Irish Language in Northern Ireland - Education

Education

Six families in Belfast established a Gaeltacht area in Belfast in the late 1960s and opened Bunscoil Phobal Feirste in 1970 as the first Irish-medium school in Northern Ireland, and in 1984 was granted the status of a voluntary maintained primary school. The first Naíscoil (Irish-medium nursery school) opened in 1978.

Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta (CnaG) is the representative body for Irish-medium Education. It was set up in 2000 by the Department of Education to promote, facilitate and encourage Irish-medium Education. One of CnaG’s central objectives is to seek to extend the availability of Irish-medium Education to parents who wish to avail of it for their children. Irish language pre-schools and primary schools are now thriving and there are Irish language secondary schools known as Méanscoileanna in Belfast, Donaghmore, Castlewellan and Armagh.

In the academic year 2011/12, 4691 children were enrolled in Irish-medium education:

• 45 nurseries (Naíscoileanna) with 1,047 pupils
• 36 primary schools (Bunscoileanna) with 2,892 pupils
• 4 post-primary schools and a post-primary streams with 752 pupils

The British Council administers a scheme to recruit Irish language assistants for English-medium schools in Northern Ireland.

Examinations in Irish are gaining in popularity among school-age and adult students. In 2004, there were 333 entries for A-Level examinations in Irish and 2,630 for GCSE.