IT’S BEEN A rite of passage in this country for generations but, as with many milestones of late, summer trips to the Gaeltacht have been on hold for the last couple of years.
They’re back now, all going to plan anyway.
Before Covid, an average of 27,000 students a year were heading to the Gaeltacht during the summer months to practice their Irish, play sports, dance in céilithe and generally be teenagers trí ghaeilge.
The hiatus doesn’t appear to have affected demand, with those involved in the sector reporting interest as high as ever, even if some are holding off on actually booking.
Siobhán Bairéad, a director of Coláiste Chamuis, says they’re already back running Leaving Cert courses and have six more short programmes planned before the main summer college courses begin in June.
“Colleges are at the point now where they’ve had to be really flexible, the traditional model has altered. You see it in bookings, parents are booking at the last minute, I’ve never had such a long waiting list for courses but they might not have converted yet because they’re not 100% sure. It’s not that they don’t want to come, it’s just that things have changed, it’s the same with people booking holidays.”
Coláiste Chamuis runs three separate Irish colleges in Connemara, Ros a’ Mhíl, An Tulach and Camus, each across three separate summer periods.
It means there may be 2,000-2,500 students placed with families and a network of teachers and support staff to be organised. It’s a big operation and one that’s been on ice for the past couple of years.
Coláiste Chamuis takes its policy of “total immersion” in the language seriously, so much so that they didn’t run remote courses in 2020 and 2021.
“The only real true way of influencing the teenagers of today, who are the future of the language in this country, is full immersion socially in the language,” Bairéad says.
She tells The Journal that the recent Leaving Cert course completed by Chamuis was an example of exactly why they made the decision to wait for in-person courses.
It’s just so lovely, they were all delighted to be there. We were so happy to welcome them back. I suppose you forget the energy it gives you, after two years of working flat out in the office trying to help the business survive but without the reciprocal energy to keep you going it’s difficult, so it’s just incredible to have that back.
The Irish colleges’ sector is somewhat of an unusual feature of Irish life in that it provides both an educational and social function but is not directly controlled by the State.
Mna tí who host students are paid by the colleges and also by the State. The department’s payment was recently increased to a rate of €11 per night per student.
The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media says colleges typically pay host families €1.20 for every €1 paid by the department.
In return, the accommodation standards can be checked by State inspectors but long-term government plans for the sector include a review of whether there should be “more coherent State involvement” in summer colleges.
The department points to a number of policies designed to stabilise the sector over Covid-affected years, this includes a €1.7 million fund direct for the colleges and €2.2 million for eligible Gaeltacht host families.
This week, the government also announced a €400,000 a year initiative to provide scholarships for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to attend summer Gaeltacht colleges.
Gnó teaghlaigh
Bairéad runs Chamuis alongside her brother after the college was started by her parents almost 50 years ago. She explains they now even have second and third generation hosts whose parents were Mná Tí before them.
It serves as an example of how summer colleges have built a sustainable stream of income for the communities that host them.
In our college there’s 2,000-2,500 students every summer and if it’s a dry day and we bring students to the beach, that’s three centres so three a week. I’ll ring our ice cream delivery truck and say ‘Paddy we’re going to be down there at 4 o’clock’. And if I tell each student to have their €2 on them to buy an ice-cream. If we do that twice over a few weeks you can see how that adds up to a large turnover for a small business.
She adds, however, that Irish colleges provide more than just an economic benefit as they also reinforce the value provided by the Gaeltacht areas themselves.
“It’s very important from a confidence point of view for the people of the Gaeltacht to see that what they’re keeping alive is important and valued. They keep the Irish language alive because that’s their way of life but there is an acknowledgement of the importance of that by students coming to the Gaeltacht.”
Ceithre Chúigí na hÉireann
Irish colleges operate mainly in Gaeltacht areas in the west but there are others in Meath, Cork and Waterford. CONCOS (Comhchoiste na gColáistí Samhraidh), a national federation of 47 different Irish colleges, also has members from outside Gaeltacht areas.
One firmly inside the Gaeltacht is Coláiste Bhríde. The Irish college is located in north-west Donegal in the Gaeltacht of Rann na Feirste.
Cáitlín is the Bean an Tí of Teach Nóra Frainc Conaill, a host house for Coláiste Bhríde that is now in its third generation. The ‘Nóra’ of the name is Caitlín’s mother and ‘Frainc Conaill’ was her grandfather.
She jokes: “It was always known as Teach NFC. The only bad thing about that is my mother gets all the praise if anybody ever praises me it’s always ‘Nórá this, or Nórá that.”
More seriously though, she says the return of students to the area this summer will be a huge boost to everyone after the impact of the last couple of years.
Financially definitely but mostly the area was dead, the locality was dead. Come here in June and you will see students everywhere. But for the last two Junes and Julys there have been nobody walking our roads. Even my mother who is 90 years of age in August, she loves seeing the students coming because it brings back so many memories.
Cáitlín adds that her children have worked in Coláiste Bhríde, with her daughter set to teach there this year. She also speaks about friendships between local young people and students that are now much easier to maintain because of social media.
That’s one big change, but there are others she has noticed in the 28 years of hosting students.
“When I was younger and growing up, I’ll be honest I was thinking I’m never going to do this, this is too much hard work but then you get married, you have kids, and your priorities change. I was building a house and my mother said why don’t you take over.
I remember myself, when my mother was keeping the students there was only twin top washing machine, you had to drag it out in the middle of the kitchen and you had to rinse the clothes.
“Long ago, there were no shops Penney’s, Dunnes, Aldi, Home Store and the rest. My mother used to have to go away out to Strabane to a market and try and buy sheets. Now we can have double of everything.”
Other big changes have been the food the students eat and, for example, a much greater awareness of allergies. Everyone in the house is trained up on using an Epipen if required.
“There are 12 students in the house and they would be attending Coláiste Bhríde three times a day. They go over for classes and back for lunch and then back over for ranganna damhsa, ranganna gaeilge, ceol, then they come back for their evening tea and then for the activities in the evening and then supper.”
All of this, of course, is for the Irish language.
“It gives you so much pride in your national language. We speak it anyway like this is a complete Gaeltacht area. For example, if my husband came in tonight, and I said ‘hello, how was your day?’, he’d be sending me to the doctor thinking something is wrong.”
This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work is the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.
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