A NEW York-born comedian has been credited by a teachers' leader with contributing more to the campaign to revive the Irish language than Education Minister Mary Hanafin.Angela Dunne, president of the Irish National Teachers' Organization (INTO), criticized Hanafin's decision last year to ban the use of the Irish language for every subject in all-Irish schools.The policy in most all-Irish schools - known as gaelscoils -- to teach entirely through Irish and not begin English teaching until children reach the age of seven, was firmly prohibited in a directive to schools.Dunne told the annual conference of the INTO in Kilkenny this week, "At a time when the language requires every possible support, it's incredible that the minister would move to outlaw one of the successful innovations in Irish education."Dunne then drew attention to a current television series on RTE television, In the Name of the Fada, which follows comedian Des Bishop through a year-long struggle to study the Irish language in Connemara.Bishop was born in New York and still speaks with an American accent, although he moved to Ireland as a teenager in 1990. He has developed a successful comedy career."Des Bishop has done more recently to promote the Irish language than the education minister," Dunne said."Her decision to overturn a long-established practice in gaelscoils has angered and amazed teachers, and we are urging her to withdraw the directive."Hanafin's controversial directive was issued last summer despite advice from the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) that schools be allowed make their own choice of when to begin teaching English, until detailed research on the impacts of total immersion in Irish could be carried out.Bishop has been one of Ireland's most outspoken stand-up comedians for more than six years. He developed a biting style of observational comedy, mostly critical of his adopted Irish home and of the America he left behind.He has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as well as on the comedy circuit in Ireland and on several high-profile television and radio shows. And he has steadfastly supported the U.S.-based Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, campaigning to regularize the status of the undocumented Irish in the U.S.His series on attempting to learn Irish, in which he speaks both in Irish and English, is reckoned to be one of the most successful ventures of his career to date.