Off message: Irish language needs a rebrand

Too many students resent studying Irish, but making it an optional subject is a cop-out: we need to change the way we teach it, and jazz up its staid image

Peig Sayers: one of the very few big names in the Irish language

We need to rebrand the Irish language – and we need to do it urgently. We’re good at marketing: we’ve sold ourselves around the world as hard-working, hard-drinking storytellers who’ll build your house and convince your tech companies to put their European base in our capital. We’ve just won Love Island, for heaven’s sake: a British show, with the Irish republic excluded from voting, and Limerick’s Greg O’Shea still managed to get himself ...