A more ambitious plan is needed to improve the way Irish is taught in schools, Conradh na Gaeilge has said.
Irish should be taught through the "skilled-based" Common European Framework for Reference of Languages (CFR) model, said Conradh na Gaeilge General Secretary Julian de Spáinn.
"We believe we need to look at an overall plan of teaching Irish from start to finish, from early education to third-level," he said.
He added that a CFR-based Irish curriculum would allow students with an Irish exemption, or those from other countries, learn the language at a level flexible to their needs instead of being excluded.
"Why wouldn't a student who has a writing difficulty be able to do the Leaving Certificate based on oral Irish only. You could do that with the CFR system," said Mr de Spáinn.
The Department of Education is finalising an action plan, which a spokesperson said would improve the teaching and learning of Irish in English-medium schools.
The two-year plan is intended to reflect a Programme for Government commitment to work towards CFR alignment, a spokesperson added.
Mr de Spáinn said the group was "very disappointed" by the outline of the plan because it was "short-term" and would not look at changing the curriculum or exemptions.
"We think they are two major areas that need to be addressed and should be part of any plan in English-medium education and should be part of any of the policies that are put together," including for education through Irish and in the Gaeltacht, he added.
Govt 'missing out’ on Irish popularity
He said that the Government is lacking ambition when it comes to promoting Irish-medium education, and Wales is an inspiring example on how to increase native speakers.
"In Wales, they have a plan to increase the numbers speaking Welsh to two million by 2050 and as part of that they have actual, specific proposals that would make the difference.
"In schools, they are going to be increasing the amount of students who learn through the medium of Welsh from 23% to 40% by 2050, and they have a plan of how to do that.
"We have no ambition, we have no drive in Ireland, we have no target to increase the number of students who are learning through the medium of Irish. We’re only at 6% at the moment.
"More than 100 years on from the foundation of the State," he said.
He added that more could be done to capitalise on the current popularity of the language.
"We’re in a 'moment’, you could say, with the KNEECAP phenomenon, or An Cailín Ciúin, or whatever it is. I think the image of the language is very good at the moment, and a lot of young people are enthusiastic about the language.
"Definitely the Government is missing out."
One way that Irish is growing is through social media.
Máire Ní Churraoin is a native Irish speaker and content creator from Ráth Chairn in Co Meath.
She has over 60,000 followers and frames herself as "your Irish-language bestie" rather than an educator.
"What I really want is for people to just have someone to chat to them as Gaeilge daily and there’s no pressure on them to be líofa (fluent)," she said.
"There’s no pressure on them to have, not even to have a cúpla focal (a couple of words) because everything is subtitled anyway and it’s also showing people that Gaeilge isn’t limited to the classroom, she’s not limited to the past."
She said that criticism about "the way it’s taught" is passed from parent to child and that for some "it is a get out of jail free card".
"I’m not saying it’s perfect. It’s not. The system does need to change but we also need to put the onus on the students as well. It’s the same as with PE (Physical Education).
"I did PE in all my years of secondary school and I still never left with abs, because I just went to the class and I left.
"I didn’t fully immerse myself in the physical activity. We can’t expect teachers to make us fluent," Ms Ní Churraoin said.
There is an attitude that people are critical of themselves about their level of Irish, Ms Ní Churraoin said, but that speaking the language at all helps keep it alive.
"She will survive if I speak her. She will not survive if I wait until I have perfect Gaeilge to speak her, because that day will never come.
"We’re all learning," she said.
Past pupils return to Irish after school
Conradh na Gaeilge is one of the groups offering either in-person or online classes for adult learners.
Demand for such classes is high, with waiting lists from beginner through to advanced levels.
Modern foreign languages are all taught to CFR, Mr de Spáinn said, and the graded levels allow people to see where they are and have confidence in what they know.
He said that if people knew what level of Irish that they finished school with, they could confidently continue to learn the language at the next grade as an adult.
At a Conradh na Gaeilge, refreshers courses are for people who had retained some of the Irish they learned in school.
One student said she signed up because she felt upset by the low number of Irish speakers in the Census.
Olivia said she studied Spanish in college but did not feel a connection to it.
"There’s just something about learning Irish, you just feel that connection. Whenever I heard people speak Irish to each other, I felt jealous.
"That should be me," she said.
The school curriculum is outdated, Olivia said, and these classes were more engaging and useful than school.
For Vincent, learning Irish is a way for him to chase a new career, and that he had learned more in three months of classes than he did throughout school.
"I’ve decided that at some point in the future I want to be a primary school teacher, and I had absolutely no Irish left from school. I came here just to up my skills," he said.
"My Irish in school was awful. I was in lower level as far back as I can remember and somewhere along the way in primary school, I just lost the passion for it completely," he added.
