April 28th, 2008
Fuck the Irish language
Fuck it.
I’m sick of it. It’s over. Enough with wasting of zillions each year on a lame duck. I’m sure by now you have received your ‘Preparing for National Emergencies’ handbook in the post. I got mine and read it on the jacks,fancy graphics and great print job. It got me thinking about how much of a waste of tax payer’s money it is that the government don’t own a largescale dedicated printing house and bang out all these things themself and not put it out to public tender. Then I get to halfway through the booklet and it turns into Irish and it was good thing that I was sitting down. On a toilet. So I could crap with hate and puke in the sink.
I would love to be able to speak my native language. I wish everyone spoke it. But nobody speaks it. I don’t know why, we study it for what? 15 years in school? Jesus Christ. My secondary school, Saint Aidan’s in Tallaght was so fucked up that certain students were deprived of certain subjects. There were three tiers, The Brainy, The Okay and The Gicknoids. Only the top tier were taught French and Science, the others got makey-up ones like Technology. They were deprived of key subjects but of course they got to do Irish. We all did. Waste of time and resources. Especially for kids who could really do with a bettter education.
The government pushed for Irish to be to recognised as an EU language? It cost the EU 30 million Euros in 2007. All government literature and street signs have to be translated into Irish. For who? I couldn’t find it online but I remember hearing a lad on Marion Finnucan pushing for the removing of Irish from schools and he said that there are more deaf or blind people in Ireland than Irish speakers. That’s a killer. Nobody speaks or understands the stuff. Yeah I know there are thousands of people who speak it, but does it warrant spending all that money? There’s a county hall in Tallaght and it says
‘County Hall Block 6′ in massive raised letters on one side then it has the same in Irish on the other side. I know how much that shit costs. It’s criminal.
I understood a few words but have no idea what this ad is about. How much does all this crap cost the State?
I have friends who pursued learning Irish after leaving school, really embraced it and they will pay the cash to send their kid’s to an Irish school. Fair play to them. They’re footing the bill. So let’s remove Irish from normal national schools. If you want to learn it you can choose to. But it shouldn’t be compulsory. It has no practical worth. A fair percentage of school children are non nationals now so it’s pointless teaching them a useless language.
There’s a few good points about it all boards.ie. A recurring point is that in the 13-14 years of compulsory learning, very few become proficient but in 5 years of French or German you can nail the language.
So fuck Irish in the ear. It all comes down to pride I suppose but I have no major pride about being Irish. There I said it. The Potato Famine nearly wiped an island surrounded by fish. We have no culture, drinking doesn’t count as a national culture. Our world embassador Bono is a fucking gaylord. Irish children’s televison was woeful. People die in hospital waiting rooms but there’s enough cash to translate Power Rangers into Irish for TG4. So many things.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:03 am
BWAHAHAHA! Man, I laughed out loud at that “fuck irish in the ear” pic, Bob.
As for the language itself, I don’t think I’m allowed to have an opinion on it ‘cos I didn’t grow up there or go to an Irish school, but most people I know who went through school in Ireland hated the way it was taught.
It’d be a shame to junk the Irish language completely (because as you’ve pointed out, there’s not much of an Irish culture that isn’t basically pan-Western culture), but look at the Welsh and their Language act - they claim to have shown a good improvement in the use of Welsh on a daily basis. (Though I’m suspicious about their figures, and even more suspicious about the Irish governments ability to foment a similar effect in Ireland given their current approach…)
April 28th, 2008 at 6:49 am
Ah dude thats some of the funniest and sensible ranting I’ve ever heard. Irish….WTF?!!! It’s around 13 years of pointless force feeding. I reckon it’ll be phased out though because of the increasing numbers of non-nationals in schools. Nobody speaks it. Just beacuse a relative handful do, the rest of us shouldn;t have to put up with it and pay for it. A relative number of people like sticking their dick into a hoover but where’s the guv’ment funding for that?
Fuck Irish in the ear. Drown those irish Numbskulls in scalding hot gloops of pearly white sex custard. Then sail the ear raper over to USA.
April 28th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Very very well said. From the heart and all that. But hasnt Des Bishop added some much needed street cred to our waning language? Has he fuck.
In fairness Bob, you know i agree. But when you see these people who genuinely have a love affair with the language and what it represents to them it’s hard to be all fuck irish (i’ve done it loads of time and it breaks their little hearts bless em).
April 28th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Hey, if people are into Irish thats great but enough with wasting what must be 100’s of millions of your Earth Euronicles each year. Good point about the hoovers Stewbie.
Yeah Kyle I read that Welsh thing, neh, sounds the same as us really. the plebs on the street don’t care. Nobody cares!! I thought you were a Cork man
born and bwed….?
Fuck Des Bishop too. Haven’t seen that programme though. We SHOULD be proud of our language but it’s not out fault that we couldn’t learn it in 13 years of schooling is it? well is it?
April 28th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
it is a waste of money and energy trying to teach kids who aren’t interested. Make it optional at least. The shittest thing about irish is that it wasn’t optional in school.
The potato famine nearly wiped out an island surrounded by fish - priceless. But then again you must never have heard of the catgut blight…..
April 29th, 2008 at 3:49 am
ah lads now I go to an Irish language school and I`m proud to speak the language but i do agree that it`s a tad fecked up to expect kids with a minimal grasp of Irish(and I mean irish kids as well as non-nationals)to learn other subjects in Irish as well.
And in all fairness the dubbed shows on TG4 are crap but it`s not like alot of Irish animation companies are offering shows in Irish(although I think there might be one or two)
And also speaking the language isn`t about that `white celtic pride` bollix
or anything it`s just nice to be able to speak your own language before you go learning French or whatever to feel `continental`.
And I doubt it`s so simple as to say that money going towards the language is killing people in waiting rooms.So feel free to rant about corrupt wankers in the dáil and Bono,but leave the Irish language out of it,for fecks sake
April 29th, 2008 at 4:54 am
Tá mé chun an argóint seo a leanúint i nGailge ó seo amach, ceart go leor? Is fua liom an teanga, tá sé ró-cheangailte agus tá sé uafásach ar an cluas freisin. B’fhearr liom an Fraicís, agus is fua liom é sin freisin! Ní usáideann mé é taobh amuigh de scoil in aon chor…
Sin é mo thuaraimse.
Fuck Irish Power Rangers, why don’t they support Irish animation, I’m sure there’s studios out there that’d be interested, like Monster and Brown Bag…
April 29th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Fair points luke, I reckon it’s a real shame that things are the way the are (as bob says, most of the plebs on the street couldn’t give two shites about Irish).
At the same time though, it’s not a problem that can be solved by money - whether thrown at schools or thrown at retarded initiatives like having all government documentation available in full in both Irish and English. That’s going to do fuck-all to get people to care about the language.
Now, if they committed a load of money and resources to organising free evening classes in conversational Irish for the huge number of people in the country who *don’t* have anything much of a grasp of the language.
As for the pride thing, I’ve met a good few people who could only say a few things in Irish but would get shitty with people who didn’t speak Irish, like a linguistic game of one-upmanship. Which is stupid, but there you go. At the same time, for the majority of Irish people it’s not “our language”, it’s more like a relic from the past which we can’t completely get rid of but which we don’t see the point in reviving.
I suppose the argument could be made that reviving the Irish language would help provide a focal point for Irish culture as a whole, but I don’t see that happening. You can’t develop an exciting new cultural phenomenon that’s specifically connected to a given language if by and large the majority of people who speak that language properly are academics or cultural traditionalists. While the decline of the language itself may not be the fault of Irish speakers, the resolute cultural traditionalism (or at least, as far as I know though I could well be wrong) is certainly something that the Irish-speaking community should be blamed for, as they are the only people who can realistically do anything about it.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Well if you actually watch Power Rangers sa Spas you’ll see that the phrase ‘ceart go lear’ is the only sentence they use. So Luke, Irish school eh? Sounds good and I presume you must be 100% proficient in it or will be when you finish. And that’s great. But other than Sinn Fien meetings, trips to Dingle and showing off to American birds, when are you going to use it?
Kyle repeatedly hitting the nail on the head like some kind of hammering device, if they were to spend that 30 mill on something engaging like free Irish comics or decent original programming it would be a step in the right direction. Man, painted on the road to work in 4ft high writing is ‘Lana Bus’, only in Irish, for who?
Eoin, none of that filthy pig latin in here please.
Well I know from a girl who worked on doing the voices for cartoons on TG4 that they don’t get paid, they get a nominal fee and their lunch. A big blighty potato.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:11 am
“if they were to spend that 30 mill on something engaging like free Irish comics”sounds like a plan…
“But other than Sinn Fein meetings, trips to Dingle and showing off to American birds, when are you going to use it?”
simple,I`ll use it to piss off you and Kevin Myers!
April 30th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
It doesn’t piss me off. The word ’svelte’ pisses me off. Is Kevin Myers into scrapping Irish?
April 30th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I thought Kevin Myers was only into slagging off single mums and foreigners…
On a totally different note: Bob, are you still up for doing a page towards the next comic challenge?
April 30th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Do a post on kevin myers. I dare you - wuss.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:47 am
yeah,does anyone else find it funny that Kevin Myers tells us how shitty foreigners are?He`s from England!
May 1st, 2008 at 4:03 am
Oh and is that toy and comic mart thingie on this year?
May 1st, 2008 at 5:17 am
Yeah, I was hoping it’d be on May 3rd to coincide with FCBD, but looks like I’ll just have to snag a bag off Forbidden Planet instead this year.
Also, free Hellboy/BPRD comic this year, fuck yeah!
Do the Comics Challenge, Bob, you lazy prick! Fuck those Twisted Tales, Tharg can fucking wait!
May 1st, 2008 at 5:51 am
Good shit Eoin, back me up here. Peer pressure’s as good a way as any to convince the fucker to join in! (Anyway, we’ve seen what Bob’s like in terms of productivity, one page’ll take him about the same time it takes to go for a dump…)
May 1st, 2008 at 6:55 am
For all we know, he’ll have the bloody thing done while taking a dump!
May 1st, 2008 at 7:53 am
Good point, he’s talked about improving his efficiency before (something about putting his dinner in the oven then going for a shower and getting his evening wank out of the way while it cooked so that he’d have more time for drawing later, I think…though I may be wrong about the shower part). Anyway, I don’t care so long as his comic doesn’t turn up smelling of poo.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I know nothing about Kevin Myers, he wrote some big phoney memoir about his time in the North didn’t he? Where he’s riding loads of birds and catching bullets in his teeth.
Yeah Kyle I’m up for the Challenge. Really liked the last one. Yeah, me and productivity. I am productive. All the comics have been done with a full time job and a girlfriend. I used to shower while my pizza cooked, rub one out, learn japanese in the shower and then scoff the pizza while I read my emails. Ruthless efficiency. But I’m now taking time to smell the roses now that Amperduke is out. I smell the roses in the shower
May 1st, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Bob, you are the epitome of efficiancy. A portrait of proficiency. A tasmanian devil of activity. Lads i know for a fact that this guy has turned down sex for comics. SEX!!
May 1st, 2008 at 7:07 pm
….jesus, that’s just weird.
On a totally random note, bob, you should make an animated GIF out of your stunt car ninja comic before speed racer comes out. Given that Speed Racer is a) shit, b) looks shit, and c) did I mention it was shit? you could try and sneakily circumvent the publicity machine to your favour…
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Totally agree with you Bob.
Being in 4th year of secondary school I have to suffer the utter crap that is Pass Irish.
I’m not even doing higher Irish any more and I still think it’s pointless.
Out of a year of 100, 1 of them speaks fluent Irish.
How fucking ridiculous is that?
It’s thought like we’re all fluent in it where as it should be thought like a foreign language. But of course that’s never going to happen.
What’s most annoying to me about Irish is after 10 years of doing I still don’t understand the majority of it.
It’s a dead language and I just wish it would stay dead/
May 7th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Get off the fence Bob. Tell us what you really think about Irish.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Lads, I go to the same irish school as Luke and if you ask me I think its great to be thaught it. Whenever I’m abroad and I feel like badmouthing someone right beside them I do it through irish. Personally I think irish should be thaught more in English schools. I know (from so many friends who went to English schools) that people only dont like the irish language because they cant speak it. Give it a chance will ya?
P.S. Sorry for my huge absence.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Ah, but Paul - if the majority of Irish citizens don’t speak it then “Give it a chance” isn’t really a useful fucking answer, is it? I mean it’s not like it’s a language you can easily pick up in just a few weeks. Similarly, teaching it more might be a laudable goal but what reasons are there for people to give a shit? TG4 may be broadcasting Irish-language TV but it’s also broadcasting almost exclusively shit tv so what’s the point? It’s not as though you can’t watch shit TV elsewhere. I’ve not seen any proof that anyone is trying to create or promote a vibrant and modern irish-speaking culture, and well, why the fuck would you want to learn a language spoken mostly by old fuckers complaining about how the world’s gone to shit and was better back in the 50’s?
More importantly, the “incentives” to learn Irish are just bullshit - why should you get extra marks for eg taking a Physics exam in Irish instead of English? It’s not like Irish Physics is any bloody harder….
May 8th, 2008 at 5:10 am
Good points Kyle.
Like any language it has to take more than a few weeks because the irish language has such a wide range of words
Personally I think TG4 is shite. Half of their programmes are thorough english and the rest have subtitles at the bottem so whats the point on even having the feckin channel?
Heres a challenge for you. Do you know what ‘Mais’, ‘Toirt’, and ‘Achar’ is? That is irish Physics and you can trust me when I tell you that Physics is FUCK HARD in irish.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:09 am
I have no idea what those terms mean, nor could I give two tugs of a dead dog’s cock to find out. I’m prepared to believe Physics is hard in Irish. Physics is hard in Spanish. Hell, Physics was hard in English when I did my degree in it. If you choose to study a hard subject in a language that just makes it harder for you, that’s your tough shit. I don’t see why an examiner should be giving you extra marks for some sort of masochistic examination tendencies. Outside of the general advantages of knowing another language, doing Physics in Irish doesn’t, that I know of, confer any Sekkrit Fizzics Leetness upon students; why then should it confer extra marks?
The language in which your exam is taken should be irrelevant to the marks you receive in that exam; anything else is a fucking disgrace. I understand the intention but in practice all it does is undermine the educational system and discriminate against those who don’t want to take their exams in Irish.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Ha ha lads settle down. Yeah the whole doing your exam in Irish is stupid. I hate Irish. I should mention that I’m not a lingua-dunce too, I did Honours Irish till 5th year and have a fair understanding of Japanese and a lil bit of Spanish. But Kyle has a degree in Physics, like the way he crowbarred that it in?
May 10th, 2008 at 1:45 am
Ní déanann an degree Fisic sin aon difríocht Bob. Tá mise ag caint ar son ár tanga dúchasach. Muna maith leat é, tá sin ceart go leor le mise ach ceapim go bhfuil an tanga seo gnéiseach.
May 13th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Byrne, you’re a fucking idiot. Surely you known that anyhow but here’s the point: Aside from Ireland, it’s past, present and future going down the shitter in general, it is not helped by those who’s outlook and identity is centred solely on american international pop culture horseshit. Sure 30 mill is wasted on a shiznit readers in a painful effort to teach these ‘tards anything, nevermind a language. The EU owes us, the fuckers have thrown away what little sovereignity we won over the last 800yrs, besides the fact they’ve nicked over 200mill in fishing stocks from our own shores, also illeagal immigration costs and accomodation has cost this gov 1.5 billion euros in the last 10 years yet not a word is mentioned on it, due to a “political correct” silence in association with cheap labor interests.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
yeah I know
May 17th, 2008 at 2:26 am
Guys, guys, guys. I have been honoured and privileged to have been brought up learning both Irish and English. I also hold a diploma in German and found learning a third language much easier having had a bilingual background. All of my German friends spoke their mother tongue and English fluently. Indeed those friends of mine from Wales were proud to speak their mother tongue and English even though they are supposed to be ‘British.’ There is no reason why we can’t be bilingual like many countries throughout the world who have embraced bilingualism and have done so without much effort. Our Irish language is part of what we are. Let’s stop speaking about and let’s start actually speaking it. Otherwise, we are just another province of the United Kingdom.