This is a selection of papers from a conference hosted by the Irish Association for AppliedLinguistics at the Marino Institute of Education in Dublin in June 1994. In an introductorypaper, Rosamond Mitchell calls us to “defend and develop the professionalism oflanguage teachers” (p. 17), which Mary Ruane amplifies to counter pessimism amonglanguage professionals arising from a feeling of a lack of control over “issues on awider agenda” (p. 27). On the same theme, John Edwards calls for sociopoliticalengagement with ethnic-minority-language situations (p. 34) and Helen ÓMurchú calls for empowerment of the “lesser used languagecommunities” (p. 44) in a supportive response to Edwards' keynote address.