For a country with a population about equal to that of the Greater Toronto Area, Ireland continues to hold a powerful fascination for people around the world, including the St. Michael’s community.
It’s a reality that Emer Maguire, who lives in Ireland’s County Louth, discovered soon after arriving at St. Mike’s as this year’s Ireland Canada University Foundation (ICUF) scholar.
The ICUF scholars have a mandate to teach the Irish language as well as to engage in various cultural events, including offering free Irish classes on a continuing education basis.
“There’s a great demand for the beginner courses,” says Maguire of the free instruction, adding that this year’s classes had to be capped at 35, and a waiting list established that stands at 50 more.
And as delighted as she is to be in Toronto sharing an appreciation for her homeland’s first official language, she says that the interest shown both by her university students and her lifelong learners will serve her well when she returns to Ireland this summer.
Having encountered some skeptics at home who question whether there’s a market for teaching Irish, she says the interest she is encountering, as well as the level of skill she’s seeing in her university students, will be good news to many.
“Some of the university students I’ve met speak a brilliant level of Irish — better than some at home,” she says, adding that Ireland’s membership in the European Union has resulted in a significant increase in the number of jobs requiring the ability to speak Irish.
Coming from a rural community, Maguire is intrigued by the sheer size of Toronto, the ease of getting around on the subway, and the number of tall buildings. But the diversity of backgrounds she sees in her classes is something she is also beginning to see in her teaching job in Ireland.
“There’s a great variety of students in my classes. Some are of Irish descent but most are from places around the world, and are simply interested in Irish culture,” she says.
At home, where she teaches primary- classes, her students, mostly Irish-born, increasingly include the children of people from Ukraine, Poland and a variety of international locations.
After a two-year sabbatical that began with a year in Massachusetts teaching as a Fulbright scholar, Maguire return home this summer, where she plans to head to the west coast of the country to teach in a Gaeltacht community, a district where Irish is the primary language in everyday use.
“It’ll be a way to get the calmness back before I return to my job,” she smiles.
Come the fall, she will be back in County Louth teaching in her local school. And while she has loved her experience in North America, she will be glad to get home to the vistas of the countryside, and to a place where she is connected to family and friends in a community small enough for almost everybody to have some form of connection.