The Irish Free State mandates the use of Irish in all parliamentary debate by 1932

Let's suppose that the Irish Free State, in its 1922 constitution, mandates that Irish is to be the sole language of all parliamentary debate within 10 years. After 1932 English will not be permitted in the chamber. English may still be used as in OTL in other respects, but Irish is the sole language of the government itself.

How much stronger would the Irish language be today? It would be necessary for a career in politics. Would that be enough to prevent or at least slow down its decline among the general population?
 
Let's suppose that the Irish Free State, in its 1922 constitution, mandates that Irish is to be the sole language of all parliamentary debate within 10 years. After 1932 English will not be permitted in the chamber. English may still be used as in OTL in other respects, but Irish is the sole language of the government itself.

How much stronger would the Irish language be today? It would be necessary for a career in politics. Would that be enough to prevent or at least slow down its decline among the general population?

Nope imo. Several of the TD's who've had to have picked it up quickly, but it still wouldn't change the systemic issues like how it's taught.
 
I know a chap who prepares the Irish language versions of subordinate legislation for one government department in Dublin (technically these are the primary and authoritative versions of the legislation). He claims that there are significant enough differences between the English and Irish renditions that any barrister who was genuinely bi-lingual could have tremenduous fun in court as the English versions are what are primarily used to enforce the law.
 
Nope imo. Several of the TD's who've had to have picked it up quickly, but it still wouldn't change the systemic issues like how it's taught.

In a lot of countries there are complaints about the way foreign languages are taught. I don't doubt that there are limitations to the traditional methods (teaching a group of 20-30 people a language, leaving the teacher limited time to work with each student, is fundamentally problematic) but it seems that motivation on the part of the students is often a problem as well. If Irish students perceive little benefit to learning Irish then they may only learn enough to pass the class. But if you make Irish actually essential for politics, maybe that would create more motivation? I don't know.
 
In a lot of countries there are complaints about the way foreign languages are taught. I don't doubt that there are limitations to the traditional methods (teaching a group of 20-30 people a language, leaving the teacher limited time to work with each student, is fundamentally problematic) but it seems that motivation on the part of the students is often a problem as well. If Irish students perceive little benefit to learning Irish then they may only learn enough to pass the class. But if you make Irish actually essential for politics, maybe that would create more motivation? I don't know.

Technically you're already meant to have a level of understanding for a job in the Civil Service/Public Service, think at last count by the Irish language body it would be something like another 30 years just to get to 10% from where we are. Making a couple of hundred people have to speak it, particularly when for some time it wasn't covered live or anything won't change matters at all imo.
 
Technically you're already meant to have a level of understanding for a job in the Civil Service/Public Service, think at last count by the Irish language body it would be something like another 30 years just to get to 10% from where we are. Making a couple of hundred people have to speak it, particularly when for some time it wasn't covered live or anything won't change matters at all imo.

It wouldn't only be a couple hundred people though; anyone with an interest in running for office would need to know it. Irish would be used not only in the writing of the laws but in the debates in the chamber as well, so the TD would need a strong command of the language to hold their positions.

The parliamentary debates could be subtitled on television but there probably would be some discrepancies between what is said and subtitled, so political fans might also be motivated to learn the language to better follow the debate.
 
You'd need to do something much more widespread than just mandating it in Parliament. If, for example, the Irish government mandates Irish Gaelic as the language of government and does something like institute mandatory conscription with the requirement that all official military business be done in Irish Gaelic as well then you might get more traction but that's still going to make it somewhat limited.

It may work better to look at what was done to make the Welsh revival stick and reach the point that it's the de facto second language in Wales.
 
Without much wider fluency in Irish on the part of the general population of Ireland, this sort of legislation would be unworkable. Early 20th century Ireland was not like Wales much less Catalonia before these jurisdictions adopted more supportive language policies, where the traditional local language was still spoken by a sizable chunk of the population and others often had at least passive understanding. Irish in early 20th century Ireland was a language spoken by only a relatively small minority of the population, concentrated away from the main population centres of Ireland, while the Irish education system was not up to the task of giving Anglophones practical fluency in Irish.

Unless politics in Ireland was to be given over to a caste of Irish-speakers--something unlikely--I do not see this flying.
 
It wouldn't only be a couple hundred people though; anyone with an interest in running for office would need to know it. Irish would be used not only in the writing of the laws but in the debates in the chamber as well, so the TD would need a strong command of the language to hold their positions.

The parliamentary debates could be subtitled on television but there probably would be some discrepancies between what is said and subtitled, so political fans might also be motivated to learn the language to better follow the debate.

You do get that it's already "technically" more than that, I mean for example the Gardaí are meant to be fluent in it as well and really aren't (so much much more than all the TD's combined). As I've said we've had more than a few examples of politicians picking up the language as needed but I highly doubt that simply changing the TD's language would radically alter the situation.
 
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