Stormont’s treatment of Irish language slammed
Posted by Jim on January 18, 2014
The Council of Europe has accused the Stormont administration of
blocking the growth and promotion of the Irish language in the north of
Ireland.
It said hostile attitudes by government officials were preventing its
use in the courts and in education, and warned that Stormont was also in
breach of a charter of rights because of delays and attempts to block
requests for bilingual street names.
One unionist councillor in county Fermanagh recently described the Irish
language as ‘foreign and gnomish’ and, in a leaked e-mail, vowed to
fight the “introduction” of Irish to Enniskillen — a town whose name
was anglicised in the 17th century from the Irish ‘Inis Ceithleann’.
The European review of minority languages also said the British
government has not been able to justify banning the use of Irish in the
courts, or allowing people to take citizenship tests through the
language.
The Council of Europe criticised attitudes to Irish in some official
circles and what it said is the Stormont Assembly’s “persisting hostile
climate”.
Caral Ni Chuilin, Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure who is
responsible for overall promotion of the language, said she hoped this
would change.
But she pointed out any change to policy on languages in the north of
Ireland requires the agreement of the Executive and Assembly, ands is
therefore subject to a unionist veto.
“I hope that all supporters of the Irish language will work together to
convince the Executive, the Assembly and all our people of the merits of
supporting an Irish Language Act,” she said.
The review team hit out at the lack of the long-awaited Irish Language
Act, originally agreed as part of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement;
Irish-medium pre-schools; primary education in Irish; and free school
transport for Irish language schools, despite a recent judicial review
case against the Department of Education on the issue.
COMMISSIONER RESIGNS
Meanwhile, in the 26 Counties, a nationwide campaign to address the
Dublin government’s failure to provide ongoing support for the Irish
language is due to be launched in the coming weeks.
Over 200 people attended a public meeting in Dublin recently organised
by Conradh na Gaeilge in response to the resignation last month of an
Commisineir Teanga Sean O Cuirreain.
The meeting heard that Mr O Cuirreain quit his position in protest at
the failure by the Dublin government to implement legislation designed
to improve services to the public through Irish.
“Sean O Cuirreain’s resignation has really galvanised people – there is
a real sense of crisis that needs to be addressed,” said Conradh na
Gaeilge general secretary, Julian de Spainn.
ANTI-GAELIC RACISM
And in a bizarre development, a Glasgow private hire driver refused to
allow visitors to speak Irish Gaelic in his car — even though Gaelic is
also a native language in Scotland.
The man, who has not been named, reportedly threw the Donegal visitors
out at the side of the road at 2am after they objected to his demand
that they stop speaking in Irish.
Kathleen McAleer, a local mental health nurse, said her cousins were
talking to each other in Gaelic, which is their first language. “The
taxi driver turned around and said to them ‘Stop speaking in that
language’. We didn’t really know how to take it. He said: ‘When you are
in Britain, it is English you speak.’
“I said to the driver ‘Excuse me’, shocked that somebody would say that
to them. I said: ‘That is out of order’. He then said: ‘If they want to
speak in that language they can get out of my taxi.’ So we got out and
said we wouldn’t pay.”
The driver is currently under investigation under hate legislation.