The people of Dún Chaoin in west Kerry are determined to keep the village school open.
The isolated location of Dún Chaoin on the Dingle peninsula in Kerry has helped to keep the Irish language there pure.
There's probably no village in the Gaeltacht that's so truly Irish speaking.
People in Dún Chaoin speak Irish at home, in the community and at school and the area has produced rish language writers and poets through the years.
Peig Sayers was born and bred and went to school here.
Dún Chaoin faces a problem as the tiny national school has been closed by the Department of Education. The department says that student numbers are falling and wants children from Dún Chaoin to go to school six miles away in Ballyferriter. There are 23 students in Dún Chaoin but only five have agreed to go to Ballyferriter. The Dún Chaoin school is being kept open unofficially by two volunteer teachers, husband and wife Breandán and Máire Feiritéar.
Breandán Feiritéar argues that the school belongs to the parish and if the department can not keep the school open, local people will do it themselves. He believes that by closing the school, there is a lack of incentive for people to return to Dún Chaoin to live and raise their families.
The people of Dunquin are a determined lot. They feel hurt, lost, angry, enraged that officialdom is taking away something vital. Their pure Irish, they feel would be sullied if their children were educated elsewhere.
This episode of 'Newsbeat' was broadcast on 30 September 1970. The reporter is Cathal O'Shannon.
