Infrapink

Here in Ireland, you’d be hard pressed to find somebody who doesn’t speak English. Everybody born here speaks it fluently, and immigrants tend to speak enough to get by. Yes, if you speak the official second language you will have no problems.

Now if you speak Irish, our first official language? That’s where you run into trouble. Irish is only used as a daily language in a few small areas. Since gaining independence, every government has supported efforts to revivify the language, and all have failed. Decreasingly many people speak it daily, and while many people know a few words, not many can hold s conversation in it. In fact, you’d probably have a better time speaking Polish.

(I gather this situation is similar to that in Aotearoa).

We don’t have high school in Ireland.¹

When I was in secondary school in the early 2000s, the day ran from 09:00 to 16:00 Mon to The, and we finished an hour early on Fri. My sister’s school ran from 09:00 to 15:45 every day.

¹I am not being pedantic. Ireland, like Britain, has a two-stage system with primary (5 - 12/13) and secondary (12/12 - 18) schools, in contrast to the tgree-stage system found in France, America, and Japan.