<div dir="ltr"><h1>Why we have still to hear last word on debate about the Irish language</h1>
<h2>Sinn Fein's ideological approach to Gaelic may well invite
invective, but the tongue itself should not be sneered at, writes Dennis
Kennedy</h2>
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<p class="gmail-date"><strong>Published</strong> 17/02/2017</p>
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<img alt="A man walks past graffiti which calls for an Irish Language Act" title="A man walks past graffiti which calls for an Irish Language Act" src="http://cdn-02.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/archive/insider/article35458067.ece/558b4/AUTOCROP/h342/2017-02-17_opi_28715782_I2.JPG" class="gmail-" width="507" height="342">
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<figcaption>A man walks past graffiti which calls for an Irish Language Act</figcaption>
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Only in Northern Ireland, surely, would politicians struggling to bridge
deep-rooted divisions in their community rush to create yet another
one.
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<p>The province has for generations been split over perceived national
identities and religion, but has been spared the fundamental divide of
language that has plagued many countries across Europe.</p>
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<p>Northern Ireland is monoglot; everyone speaks English and migrants rapidly become English-speaking.</p><p>There
is a considerable minority who speak Irish, or who want to learn it,
and others who, while they may not speak it, value it as part of the
cultural heritage of the region.</p>
<p>But recent migrants apart, there is no non-English speaking minority
disadvantaged by their use of English in daily dealings with various
public authorities and the community at large.</p><p>Does this mean we
do not need an Irish Language Act? The St Andrews Agreement states that:
"The Government will introduce an Irish Language Act reflecting on the
experience of Wales and Ireland and work with the incoming Executive to
enhance and protect the development of the Irish language".</p><p>That
poorly drafted paragraph seems to say that the British Government, then
ruling Northern Ireland directly, would introduce an Irish Language Act
at Westminster (technically, it could introduce a Bill, but not an Act).</p><div class="gmail-bb_iawr" id="gmail-bb-iawr-inarticle-2348239" style="display:block;overflow:hidden;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;height:1px;opacity:0.01"><div class="gmail-bb-media gmail-bb_wrapper gmail-bb-muted gmail-bb-phase-init gmail-bb-mode-commercial gmail-bb-state-idle" id="gmail-bb-wr-inarticle-2348239" style="background-color:rgb(0,0,0);height:349px;width:620px"><div class="gmail-bb-layer gmail-bb-content-layer"><div class="gmail-bb-layer gmail-bb-subtitle-layer" style="z-index: 0;"><div class="gmail-bb-subtitledisplay" style="width:70%;color:rgb(255,255,255);text-align:center;line-height:150%;font-weight:bold;font-size:13.96px;padding:4.65333px 0px"><span></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></section>
<p>In the event it produced no such Bill, and cannot do so now while the
Northern Ireland Assembly is still functioning and having control over
what is a devolved matter.</p><p>But the rest of the sentence clearly
implies that the Northern Ireland Executive will work to enhance and
protect the development of the language and this puts an onus on those
who were party to the Agreement to honour that commitment.</p><p>The
Northern Ireland St Andrews Act goes a little further, saying that: "The
Executive Committee shall adopt a strategy setting out how it proposes
to enhance and protect the development of the Irish language."</p>
<p>That could, or could not, mean an Irish Language Act. Call it what
you will, the Executive and the Assembly seem obliged to devise some
strategy on the Irish language.</p><p>Failure to do so will mean the
language issue will hang around as another toxic blockage on progress
towards normality and proper government.</p><p>The St Andrews document says such strategy should stem from "reflecting on the experience of Wales and Ireland".</p>
<p>Policy from the first days of the Irish Free State was to designate
Irish as the first national language and to work for its restitution as
the spoken language of the country through a combination of compulsion
and incentives.</p><p>In those respects the policy has been a costly failure.</p><p>In the 1926 census, 18.3% of the population were recorded as "Irish speakers".</p>
<p>In 2011, only 1.8% were using Irish on a daily basis, while 4.4% spoke it "regularly".</p><p>This
despite the fact that every schoolchild for almost a century has had to
"learn" Irish and great amounts of public money have gone into its
promotion.</p><p>Despite the official homage paid to it today, Irish is patently not the language of Ireland.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the language has not died, there are still significant
numbers of Irish speakers and the language has its place in the cultural
and literary history and life of the country. Sinn Fein's language
policy for Northern Ireland, regrettably, seems as much ideological as
the Irish State's has been since its creation - that is to assert that
Irish is the language of a substantial portion of the population and
that it is, therefore, necessary that people must be able to use Irish
in their dealings with all official bodies.</p><p>The reality is that
Irish is not the first language of any substantial minority here and
Irish speakers are fluent in English. Is it, therefore, necessary to
impose a heavy burden on the public purse by giving Irish an official
status?</p><p>A few years ago a distinguished academic estimated that the Irish Government spent €1bn annually on education in Irish.</p>
<p>The insistence that Irish speaking must be facilitated in all
government or official forums and agencies and the language used in
various other ways - such as posting street names in Irish - will seem
to some as a slightly more sophisticated form of painting the kerbstones
to establish territory and will ensure that the language remains highly
divisive, a tribal football.</p><p>What the Irish language deserves is not pretence, but real respect.</p><p>It is not a dead language; it is living and spoken and has a lively contemporary literature, as well as a rich heritage.</p>
<p>Nationalists should reflect on the southern Irish experience and ask
whether imposing a degree of official Irish would be in the interests of
the language, or in the development of a shared culture in Northern
Ireland.</p><p>Some unionists use scorn and ridicule in this argument
and Sinn Fein's approach may invite such invective, but the language
itself should not be sneered at, and should certainly not be regarded as
foreign to unionist culture.</p><p>Where do they think the names of almost every townland, village and town in Ulster comes from?</p>
<p>Arlene Foster has declared her 'never, never, never' to an Irish
Language Act, but may wish to, or be obliged to, find a way round that.</p><p>The
term 'Irish', as applied to what was called Gaelic, is relatively
recent. The Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletic Association were so
named when founded in the late-19th century and are still so-called.</p><p>The
switch to Irish was, in itself, highly political, an assertion that
Gaelic was, indeed, the language of the people of Ireland, even though
they were predominantly English-speaking.</p>
<p>Perhaps Mrs Foster and other unionists - and even Sinn Fein - could contemplate an Irish-Gaelic Language Act.</p><p>It is, after all, a more accurate description.</p><ul><li>Dennis
Kennedy is a former deputy editor of The Irish Times. He served as
European Commission representative in Northern Ireland from 1985 to 1991</li></ul>
<p class="gmail-originalSource">
Belfast Telegraph <br></p><p class="gmail-originalSource"><a href="http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/news-analysis/why-we-have-still-to-hear-last-word-on-debate-about-the-irish-language-35458068.html">http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/news-analysis/why-we-have-still-to-hear-last-word-on-debate-about-the-irish-language-35458068.html</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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