A Chairde,

Any thoughts or comments on this excerpted piece which appeared last Friday? The full text is available at:

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20050916/business/business1.html

Jamaica is failing itself - Michael Fairbanks
published: Friday | September 16, 2005

Keith Collister, Contributor

THE IRISH MODEL

As an Irish citizen, Mr. Fairbanks believes that Ireland is a very good case study for Jamaica to look at as they have much in common, particularly this predilection for self-sabotage. He describes this as "a preference to continue to allow one's society to degrade and have someone to blame it on, rather than have the society improve and have to share the credit." In short, Ireland used to be a nation of begrudgers, unhappy to see one of their own succeed. This was partially due to the egalitarian leanings of the average Irishman, which he believes has now been converted into a workplace asset as part of Ireland's economic transformation, something yet to be achieved in any sense in our Jamaica.

Ireland, like Jamaica, was a former British island colony which the industrial revolution had passed by. Indeed, they had what Mr. Fairbanks described as the additional problem of Catholicism (in common with much of Latin America), where to be wealthy was a sin, and being poor was good news as you would be rewarded in the hereafter.

A critical change took place in 1967, with the advent of free secondary education. Not too long ago, the Irish couldn't speak any language properly (their native tongue actually being Gaelic) including English. Now, thanks to their educational revolution, they are amongst the best linguists in Europe. In a related aside, Mr. Fairbanks describes the debate over teaching standard English in schools in Jamaica as "obscenely stupid", as the failure to learn standard English simply condemns our Jamaican children to poverty in a globalised world.

GRMA,

Mícheál

quote:

Not too long ago, the Irish couldn't speak any language properly (their native tongue actually being Gaelic) including English. Now, thanks to their educational revolution, they are amongst the best linguists in Europe

Huh? Most (non Irish speaking) irish are hopeless at other languages. No competition for say, the Finns, the Dutch, the Poles, in fact pretty much any country that doesn't have a strong dominant language.

>Most (non Irish speaking) irish are hopeless at other >languages.

Mar a' chuid is mó do na Francaigh :-)

Chuir sé sin ionadh orm féin. Bhuel, chun na fírinne a rá, ní chreideas mo shúileanna...

Yeah, I was a bit surprised at that as well. No offence to the Irish, but in my experience the average inhabitant in every single European country (except the UK) speak more languages than the Irish. But still... being amongst the worst or being amongst the best, just a difference of one word. :-)


What I find insulting is that the author equates speaking "Gaelic" with not being able to "speak any language properly".

reread the line...the author stated that they could speak neither english (the current language) nor gaelic (the original language) adequately. the parenthetical phrase can cause confusion, but my understanding was that the author indicates that gaelic had been nearly completely sacrificed in favor of english, which was adopted to an inferior degree, leaving the irish with no true language for cultural expression.

Right you are, I hope he meant it that way. But I can find no explanation to his claim about the language abilities.

quote:

Mar a' chuid is mó do na Francaigh

Bheul, tá "strong dominant language" acu. Ag na gearmáinaigh fosta.