[lg policy] The DUP have a point about an Irish Language Act but it’s smaller than they think – and small minded too

[Harold Schiffman]

 The DUP have a point about an Irish Language Act but it’s smaller than
they think – and small minded too
Brian Walker <https://sluggerotoole.com/author/brianwalker/> on 29 January
2017 , 12:25 pm 54 Comments
<https://sluggerotoole.com/2017/01/29/the-dup-have-a-point-about-an-irish-language-act-but-its-smaller-than-they-think-and-small-minded-too/#disqus_thread>
| 1,173 views

The journal.ie
<http://www.thejournal.ie/factcheck-irish-language-act-3209218-Jan2017/>
have done a useful bit of fact checking over contradictory claims that the
St Andrew’s Agreement committed the DUP to “ an Irish Language Act.”  Their
verdict:

*VERDICT*

The DUP’s claim that they never agreed to establish an Irish Language Act
as part of St Andrews Agreement is true, as the legislation refers to the
British government’s commitment to an Irish Language Act, not the DUP’s.

Although they signed up to the St Andrews Agreement, this includes a
commitment by the UK government, and not the DUP. After devolution,
responsibility for a language policy was transferred to the Northern
Ireland Executive, but this did not include a commitment to establish an
Irish Language Act.

What was legislated for was a language *strategy*, which could include, but
is not the same as, an Irish Language Act.

Apart from the St Andrews Agreement, there’s no evidence that they’ve ever
agreed to establish an Irish Language Act.

*Claim: *“The DUP at no point has ever agreed to establish an Irish
Language Act with the UK government, with the Irish government, with Sinn
Féin or anybody else.”

*Verdict: TRUE*

Although this verdict  will be disputed,  I suspect it accords with most
people’s private assessment of the political position. I seem to remember
that St Andrews was followed up by demands for Westminster to legislate ,
which rather gave the game away.  Just now and in the perhaps vain hope of
avoiding  zero sum  comment , I’d like to stress that this does not mean
I’m in favour of the DUP position which is philistine and as unhelpfully
politicised as Sinn Fein’s.

I support dual language signage and the option of Irish in rites of passage
documents. But as for Irish in courts or the public sphere generally, I
have severe doubts . People have enough difficulty with the small print in
English, never mind Irish.

The limitations of the Victorian idea of a using an indigenous language for
nation-building have been shown in the Republic and more recently in Wales.
Yet there is a great civilising idea in there somewhere which requires
fresh and open debate leading to wider Irish cultural provision including
the language. We should build on the  rudiments of what we have already.
I’m strongly in favour of learning, beginning with far more about Irish
music, stories ancient and modern, the meaning of names for people and
places and not least, the spelling  ( though could  that be simplified?).
The Protestant  tradition in the language movement  began to atrophy as it
became more politicised ( and  dear old Douglas Hyde
<https://www.britannica.com/biography/Douglas-Hyde>  and Ernest Blythe
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Y9oBMFLHw> whom I once interviewed at
length elsewhere didn’t help). It’s not quite dead and shows new signs of
life. But it’s an uphill struggle against politicisation.

Arguing for the existing statist model rigidly on the basis of European
minority language rights will get us precisely nowhere except staying in
deadlock.

An honest analysis of experience in the Republic  and Wales would greatly
assist objective debate.

https://sluggerotoole.com/2017/01/29/the-dup-have-a-point-about-an-irish-language-act-but-its-smaller-than-they-think-and-small-minded-too/


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