledged Gaelcholáiste.
‘Lack of demand’ is the default mantra deployed by the Department of Education to deny families access Irish medium education. This phrase a reflects a wider skewed anti-national attitude within the institutions of the state.
For decades the Department of Education has treated the Irish language with contempt, erecting endless barriers to the establishment of new gaelscoileanna.
If the Twenty-Six County state was serious about supporting the Irish language it would proactively provide every child of school-going age with the opportunity for full immersion education in their own community.
As the Gaelscoileanna that have grown previously have proven, the demand does in fact exist, but the initial building and teaching structures must take root first. Historically, this work has always been left up to the parents, instead of being taken on by the state.
And now, in the summer of 2020 and in the case of Coláiste Lú, history is repeating itself. Coláiste Lú is without a site for this coming September, but parents have driven a campaign that has put the Department under pressure to grant a building and recognition for the school in Dundalk Town.
As things stand, the parents, in partnership with An Foras Pátrúnachta (the patron body), are in talks with the Department to locate a suitable site for the Autumn. This has come after much activism by both pupils and parents.
Éirígí commends and supports the students, parents and wider Dundalk community in their fight to secure full-school status and a permanent home for Coláiste Lú.
We believe in a New Republic where citizens won’t be forced to spend weeks, months and even years fighting for basic educational and Irish language rights. If you want to work with us to help build that New Republic, please get in touch today.