On 10/09/2022 04:33 pm, Robin wrote:> On 10/09/2022 16:12, Ian Jackson
wrote:>>> Chris Green wrote:
>>>> Erse is Irish/Gaelic and Milligan didn't speak it.
>
>>> You tend to find than many Irish and Scots will be able to say the
>>> odd phrase - I always suspect that a great many of those ticking the
>>> Gaelic box on the census in Scotland, can't manage much more than
>>> Slàinte Mhath - ditto for similar in Northern Ireland and Wales.
>
>> On my many trips to the RoI, in twenty years I only ever heard Irish
>> being spoken 'naturally' on two occasions. Once was while sitting on a
>> seat in a park in Cork (when two guys walked  past talking in it), and
>> another near Kildare (when one of the guys I was working with was
>> holding a conversation on a brick-sized mobile phone).
>
> But there are signs the Irish are following the Welsh in using the
> language as a way of giving an edge in getting jobs*.  Ireland gives
> extra points in recruitment to those who are fluent; and legislation
> requires by 2030 20% of recruits to be fluent.
>
> * https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-57776429

That has been the case - to my knowledge - for at least fifty years.

The prized jobs of Garda constable or civil service clerical officers
required a pass in Irish as far back as the 1960s. And probably for some
time before that.