Madam, - Louise Holden's article "Something rotten in the state of Irish" (Education & Parenting, April 12th) fails to identify one fairly significant reason why many students leave their "cúpla focal" at the school gates. The use of Irish is not part of their tradition. If it were, they would grow up hearing it spoken around them - the only way to become proficient in a language.
A state has an obligation to respect the traditions of its people, whatever those traditions are. Attempting to press everyone into the same mould for political reasons is the sort of thing you expect in a totalitarian state, not a modern European country with an increasingly multiracial and multicultural population.
If it pleases certain people to see Irish referred to in the Constitution as the first national language, so be it. It is a harmless enough deceit. However, to compel children, for political and ideological reasons, to grapple with what is arguably one of the most difficult languages using the Roman alphabet, when all logic and evidence points to the futility of continuing to do so, borders on tyranny.
Incidentally, if readers who, like myself, receive their Irish Times by postal subscription take a look at the plastic bag in which it is sent, they may notice further evidence of the state of Irish. In the inscription: "POSTAS ÍOCHTA, BAILE ÁTHA CLIATH, CEADÚNAS 3", all the fadas are pointing the wrong way. - Yours, etc.,
PAUL GRIFFIN, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales.