Shifting Concern for “Saving the Child” to Concern About “Saving the Language”: 1918–1926

Abstract

This chapter considers the policies developed on schooling from the time the Sinn Féin leaders took their seats in the First Dáil in 1918, until the publication in 1926, of the report of a State-initiated Commission on the Gaeltacht in independent Ireland. Firstly, it details early thinking by members of the Dáil on the role they saw for the Irish language within the education system of “a new Ireland”. Secondly, an outcome of the deliberations of those who attended a special conference on the matter and that came to be known as the First National Programme Conference is considered. Developments in relation to the place of the Irish language in education, and especially in relation to the changed political scene that prevailed from 1922, the year of national independence, until the publication of the report of the Commission on the Gaeltacht in 1926, are then detailed. The chapter closes with an overview of the main thrust of the proposals of the Commission, including in relation to education