Today, Irish culture and Irish history are being little by little forgotten and less and less taught. In many schools, it is easy to be avoid Irish language classes. Students may even be admitted to third-level education without any interaction with the Irish language. So why should you then teach your children using an Irish home education provider? What is the point of learning the language and history of our ancestors? Because learning Irish history and language helps in the Faith development of both parents and children.
The Irish language is the language of our ancestors, those whose legacy we inherit. The language is rich in meaning and melody. With its Latin roots, it compliments the Logic stage of understanding with well defined grammar rules. Finally the language is a living means of transmitting the Faith of our Fathers through simple phrases, greetings and blessings.
In general, history enlightens our understanding of the present situation of a country. It helps us to avoid the mistakes of the past. It enables learned people to take a step back in every situation and discern the future by looking back at the past. In Ireland, the study of history has an added benefit in that it describes how the Faith grew on our Island and how people lost their lives for it.
Families are grateful to their forefathers for having defended the Faith, sometimes at the cost of their lives. Our history encourages families in the virtue of fortitude in today’s world which is often adversarial to Catholic Faith and teaching. The Lord is not calling us to “go with the flow”. As the Atlantic salmon which swims upstream against the current to give rise to new life, we are also asked to navigate the tides of fashionable ideology and follow the path of our forefathers with the Faith we have received through their perseverance and courage. As G.K. Chesterton noted, “only dead fish go with the flow.” Mater Dei Education supports families in this journey through history to understand that our future is in God’s hands.
The Irish language captures the essence of the Catholic Faith and defines the historical identity of the Irish people. The Irish are not an Anglo/American amalgam with an inferiority complex. We, Irish, need to be proud of our language, which is richly interwoven with our Faith, our culture, and our history. The patriots who won Irish freedom did so through virtues of fortitude and their great love for our Faith and our country. Why would you want to deprive your children of this heritage? The time has finally come to learn and teach our history and language in its fullness to future generations. Our children do not deserve mediocrity. Let us ask our great Irish Saints for their intercession in this historic moment, to pass on the true history and language of this culture to our children.
