SPANISH students here to learn English and Irish students of Spanish are trying to influence the Spanish Government to establish a Cultural Institute in Dublin. An average of 3,000 Spaniards come here every year to learn English; some 30.000 Irish people go to Spain on holidays and an estimated 12,000 secondary students take Spanish as an examination subject in Irelend.
Señor José Antonio Sierra Lumbreras, an assistant lecturer in Spanish at Dublin University, said that the Spanish students both of Ireland and of Spain felt the lack of an Institute such as those set up in Dublin by the French and German Goverments. He has established a Spanish Centre at Wilton Place, Dublin, but his aim is to make the centre a meeting place for Spaniards who come here. There were, for example, au pair girls who found time heavy on there hands in Dublin because they could not contact one another.
El Centro Espanol de Documentación in Wilton Place may be the foundation for such an Institute and has the approval of some Departments of the Spanish Government. One of the features is the teaching of Spanish on a non-commercial basis and a novel experiment in teaching converstional Spanish for tourists is in progress.
FUENTE:
Irish Independent
Saturday, May 23, 1970
Dublin, Ireland