Conferring ceremonies continued today (12 September 2006) at University
College Cork with almost 500 undergraduate and postgraduate students
graduating from the Colleges of Science, Engineering & Food
Science, Business & Law and Medicine & Health.
Among those who graduated were 45 students who were conferred with an
MBS (Business Information Systems), 32 BSc (Hons) Food Business, 37 BSc
(Hons) Food Science & Technology, 30 BSc (Hons) Nutritional
Sciences and ten BSc Hons (Rural Development). One hundred and
thirty six graduated in Law (BCL, BCL Evening Law, BCL International,
BCL Law & French, BCL Law & German and BCL Law &
Irish). There were 22 LLB's and one LLM (e-Law). One hundred and
twenty seven graduated in engineering which included BE (Civil
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic), Microelectronic, Process
& Chemical Engineering) and three MEngSc postgraduate
degrees. There were 36 BSc degrees awarded in Applied Psychology
(6) and Biochemistry (30).
The Conferring addresses were given by Mr Joe Gantly, Cork Airport
Authority, Professor Seán Ó Coileáin, Roinn na Nua Ghaeilge, who spoke
on the theme "Irish in the University and in Society" (see below) and
Professor Patrick Fottrell, Chairperson, Science Foundation Ireland
(SFI). In his speech Professor Fottrell spoke on the challenge of
innovation. In examining the situation in Ireland, he referred to
repeated surveys of managers of multinational companies in Ireland and
overseas which showed that the availability of an educated and
professional skilled workforce ranked highest in the advantages of
operating in Ireland. "Nearly all the world's top Information and
Communications Technology (ICT), Biopharmaceutical and Medical Devices
companies are located in Ireland" said Professor Fottrell. He spoke of
the need for high quality engineering and science graduates for such
companies. He also referred to the increasing demand for linkages
between engineering, basic sciences and biomedicine in high
technological areas such as Biotechnology/Biomed Eng/Medical Devices,
Nanotechnology and Systems Biology. In referring to the challenge
of encouraging industries to locate research and development activities
in Ireland, he said "the high quality of the research at Universities
such as UCC, is the key factor in attracting R&D industrial
research investment into Ireland and helping Irish industries with
R&D innovation."
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Conferring Address by Professor Seán Ó Coileáin, Roinn na Nua Ghaeilge, UCC
My theme will be "Irish in the University and in Society". I hope you may indulge these my parting remarks.
All of us here today, in whatever capacity, stand in a complex
relationship to the Irish language. My situation (now coming to
an end), as Professor of Modern Irish and Head of that Department, is
not essentially different from that of any of you, in that we must all
make our own accommodation with the ever-changing reality that is Irish
identity, and in that the Irish language is still and likely to
continue to be an important if not essential part of that identity.
If I were to ask how many of you would willingly relinquish all
knowledge of Irish or readily accept a situation in which your children
would not be taught the language for at least some period of their
formal education, I think that very few of you would be prepared to do
so. We can say this much with confidence, because the question
has often been asked in conducting language-attitude surveys, and
invariably the great majority of those surveyed were not prepared to
contemplate their connection with Irish being finally and completely
severed.
Yet equally - and herein lies our dilemma - there would be very few of
us who can visualize a situation in which Irish would be the common -
or even a common - spoken language throughout the country at any time
in the future. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that even
the Gaeltacht areas are becoming increasingly attenuated in terms both
of language richness and extent, as at least some of the present
generation of speakers make the same language choice made on our behalf
by our own great-grandparents or by their parents some generations
ago. Yet, even if the Gaeltacht were to disappear entirely, which
will not happen in my lifetime at least, this will not resolve the
language dilemma. Rather, it will continue to be for each
generation to say what its relationship with the Irish language will be
or must be.
A generation or so ago, the matter would have seemed clearer, or at
least the rhetoric surrounding it would have been more
compelling. So, for instance, in the White Paper of 1965, the
last comprehensive statement of Government policy with regard to Irish,
it is thought necessary to give solemn assurance that, while:
"Irish must have primacy as the national language and every effort will
be made to extend and intensify its use, nevertheless, for a
considerable time ahead, English will remain the language chiefly used
outside the Gaeltacht for various purposes.... It would also be
unrealistic not to recognize that, because of our geographical position
and the pattern of our economic and social relationships, a competent
knowledge of English will be needed even in a predominantly
Irish-speaking Ireland."
This concern that a knowledge of English be maintained in an
Irish-speaking Ireland strikes us as ludicrous today, as though its
demise could have been seriously contemplated - if indeed it was - as
recently as 1965, when I was an undergraduate student at UCC. We
have learned a great deal about the sociology of language and not a
little about ourselves as a people in the interval. Later
statements of language policy have been more muted, so muted, indeed,
in recent times as to be scarcely heard at all. From the
perspective of a university department, such as mine, the
considerations are more individual, more private, relating to the
fulfilment of deep psychological and educational needs, as well, of
course, as academic standards.
Such language policy as it now obtains in the Irish educational system,
not merely at third level but at second level also, is largely
determined by the Irish-language matriculation or entry requirement of
the National University of Ireland which first came into effect in
1913, some years before the achievement of political independence, and
which has been maintained to the present, despite the removal in 1973
of the corresponding State requirement that, to be awarded the Leaving
Certificate, one had first to obtain a pass in Irish as part of the
examination.
While this divergence might not have seemed significant in the context
of the early seventies when the national University (comprising UCC,
UCG, UCD and Maynooth) had a virtual monopoly in the area of
third-level education, and a corresponding influence on the educational
system as a whole, this is no longer the case. Not alone is
Trinity now fairly in the mainstream, following the removal of the
Catholic ban, but two new universities have since been created (Dublin
City University and the University of Limerick), and there has been an
explosion of other third-level institutions (notably the Regional
colleges which, in turn, have become Institutes of Technology) none of
which is constrained in its recruitment by an Irish-language
requirement. The time may well come when a largely unsupported
National University of Ireland may have to reconsider its own position
on the matter, for instance if it appeared (and I know of no firm
evidence of this so far) that it was losing out in terms of either the
number or quality of students applying for admission. I have no
doubt that, if the N.U.I. requirement were to be removed - and the
relationship of the National University to its constituent
universities, including U.C.C., is now in question - the Department of
Education requirement that students take Irish as part of the Leaving
Certificate course, but need not pass the subject to have the
certificate conferred on them, would be shown to be largely
ineffectual, and indeed inoperable in practice.
It might not be overly pessimistic to say that the consequences would
be calamitous for the status of Irish not only in the educational
system but in society as a whole and utterly demoralising for those for
whom it was the first or became the chosen language of their everyday
lives.
I think of the words of Máirtín Ó Cadhain reflecting on his life's
work, on what it meant for him to be a writer and on the medium in
which he wrote. I translate:
I am as old as the Hag of Beara, as old as Newgrange, as old as the
giant elk. Two thousand years of that filthy sow that is Ireland
are going about in my ears, in my mouth, in my eyes, in my head, in my
dreams. A man who wrote in a minor language, if it can be called
a language at all, Hugh Mac Diarmid, said it better:
The great rose of all the world is not for me
For me the little white rose of Scotland
That smells sweetly and breaks the heart.
Few if any of us could claim that the Irish language could have that
force or meaning in our lives. But I feel that there is a very
real sense in which all of us would be diminished by its loss.
Perhaps I have spoken too much in terms of formal requirements which,
important as they may be, merely provide the framework by which more
dynamic and vital developments may be allowed to happen. And much
has happened: for instance, there has been the burgeoning of a creative
literature in Irish and the cultivation of a modern critical idiom
comparable to anything in English that would not have been possible but
for the educational system, particularly the universities, and here
University College Cork, can take particular credit.
Alongside the official structures - and this is what gives one most
reason for hope - is the phenomenon of the Gaelscoil movement
seems to have taken everybody by surprise, even those directly
involved, by its momentum. Far from being imposed from above,
this movement has often found itself challenging the official system in
demanding education through Irish in a manner reminiscent of the
popular campaign which led to the infant National University adopting
the Irish matriculation requirement in 1913. It were as though,
at a time of great change, when such things were thought to be firmly
in the past, some deeper hidden instinct had suddenly re-asserted
itself. And such instincts are generally a surer guide than any
number of official policies or formal requirements. If so, the
future of the language is guaranteed.
There is now, in addition, a new sense of national pride and
self-confidence a sense, for instance, that we can support our own
people rather than be forever scattering them to the four winds, that
allows us once more to look to our past and to our future.
Following a steep decline in the 1980s, the number of students taking
Irish at UCC has surged dramatically in the 1990s and into the new
millennium, a pattern repeated in the other universities. In
addition to the BA, students may take Irish towards the BComm. and BCL,
and the level of demand for these courses is reflected in the high
points' requirement for entry.
The Universities' Act, 1997, prescribes that each governing authority
shall "have regard to the promotion and use of the Irish language as a
language of general communication and promote the cultivation of the
Irish language and its associated literary and cultural traditions".
The Governing body of University College, Cork, had no need of such
urging and, twenty years before the passing of the Universities Act,
had in 1977 adopted a bilingual language policy, based on the principle
that "bilingualism is an acceptable concept to most Irish people and to
some extend both Irish and English are part of the fabric of modern
Irish society".
Similarly, in terms of scholarly activity, it is most rewarding to work
in a congenial environment at the very centre of one's area of study,
with library and archival resources readily available on the one hand
and the living speech of the Gaeltacht on the other. Even
graduate students quickly find themselves working on material that has
been scarcely touched before, such is the abundance of the sources;
there is the excitement and confidence that this newness and new-found
authority bring.
I offer all of you who today join the graduate body of the National
University of Ireland my sincere congratulations, knowing that you will
prove worthy of its long and honourable traditions. The future is
yours to decide.
Gabhaim buíochas libh go léir as éisteacht chomh foighneach liom agus guím gach rath oraibh sa tsaol atá romhaibh.
287MMcS