Iontaobhas na Gaelscolaíochta - The Trust Fund for Irish Medium Education

Irish-Medium Education in Northern Ireland began with the setting up of an independent primary school in Belfast in 1971. The Irish-medium sector has grown from an initial intake of nine in 1971 to over 4000 for the school year 2006–7.

When Northern Ireland was founded in 1921 the new Unionist Government was hostile to the use of the language in the education system. During the 1920s and 1930s it placed restrictions on the teaching of Irish in primary schools and refused to support the training of teachers. In 1949 it banned the use of street names in Irish, a ban which has only recently been rescinded.

Despite the lack of Government support, material or otherwise, the language community continued to organise adult language classes, summer schemes for school children and summer courses for learners in the Gaeltacht areas of Donegal.

However while these classes and courses maintained the language among a small number of linguists and enthusiasts they could not and did not succeed in reversing the decline of the language. In short there was no viable way that large numbers of people could learn the language and thus no opportunity could ever arise that Irish could once again regain its place as a community language in everyday use.

When the first Irish-medium school which opened in 1971 the potential for the revival of Irish language communities took a huge step forward. This school served a small community of Irish speakers in the neo-Gaeltacht (Irish speaking quarter) of west Belfast. The school did not receive Government funding and was independent of both educational and church authorities. It had a difficult and fraught relationship with the Department of Education in its early years and was threatened with both closure and legal action by the Department. The school accepted only children from Irish-speaking families at first. Later the intake was to include children from non-Irish speaking families and the school adopted a programme of immersion education. The school is now in receipt of Government funding and its enrolment stands at over 300 children.

The running of the school, Bunscoil Phobal Feirste, proved a great financial burden to parents and community alike, and required continual and active voluntary effort. Few suitable textbooks were available in Irish and teachers, parents and other committed members of the community undertook the task of translating texts for the schoolchildren. Commitment and enthusiasm were a prerequisite for staff. Salaries were low and staff worked long hours preparing materials and organising out-of-school activities.

In 1983 an Irish-medium unit was set up in a Catholic primary school in Derry. The unit, which operated under the management of an established English-medium school, was recognised and funded by the Department of Education from its inception. The enrolment at the stream in Derry grew steadily over the next ten years, and it developed into a free-standing Catholic maintained school. Bunscoil Phobal Feirste was funded by the Department from the end of 1984.
Between 1984 and 2007, the Department of Education grant-aided a further 31 schools to provide Irish-Medium Education. At present 33 schools offer primary Irish-medium provision. There is a free-standing post-primary school in Belfast and an Irish-medium post-primary units in Derry and Armagh.