Pic: BBC

The BBC reports that the chief executive of MG Alba will ask the BBC Trust to consider allowing the broadcast of the new Gaelic digital television channel on Freeview. Programmes, launched a month ago, are available on Sky and Freesat, but it was not planned to show them on Freeview for another two years.

Culture Minister Linda Fabiani said the Scottish Government had been very impressed at the reaction to the programmes. She added:

As we consider the recommendations of the Scottish Broadcasting Commission’s report, it’s great that BBC Alba has launched with such distinctive and high quality programming.

The culture minister said she would support efforts to secure the coverage.

[Source]

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Pic: Ysgol Llandegfan

The Welsh Daily Post reports that pupils at an Anglesey school are to be given reward points for speaking Welsh to each other in the playground. Teachers at Welsh medium school Ysgol Llandegfan have introduced the scheme to encourage pupils to use the “language of heaven” at playtime.

It comes full circle from the 19th century attempt to wipe out the language in schools, when children heard speaking Welsh had a piece of wood hung around their necks.

The pupil with the “Welsh Not” at the end of the day was lashed. Continue Reading »

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Pic: gaelicteaching

The Stornoway Gazette reveals that a new website for people interested in Gaelic teaching was launched at the Scottish Learning Festival at the SECC in Glasgow on the 1st October 2008. www.gaelicteaching.com is part of Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s commitment to education and the recruitment of Gaelic teachers and will provide information on Gaelic education, teacher training, learning Gaelic, funding opportunities, interesting case studies and useful links to a range of education sites.

Bòrd na Gàidhlig Acting Chief Executive, Rosemary Ward said:

Gaelic education has been one of the most rapidly developing sectors of Scottish education for over 23 years and is a major focus of the work of Bòrd na Gàidhlig.

The website introduces itself with the following:

An historic language and culture is creating a very modern buzz through Gaelic education – and you can be part of it. Combine your interest and enthusiasm for teaching with the ability to help preserve and re-invigorate a unique part of Scotland’s heritage. Whether you are currently studying, considering a move into teaching or already a teacher, there are opportunities available in Gaelic education that will enrich more than your career.

It offers job vacancies, advice on teacher training and funding, where you can study Gaelic and some case studies to illustrate the development paths.

Stornoway

Gaelic Teachers

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Pic: Alun Ffred Jones

The Daily Post reports that Heritage minister Alun Ffred Jones yesterday pledged new laws and rights for Welsh speakers to halt a continuing threat to the future of the language. The Arfon AM told the Plaid conference he was privileged to hold responsibility for what “defines us as a nation”. He warned that the Welsh language will ‘shrivel further and die’ unless its speakers were free to use it in all aspects of life.

Mr Jones is now in charge of the delayed Assembly bid to Westminster for legal powers which could mean a statutory commissioner to oversee new rights and equality for Welsh. He said:

It is not a relic which exists independently of anything else. Unless it’s an integral part of all the activities of Government and beyond, we have failed.

But he told delegates in Aberystwyth a discussion was still needed to persuade people to use the language, “not an argument as if someone on one side has all the answers”.

Mr Jones said that culture, heritage, the arts and sport were essential to define Wales as a nation.

Read the full story at the Welsh Daily Post.

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Pic: Gaeltacht

Gaeltacht Bhaile na hÉireann or the Permanent North American Gaeltacht (Irish: Gaeltacht Bhuan Mheiriceá Thuaidh) is a designated Irish-speaking area in the community of Tamworth, Ontario, along the Salmon River within the township of Stone Mills in Lennox and Addington County.

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Pic: Gaelscolaíochta

THE establishment of an Irish language education centre first announced for Ballyvourney nine years ago is in serious doubt due to government cutbacks over the economic downturn.In March 2007, former Education minister Mary Hanafin announced that four staff were to be assigned to the proposed Ballyvourney centre, and that €1 million was to be allocated to an Comhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíochta (COGG), the advisory body who would be responsible for the resource.

COGG have since maintained that the allocated €1 million was not for the Baile Bhúirne centre or for the employment of any staff there, and the money is already being spent by COGG at its Dublin base.

Rather than employing any additional staff in Ballyvourney, COGG chief executive Muireann Ní Mhóráin says the group will be losing one of four staff in Dublin, due to an employee leaving, and the money not being there to hire anybody else.

Ms Ní Mhóráin revealed that the Ballyvourney posts “were announced, not sanctioned,” with no movement on the recruitment of staff since the jobs were mentioned 18 months ago.

On top of that, COGG received a Dept of Education and Science directive on 22 August, instructing it to cut recruitment and payroll costs so as to achieve an overall cost reduction of 3% in 2009.

It was intended that COGG would have offices in a refurbished Coláiste Íosagáin in Baile Bhúirne, and that the four appointed staff would be provided with temporary accommodation in a prefabricated building on the nearby Údarás na Gaeltachta industrial estate.

Údarás applied for planning permission for the prefab building last January, and Cork County Council have sought further information twice since in relation to the development.

Meanwhile, COGG have been offered more temporary accommodation where the Óige na Gaeltachta youth organisation is located in Baile Bhúirne until the prefab building is ready, but with a halt being put to staff recruitment it looks like there will be no Irish language education centre, and/or no one to work there in 2009, ten years after the then Education Minister, Micheál Martin, first announced it in 1999.

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Pic: BBC

The BBC reports that community-based Gaelic projects are to be supported with the use of £150,000 of Scottish Government funding. The Gaelic development body Bord na Gaidhlig (BnG) is to set up a Challenge Fund to support the preservation and promotion of the language. BnG said ways were needed to help all kinds of Gaelic-speaking communities across Scotland.

The announcement was made at the first national Gaelic in the Community conference, held in Breasclete, Lewis.

Culture Minister Linda Fabiani said:

Gaelic is a national language. We must recognise it on that basis and support it across all our communities, from areas where it is well established, to others where it is growing - such as parts of urban Scotland.

She added that the release of this funding was

yet another step towards achieving … a sustainable and successful future for Gaelic in Scotland.

Read the full story at the BBC.

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Pic: Rennes-le-Chateau

Ever since the Da Vinci Code was published, and probably long before, the towns of Rennes-les-Bains and Rennes-le-Chateau have been at the centre of conspiratorial quests for the Holy Grail, the Templars and other matters. How many of us know that the area is also rich in Celtic history and geography? I didn’t. However, on the Rennes-le-Chateau Research & Resource site, they tell us of a book published in 1880 by L’Abbé Henriu Boudet called La Vraie Langue Celtique et le Cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains which means The True Celtic Language and the Cromleck of Rennes-les-Bains.They say:

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Pic: BBC

The BBC reports that a grant of £2 million is set to revive the national language and heritage centre at Nant Gwrtheyrn in Gwynedd. The money will be used to update the accommodation used by Welsh learners who attend residential courses, and create 27 new jobs. The cafe will also be upgraded to enhance the facilities for conferences and weddings. Around 25,000 people have attended courses at the Nant since it first opened in 1982.

Dr Carl Clowes, the chairman of the trustees, said it was important to upgrade the facilities. He said:

With this money we hope to revive the village by upgrading the facilities.

Deputy first minister Ieuan Wyn Jones said the money was made up of European funding and money from the National Assembly Government, as well as money raised by the Nant itself.

Read the full story at the BBC.

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Pic: Laura Fraser

The Chronicle Herald of Nova Scotia reports that seven students crowded around a wood stove here Tuesday morning, sheltered from the rain by a house built at the turn of the 20th century. At that time, Gaelic was the mother tongue of more than 40 per cent of people living on Cape Breton Island. Only about 500 Cape Bretoners are still fluent in the language today.

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