Qualla: Bunscoill Ghaelgagh https://qualla.com/bunscoill-ghaelgagh en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:16 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/s/bunscoill-ghaelgagh-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Bunscoill Ghaelgagh https://qualla.com/bunscoill-ghaelgagh Bunscoill Ghaelgagh: Introduction https://qualla.com/bunscoill-ghaelgagh/ Photo credit Scottish Government, CC BY 2.0. In 2009, UNESCO published a list of languages it considered extinct. Manx Gaelic - the Celtic tongue spoken on the Isle of Man for more than a thousand years - was on it. The children of Bunscoill Ghaelgagh, a small primary school in the village of St John's, wrote letters to UNESCO. The letters were in Manx. The question they asked was disarmingly simple: if our language is extinct, what language are we writing in? UNESCO reclassified Manx as critically endangered. The children had won the argument by demonstrating it. Bunscoill Ghaelgagh - the name simply means 'Gaelic Primary School' - had been founded only eight years earlier, in September 2001, and it had already produced enough fluent Manx speakers to write to the United Nations in their own language. The Manx revival is one of the great quiet victories of modern language preservation, and this school sits at its centre.

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Image: Scottish Government | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/s/bunscoill-ghaelgagh-wp/gcss-bunscoill-ghaelgagh-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Bunscoill Ghaelgagh: A Parents' Society https://qualla.com/bunscoill-ghaelgagh/ Photo credit Simon Ager, CC BY 2.0. Sheshaght ny Paarantyn - the parents' society - formed in 1999. Their goal was specific and at the time felt impossible: a primary school where all teaching happened in Manx. Manx had been functionally extinct as a community language since 1974, when Ned Maddrell, the last native...

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Image: Simon Ager | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/s/bunscoill-ghaelgagh-wp/gcss-bunscoill-ghaelgagh-a-parents-society.mp3 0:06 2 full Bunscoill Ghaelgagh: What Happens in the Classroom https://qualla.com/bunscoill-ghaelgagh/ Photo credit Basher Eyre, CC BY-SA 2.0. Everything - maths, science, history, art, lunch, recess - happens in Manx. Children arrive in Reception with the language they have at home, usually English, and within months they are operating in Manx for the full school day. The school refers to Finnish research by Aini-Krist...

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Image: Basher Eyre | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/s/bunscoill-ghaelgagh-wp/gcss-bunscoill-ghaelgagh-what-happens-in-the-classroom.mp3 0:06 3 full Bunscoill Ghaelgagh: An Award and a Visit https://qualla.com/bunscoill-ghaelgagh/ Photo credit Scottish Government, CC BY 2.0. In January 2006, the school won the Reih Bleeaney Vanannan award - 'Manannan's Choice of the Year,' an annual prize given since 1987 to honour outstanding contributions to Manx culture. It was presented by James 'Tony' Brown, then Speaker of the House of Keys. The prize put the s...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/s/bunscoill-ghaelgagh-wp/gcss-bunscoill-ghaelgagh-an-award-and-a-visit.mp3 0:06 4 full Bunscoill Ghaelgagh: A Language Coming Back https://qualla.com/bunscoill-ghaelgagh/ Photo credit Simon Ager, CC BY 2.0. Manx died slowly. It died in households where parents made the choice to speak English to their children so the children would do better in an English-language world - a calculation parents make in minority-language communities everywhere. By the 1970s, the last home where Manx h...

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Image: Simon Ager | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/s/bunscoill-ghaelgagh-wp/gcss-bunscoill-ghaelgagh-a-language-coming-back.mp3 0:06 5 full