41–50 of 91 posts
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Sjf wrnsd asdf wioefj cszkl asdlk oiajf asdnw wsafa awsfadswef. - Actually, I just sat on my keyboard cuz I wanted to fit in :) Just curious - is Gaelic still required in schools and in some dealings w/ government?
AFAIK (did an internship in Dublin), irish children still learn Gaelic in school, but not in a way that’d make them able to talk to each other in it, much like Germans in some schools chose to learn latin. You can use the language to decipher old pieces of history, but not to talk about how your day was. I’ve never heard about dealings with the government that could only be done in Gaelic. Everything I did was in Eng…
It's been compulsory since the formation of the Irish state during that time the percentage of actual spoken Irish (as well as general Irish comprehension) has continually dropped. Given that the actual aim of this was to promote the language I think it's safe to say it's been an unmitigated disaster.
My personal take on this (I went to an all Irish primary school so I was fluent) is that there's two factors here:
1 - The way it's taught is absolutely terrible. There's a focus on the grammar and structure of the language rather than actually speaking it. This means that students associate it with memorizing genitive and dative cases which is pretty boring. This means the student don't like it. Some of those students grow up to be the teachers, and they've got a negative attitude to the language. Wash, rinse repeat for 90 years and you get to where we are now.
2 - There's no economic incentive to learn the language. Unless you're living in a gaeltacht (nearly all in very rural areas) you're almost never actually going to be able to use it. It's not present in any other country and apart from having conversations which foreigners can't understand, isn't useful. There are reasons to learn it but they're cultural or academic rather than practical.
There are signs of regrowth with more and more all Irish schools popping up but my impression is that it's become a middle class status symbol to be able to speak the language so we'll see what happens there. There's also been discussion about reforming the syllabus to split it into conversational Irish (compulsory) and 'academic' Irish (optional)
As for dealing with the government, you're permitted (not obligated) to conduct all of your business with officials through Irish and demand that they do the same with you. We have two versions of our constitution, one in Irish and one in English. In the case of any discrepancies, the Irish one takes precedence.
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Haha, I just checked and only 2.9% of the Irish population speaks Irish natively. That's pretty crazy.
When they say natively, I think they mean as a primary language. My impression is that there's only a small percentage of people on the West Coast who speak it daily, but Gaelic used to (and may still be) required in a lot of schools as sort of a token secondary language (kind of like Latin in US Catholic schools, or Hebrew schools for Jews), and a fair amount of official government business was/is done in Gaelic. ED…
We're required to learn Irish throughout school (all the way til we finish secondary school), and even need to pass Irish exams to get into university.
Government business can be done in Irish, but its very rare. When you see it at the top-level, like in parliament, its almost always done for effect.
So basically, dropbox makes a public announcement to tell the world (and the shareholders) they're now engaging in tax evasion in Europe to make better profit. Hopefully they'll have a better story for the european authorities later on, not like starbucks, amazon or google: http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2012/11/13/starbucks-goog...
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That and they probably just got a huge grant for putting their first translation in Irish... But yes, the tax laws in Ireland are incredibly generous, if you're a corporation. I say this as a person just falling into the top tax bracket which means that while most of my wages are taxed at 21% or so (closer to 25%), any bonuses or future wage increases will be taxed at over 50% (once all the levies etc. have been coun…
Hey Eoin, couple of quick question for you if you don't mind. I know you're probably not a tax lawyer, but what's the personal capital gains situation like over there? Also, just wondering what "morale" (for lack of a better word) is like now, given all the bailouts, budget crises, and even church scandals. All you hear about Ireland in the US media these days seems to be doom and gloom. Is there a chance, given the…
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That and they probably just got a huge grant for putting their first translation in Irish... But yes, the tax laws in Ireland are incredibly generous, if you're a corporation. I say this as a person just falling into the top tax bracket which means that while most of my wages are taxed at 21% or so (closer to 25%), any bonuses or future wage increases will be taxed at over 50% (once all the levies etc. have been coun…
Hey Eoin, couple of quick question for you if you don't mind. I know you're probably not a tax lawyer, but what's the personal capital gains situation like over there? Also, just wondering what "morale" (for lack of a better word) is like now, given all the bailouts, budget crises, and even church scandals. All you hear about Ireland in the US media these days seems to be doom and gloom. Is there a chance, given the…
Morale wise, again I don't know. I'm currently out in India but when I left 6 months ago there was (I think) a sense of just shrugging the shoulders and getting on with life. At this point, more scandals, bailouts & controversies would just be adding to the pile. People will complain but there won't be any kind of mass movement in protest. We voted out the political party who were in power during the boom years and I see now that they're back to the second most popular party in the country.
I know a lot of young, very talented people don't see a future for themselves in the country, don't see the point in trying to fix a very conservative system and just leaving (this would be why we have a relatively low unemployment rate compared to say, Spain).
The only way we'll roll those rates back is if the EU forces the changes. The public aren't angry with companies or multinationals. They're angry with private banks, a government which made private debt public on the insistence of the EU and with the EU which is forcing extreme hardship to repay other EU banks. Please note, I'm not saying the people or the Irish government is not culpable for the current crisis - particularly the banking regulator - but rather just trying to outline what the public see as being the problem.
Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich Anyone? http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/28/business/Doubl...
So basically, dropbox makes a public announcement to tell the world (and the shareholders) they're now engaging in tax evasion in Europe to make better profit. Hopefully they'll have a better story for the european authorities later on, not like starbucks, amazon or google: http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2012/11/13/starbucks-goog...
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B'fhéidir go fuair siad mórchuid aireagaid lena chuir isteach ann? Street-cred mar yea.
Sjf wrnsd asdf wioefj cszkl asdlk oiajf asdnw wsafa awsfadswef. - Actually, I just sat on my keyboard cuz I wanted to fit in :) Just curious - is Gaelic still required in schools and in some dealings w/ government?
Case in point, the Taoiseach (prime minister) is pronounced something like "Teshar" (with a kind of 'gutural' r at the end)