{"id":1890,"date":"2018-07-01T07:24:05","date_gmt":"2018-07-01T11:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/?p=1890"},"modified":"2018-07-01T07:24:36","modified_gmt":"2018-07-01T11:24:36","slug":"talking-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/2018\/07\/01\/talking-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past Friday, I had the incredible opportunity to attend a lecture with the head of Oideas Gael, Liam \u00d3 Cuinneag\u00e1in, and a few other students here. We traveled for about an hour and a half to a nearby town (and the largest Irish-speaking area in the county of Donegal) to attend a reception and a talk where the Minister of State at the Department of Culture, Joe McHugh, described the Irish government’s 20 year plan for the Irish language. Being asked to attend by Liam in the first place was an honor, but it was doubly exciting when we got to meet the Minister himself before his presentation.<\/p>\n

Because the Minister is focused on the Gaeltacht and reviving the Irish language, being fluent in the language is a must for him. He knew we were learning Irish, so he actually initiated the conversation in Irish. In fact, the entire presentation was also in Irish and all the people at the reception were conversing in it. To be able to be immersed in that sort of atmosphere of 100% reverence and competence in the language was priceless. It was a different feel than school, because the language was being used to communicate important, governmental topics, and\u00a0 in some senses, I felt like I was in a completely different world. Trying to listen to and understand the Minister’s presentation as well as those speaking around me was exhausting but very\u00a0 fruitful.<\/p>\n

After we returned back to Gleann Cholm Cille, the Minister actually was there at\u00a0 Oideas Gael, taking interest in one of the best places to learn the Irish language, and the place where he himself actually learned the language, too. He recognized us and we were able to speak to him once more in Irish. I\u00a0 was so happy to see that the Irish government is making active steps to reviving and maintaining this beautiful language and that the Minister himself is able to speak it. Places such as Oideas Gael deserve to be praised for their determination and dedication.<\/p>\n

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Above is the Minister with all of us at Oideas Gael, and below is the Minister with my individual class.<\/p>\n

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Above is the Minister talking with my classmates and me at his presentation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past Friday, I had the incredible opportunity to attend a lecture with the head of Oideas Gael, Liam \u00d3 Cuinneag\u00e1in, and a few other students here. We traveled for about an hour and a half to a nearby town (and the largest Irish-speaking area in the county of Donegal) to attend a reception and … Continue reading Talking Politics<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3032,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[290963],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sla-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3032"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1890"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1901,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1890\/revisions\/1901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}