For our third meeting of bilingual families, we were delighted to have Bláthnaid ní Ghréacháin as our special guest.
Since 2006, she has been the CEO of Gaeloideachas (formerly Gaelscoileanna) whose remit is to provide support and advocacy on Irish-medium education.
Every year, Gaelscoileanna Teo gathers statistics from the Irish-medium schools, and these statistics help them to strategically plan for the development of the Irish-medium sector.
Bláthnaid is keen to dispel the myth that all parents who send their children to Gaelscoileanna are fluent Irish speakers. The number of native Irish speakers outside the Gaeltacht is only around 3%, and children from Irish language backgrounds represent a tiny minority in Irish schools.
Bláthnaid also talked about the many resources that exist to help parents who send their children to an Irish school and are not Irish speakers.
In addition, Bláthnaid is a mother of three young children who are being raised through Irish and she shared her insight on raising children through the medium of Irish.
