Saoirse?

Jesus at least @Mooshamoo was a bit of craic

Now you're just being silly @Sparklecats

@JaneJeffer yes you are the most Irish of them all - bravo!! 👏👏👏

You can apply for an exemption if your child has dyslexia OR if your child has moved from another country and is too old to start studying Irish, that's it, Irish is compulsory for ALL students in both primary and secondary, you can't just decide you don't want your child to learn it, it's compulsory for a lot of college courses in the ROI

Yeah thanks @Sparklecats I'm well aware of the Department regulations on account of being Irish living in Ireland

@Scruffington
Sorry by the end of secondary!!
like won’t use the language anymore

Neither can I.

People I know may have got the exemptions on the basis of them being dyslexic etc/having lived in north or elsewhere (with no prior Irish classes) before moving south. In retrospect…

But I can’t be annoyed arguing it exists, you can see it on gov website.

Vast majority of kids drop Irish when they start secondary school???

Wut?

I can't be arsed any more.

No idea about @Mooshamoo‘s experience.

But I do know that kids don’t “have” to because I knew several whose parents opted them out. Vast majority will take part and then drop it by secondary. But it isn’t compulsory like maths would be.

@JaneJeffer @Liv999 you can apply for an exemption if you don’t want your child to learn it. Know several whose parents did this.

Exactly @JaneJeffer she never mentioned Northern Ireland at all, if she had that would have been a totally different story

And I do wonder about the types of pub frequented by people on this thread.

Yes I realise that @Sparklecats but the poster in question said she moved to Ireland not Northern Ireland so therefore would have been required to learn Irish as per the curriculum.

@JaneJeffer you do realise that a lot of northern Irish people hold Irish passports and are Irish?!

I really don’t want to engage in an argument over what entitles a person to be Irish or whether Northern Ireland is to be excluded in conversations about Irish culture…

Suffice to say, it is important for someone considering the name Saoirse should be aware that this could be problematic in a third of the 32 counties.

Also re. southern Irish boyfriends, their friends and family - I tell a lie, they did know some Irish, the national anthem because it was required at the pub. Beyond that next to none.

I'm talking about Ireland not Northern Ireland.

@JaneJeffer Not if you are in the north of Ireland - it isn’t compulsory and levels of participation in catholic schools vary, usually it’s an optional after school class unless it’s a Bunscoil.

Any ROI partners I had didn’t speak the language and hadn’t done anything from primary which they could barely remember.

@Sparklecats someone who lived in Ireland since they were 4 would have learned Irish at school

@Liv999 I can’t comment on @Mooshamoo‘s views nor their history of posting on “Irish” threads as I am mainly posting on family related threads.

But I will say I think people need to be less prescriptive about what it means to be “Irish” - not all Irish people are catholic, Irish speaking, Gaelic and Bodhran playing stereotypes.

Not all have access to or want to learn Irish language, nor use Irish names, there will be local variation in names used and in the level of participation with Irish cultural activities and in the definition of what this comprises as culture varies across the island.

You have 6 northern counties and a further 5 that border the north where the name Saoirse - due to the politics - is going to be contentious. Several people have attested to that on here and I can assure you that the issue with Saoirse in Donegal did happen because myself and my husband were busy checking she was ok and that she got some safe after.

As a person born in the north, genuinely, despite having some catholic neighbours as a child I wasn’t aware of Irish names - all the catholic families we knew locally had gone for names like Robert, Samuel, Laura, Sarah and so on because they were middle to upper class and didn’t want their kids involved in any shit during the troubles. My experience of it, later as a teenager/adult, was that Irish names tended to be much more frequent, and indeed almost compulsory, in more working class communities where republican beliefs were held - and I know this because of the kids I met when I entered a mixed secondary school.

Now a few decades post cease fire the names are being used more broadly, even by Protestants, but Saoirse appears still to be contentious unfortunately. Which is a shame as I really loved it.

With regard to Cliona… I did meet one as a teen and realised it was Clion-ah… millions of Ciaran and Ciara’s, Conor, Aoife and Nuala’s.

But never came across names like Iarlaith, Caoimhin, Cliodhna, Oisin, Eoghan etc until late 20s/30s. (despite having lived in ROI for some considerable time by that point - again the people I was mixing with didn’t really have Irish names, odd one here and there but nothing accented or difficult to pronounce).

So I think to say that people from Ireland should know all Irish names and their pronunciation is a bit naive really. And to say someone is not Irish enough because they don’t know a name…. is to be too limiting in your view of what being Irish is.

Where in Scotland?
Is that a Scots Gaelic pronunciation?

I knew how to pronounce Siobhan
Until now <evil laughter>

@Mooshamoo, I remember your name because your posts often demonstrate exceptionally odd, entrenched views, especially about Irish-English relations. I distinctly remember you explaining your own background on another thread, and saying you were born in England, and had an English accent. You used the expression ‘not fully Irish’ of yourself.

The reason I remember this is because you have some odd views on Irish and English people — you posted at length on a thread at some point in the past about English people being ‘cold and cruel’.

I can only conclude that something in your upbringing wounded you into views I don’t recognise, as an Irish person who’s spent my 50-ish years pretty much 50/50 between Ireland and England.

Thanks for that @ColleenDonaghy. :-) I am Spanish (more or less) and that is a language written almost phonetically so this one has always done my head in. I knew how to pronounce Siobhan, the daughter of the policeman in Crime in Paradise is called that!😉

It's none of my business whatsoever, I'm just finding it hard to believe you when you spout nonsense about one irish person calling another Irish person a freedom fighter because her name was Saoirse, also your boyfriend calling your friend ClionR, those kind of things don't happen here OP, and I'm not the only one who has said that, maybe if you had a rhotic accent you were pronouncing it that way yourself and he was teasing you for it? Because it's always pronounced ClionA. Anyway I'm sure you're as Irish as the rest of us on here no offense intended

Jesus Christ. You're starting to sound like a racist. What is it any of your business? Does it make me less of a person if I wasn't born here? Do you go up to people on the street in Ireland and say "were you born here I doubt it".
You're acting like you are superior to every one else that lives in Ireland . Your not.

And you don't get to decide who is Irish or not.my Irish passport tells me I'm Irish. God you sound like an absolutely horrible person.

I was born in England. I lived there untill I was 4. My mother is Irish m i moved back to Ireland with her when I was 4 years old. I have an Irish passport.

Saoirse Ronan the actress was born in America. She moved back to ireland when she was 4 years old with her Irish parents. She considers herself to be irish. Would you tell her she isn't Irish.

Who are you to tell others that they are not Irish enough. You're being disgusting