Dochas is Duchas, Hope and Heritage Gaelscoileanna; Transforming Power and Linguistic Ideology

This thesis examines Gaelscoileanna in terms of the socio-historical, political, and ideological contexts from which the movement emerges, and their place in contemporary Irish society. Employing ‘machine theory’, the project examines the movement as both the product of, and also productive of power, desire, and competing social realities. Chapter one examines the position of the Irish language in Education throughout history, focussing on the marginalisation of the language, and current disparities of policy and practice that persist today. Gaelscoileanna emerge in response to the marginalisation of the Irish language in Education. Gaelscoileanna are both produced by and productive of social machinations involving power and desire, emerging to facilitate the reproduction of an Irish language community, not catered to by the state. Through ethnographic interviews, the emergence of Gaelscoileanna, and the structural barriers to their emergence, is examined. Chapter two explores the rationale for the discrepancies in State language policy that has provided Gaelscoileanna their impetus. Employing a cross-cultural, post-Colonial comparison, it is argued that the imperial structure of Irish education has been maintained as a means of legitimising the State, by producing citizens to the state. In so doing, the rationale for the marginalisation of the Irish language has also been maintained. In this way, it is argued that Gaelscoileanna represent an indigenous movement reacting against cultural imperialism, rather than a minority language initiative struggling against language shift. Gaelscoileanna represent a démocratisation of education, demanding the decentralisation of the primary means of socialisation - education - from state to people. This implies that the subjectivities created in Gaelscoileanna differ, then, from those produced by the state. The third chapter examines the transformation of education in ideological terms, exploring Gaelscoil subjectivity and the production and reproduction thereof, language acquisition, innovation and ownership. Thus, the production and products of Gaelscoileanna are examined, in the machine of their production