Beginning this fall, Notre Dame will become the first university outside Ireland to offer its students an Irish major. Language-intensive and literature-intensive tracks will be offered as both primary and supplemental majors.
“It’s exciting, starting something that hasn’t been done before,” said Professor Tara MacLeod, director of undergraduate studies in the Notre Dame Department of Irish Language and Literature. “We hope to introduce a new and exciting set of courses that will increase and enrich students’ access to Irish language and literature, giving them the opportunity to view the world through different eyes.”
The new Irish majors will build upon a rich foundation of Irish language and literature studies at Notre Dame. While the current department was officially established on October 1, 2004, Irish language instruction has been offered at Notre Dame since an Irish monk named Brother Simeon began teaching classes in 1868. Irish was offered intermittently over the next 140 years, experiencing a lull from 1949 to about 1990. It reemerged in 1992 when Professor Peter McQuillan began teaching Irish through the Notre Dame English Department.
Since 1992, Notre Dame has steadily attracted a growing number of prominent Irish faculty members. MacLeod attributed the major driving force behind the Irish major to “student demand.”
“Students currently taking Irish classes, including those with minors in Irish language, said that they would pursue an Irish major if it were offered,” MacLeod said. An external review of the Irish department by leading Irish professors and scholars from across the country also resulted in a recommendation for Notre Dame to create an Irish language and literature major.
When the idea of forming an Irish major was proposed, the department considered a number of factors.
“We started internally,” MacLeod said, “looking at our strengths and the best curriculum we had to offer. We had to decide what we wanted the major to look like. Would it be exactly like an Irish major in Ireland? Or would it be different because it was being taught somewhere else and the student body is very different than in Ireland?”
MacLeod also noted that the department considered the balance between teaching modern Irish language and literature and their more ancient counterparts.
Establishing the curriculum is not the only potential difficulty the Irish department faces as they try to get the Irish majors off the ground. “Awareness [of our program] is a challenge for us,” MacLeod said. Many people do not realize that the Irish language exists, she explained, much less that it is a viable major.
“In this economic climate, students are worried about what they will do with an Irish major. That is not limited to Irish; it is a trend within many arts and letters majors,” MacLeod admitted. “But while some students will go on to study Irish at the graduate level, to research or to teach, others take it on the path to medical school or law school. It becomes what sets them apart, what makes them unique.”
MacLeod emphasized that, like other arts and letters majors, studying Irish language and literature is valuable for reasons beyond the development of a specific skill set. “Studying Irish opens students up, makes them aware of other cultures and minority populations,” she said. MacLeod added that she hopes for the opportunity to “see students grow over the years” as they work toward an Irish major.
While the creation of a new major is a significant undertaking, MacLeod is optimistic. “[The Irish Department] has a very good faculty,” she said. “Really knowledgeable. As a group, we are incredibly excited about this major as such a new venture. There are so many possibilities.”
Contact Yuko at ygruber@nd.edu.
