New as Gaeilge hub for parents

Darren J. Prior

A new “Irish for Parents” website was launched last month to serve parents across Ireland who would like to improve their ability as Gaeilge.

The website, IrishforParents.ie, was launched by Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton in September and was created by Gaeloideachas with support from the Department of Education and Foras na Gaeilge.

Dublin woman Clodagh Ní Mhuirí, who may perhaps be better known in her other public capacity as a northside Fine Gael councillor, is the manager of the online hub.

Gaeloideachas was established as Gaelscoileanna Teo. in 1973 to support and help grow the then very small Gaelscoileanna movement in the Republic of Ireland outside the Gaeltacht.

Today, it is the national support and advocacy organisation for Irish-medium education in the Republic of Ireland, both inside and outside the Gaeltacht.

Its expanded remit, catering for Irish-medium education within the Gaeltacht as well as Gaelscoileanna outside it, led the organisation to change its name to Gaeloideachas in 2016.

Speaking to Dublin People, Clodagh said:

“When we did a bit of research on this, one of the things we found was that while there are a lot of resources out there, parents don’t always know about them or where to find them.

“They want to be able to support their children as they are learning Irish in school and they just don’t necessarily know where to go for that support or that help.

“Especially for parents who don’t have any Irish. A lot of parents have a certain level of Irish from school but they might not be confident in it.

“Other parents might not have gone to school in Ireland themselves, so they are really starting from scratch with the language.

“So what we wanted to do with this was create a central point, a central hub that people can go to and find the resources that they need, regardless of their own level of Irish, and be able to get started on that and get the information that they need.

“We have over 100 resources linked from ‘Irish for Parents’.

“So if you go onto the site, you can search; you can categorise them all by what age your child is; by what your own level of Irish is; what you are hoping to achieve with them; what type of resource it is.

“There are plenty of ways to filter them and find what you need and what suits you because that won’t be the same for every family.”