Irish Language Act

Gaelgangnuis · 11-02-2015 5:39pm #1

Sinn Féin are bringing forward a new consultation prior to the introduction of an Irish Language Act for northern Ireland. This move has provoked a predictable backlash from unionist parties as well as some over the top commentary as to the 'weponisation' of the language on the part of some politicians.

The proposals themselves are quite modest, with the highlights including the repeal of the ban on the use of Irish in northern courts, a guarantee of Irish medium education for those who want it, the creation of a language commissioner and provision for the use of Irish in Stormont.

Personally, while the proposals are quite basic, I think they are a reasonable starting point for discussion. While the unionist establishment has reacted vigorously against the proposals, that is not to say that the unionist community as a whole would necessarily reject the notion of an Irish language act. A majority in NI believe that people who want to access services in Irish should be allowed to do so and there has been a growing awareness amongst unionists that the Irish language is not the sole preserve of the nationalist community.

While it is clear that any Irish Language Act, regardless of its contents, will be rejected by the Unionist Parties, especially in the run up to the election, it is never the less more than possible that an Irish language act could be brought in after the elections as part of a deal in the next administration. As such the shape of the proposals that come out of this consultation may be important in the form a future act takes.

Iwasfrozen · 11-02-2015 7:49pm

Gaelgangnuis wrote: »

Sinn Féin are bringing forward a new consultation prior to the introduction of an Irish Language Act for northern Ireland. This move has provoked a predictable backlash from unionist parties as well as some over the top commentary as to the 'weponisation' of the language on the part of some politicians.

The proposals themselves are quite modest, with the highlights including the repeal of the ban on the use of Irish in northern courts, a guarantee of Irish medium education for those who want it, the creation of a language commissioner and provision for the use of Irish in Stormont.

Personally, while the proposals are quite basic, I think they are a reasonable starting point for discussion. While the unionist establishment has reacted vigorously against the proposals, that is not to say that the unionist community as a whole would necessarily reject the notion of an Irish language act. A majority in NI believe that people who want to access services in Irish should be allowed to do so and there has been a growing awareness amongst unionists that the Irish language is not the sole preserve of the nationalist community.

While it is clear that any Irish Language Act, regardless of its contents, will be rejected by the Unionist Parties, especially in the run up to the election, it is never the less more than possible that an Irish language act could be brought in after the elections as part of a deal in the next administration. As such the shape of the proposals that come out of this consultation may be important in the form a future act takes.

Providing everyone with the opportunity of an Irish medium education is not a modest proposal though and would cost a significant amount of public money, we don't even have that in the South where Irish language legislation borders on the draconian.

Gaelgangnuis · 12-02-2015 3:38pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Providing everyone with the opportunity of an Irish medium education is not a modest proposal though and would cost a significant amount of public money, we don't even have that in the South where Irish language legislation borders on the draconian.

Not necessarily, at the end of the day weather its through Irish or English, the same amount of kids are being educated, beyond some initial set up costs, education through Irish need not be more expencive than education through English.

As for 'draconian' language legislation in the south, its far from it, our language act is much weaker than that found in place in our nearest neighbor the UK for example.
Many other countries that have Language Legislation have more comprehensive provisions than we have here.

Iwasfrozen · 13-02-2015 2:16am

Gaelgangnuis wrote: »

Not necessarily, at the end of the day weather its through Irish or English, the same amount of kids are being educated, beyond some initial set up costs, education through Irish need not be more expencive than education through English.

As for 'draconian' language legislation in the south, its far from it, our language act is much weaker than that found in place in our nearest neighbor the UK for example.
Many other countries that have Language Legislation have more comprehensive provisions than we have here.

Yes necessarily, ensuring every child can have education through Irish or English medium is a huge duplication of effort. You would need more teachers on payroll and more classrooms. It would be hugely inefficient, especially in rural areas.

Having less draconian laws than Quebec for example doesn't mean our laws aren't draconian btw. Our language laws would be a lot more acceptable if we weren't still forcing children to learn the language in 2015 though.

gallag · 13-02-2015 2:21pm

Haha, complete remodeling the education and justice systems are a "modest proposal"

Whatever the pro's and cons of these proposals describing them as modest is a fair bit off!

Then we will have the other ones demanding ulster Scotts having the same level of use leaving the rest of us wondering why our children's education is revolving around dead languages that are no more than political tools instead of learning languages from the world's leading economies or computer coding or even a unified sign language giving all children in the world the ability to communicate in one generation!

NIMAN · 15-02-2015 10:22pm

Maybe SF should accept that very few people in NI have any interest in learning the Irish language.

This to me sounds like unnecessary cost for a very small minority of people.

kabakuyu · 21-02-2015 2:33am

NIMAN wrote: »

Maybe SF should accept that very few people in NI have any interest in learning the Irish language.

This to me sounds like unnecessary cost for a very small minority of people.

Or is it a small minority of Unionist people who don't want to learn Gaeilige?

Iwasfrozen · 21-02-2015 4:42am

kabakuyu wrote: »

Or is it a small minority of Unionist people who don't want to learn Gaeilige?

No. A very large majority of people in the South don't want to learn Irish. Here is a infograph based on data from the last census that shows the % of people who speak Irish daily outside the education system.

As you can see the vast majority of the map is less than 10% with only small sparsely populated pockets where the number exceeds 10%.

Crooked Jack · 22-02-2015 3:15pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

No. A very large majority of people in the South don't want to learn Irish. Here is a infograph based on data from the last census that shows the % of people who speak Irish daily outside the education system.

As you can see the vast majority of the map is less than 10% with only small sparsely populated pockets where the number exceeds 10%.

All that proves is that they dont know it, not that they dont want to learn it.

Iwasfrozen · 22-02-2015 4:14pm

Crooked Jack wrote: »

All that proves is that they dont know it, not that they dont want to learn it.

People who want to learn any language make an effort to speak it outside the education system.

Crooked Jack · 22-02-2015 4:18pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

People who want to learn any language make an effort to speak it outside the education system.

You just argued that it would cost a huge amount to make learning Irish available to everyone. Now youre arguing that it's so widely available that anyone who wants to learn it easily can. You are all over the place.

Iwasfrozen · 22-02-2015 4:39pm

Crooked Jack wrote: »

You just argued that it would cost a huge amount to make learning Irish available to everyone.

I did.

Now youre arguing that it's so widely available that anyone who wants to learn it easily can. You are all over the place.

I am not. I'm arguing that people who want to learn a language make an effort to speak it outside the eduction system. They may speak it badly but they make the effort to try.

mackerski · 22-02-2015 4:45pm

Crooked Jack wrote: »

All that proves is that they dont know it, not that they dont want to learn it.

Most of the people concerned spent 13 years being taught the language. Voting with their feet, I'd say.

Crooked Jack · 22-02-2015 5:04pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I did.

I am not. I'm arguing that people who want to learn a language make an effort to speak it outside the eduction system. They may speak it badly but they make the effort to try.

So your point is what? That there's no support for an Irish language act in the north? Despite the fact that it's a central goal of the most popular party in the north? Despite the fact that the Liofa campaign surpassed its target four times over?

Iwasfrozen · 22-02-2015 5:09pm

Crooked Jack wrote: »

So your point is what? That there's no support for an Irish language act in the north? Despite the fact that it's a central goal of the most popular party in the north? Despite the fact that the Liofa campaign surpassed its target four times over?

No. My point is that the majority of Irish people don't want to learn Irish, in response to this post.

kabakuyu wrote:

Or is it a small minority of Unionist people who don't want to learn Gaeilige?

You can bring a horse to water but you can't make it drink, you can flush the equivalent of billions down the toilet promoting Irish over the past century like we did in the south but you can't make people learn a language they don't want to learn. Even if they do pay it lip service.

NIMAN · 23-02-2015 1:35am

Lets face facts, very very few Irish people can speak the Irish language fluently, and very few of them have any inclination to learn to.

Born and raised in a Catholic city in NI, very few people I ever met could speak Irish. Anyone who did it at school hated it.

I now live in RoI, and just as few can speak it, and that includes many who studied it for nearly 13yrs at school.

Its hard to accept for some people, but the vast majority of Irish people are happy with English as their main language. Don't believe the figures of "1,000,000 people in Ireland can speak Irish fluently", thats balls.

If I had the choice I'd learn a pile of other languages before Irish, and I would prefer my children did too, but unfortunately that isn't offered to them at present.

eire4 · 03-03-2015 10:47pm

NIMAN wrote: »

Lets face facts, very very few Irish people can speak the Irish language fluently, and very few of them have any inclination to learn to.

Born and raised in a Catholic city in NI, very few people I ever met could speak Irish. Anyone who did it at school hated it.

I now live in RoI, and just as few can speak it, and that includes many who studied it for nearly 13yrs at school.

Its hard to accept for some people, but the vast majority of Irish people are happy with English as their main language. Don't believe the figures of "1,000,000 people in Ireland can speak Irish fluently", thats balls.

If I had the choice I'd learn a pile of other languages before Irish, and I would prefer my children did too, but unfortunately that isn't offered to them at present.

Certainly there are those like yourself that have no real interest in Irish. How the language has been handled in Ireland over the last 100 years or so has been a real tregedy.

Having said that we have seen a significant growth in Gaelscoileanna in the last 10 years or so to the point that it is hard for parents at times to find a place for their kids. There is a much more positive outlook and attitude toward our language which is also such an important part of our cultural heritage.

I do not know where the current Gaelscoilenna growth will lead in the coming decades but I for one see it as a real positive that the negative stigmas attatched to our language are changing and there is a real growth happening with our language.

ODEON123 · 17-10-2015 11:33am

MY kids are 100% going to a gaelscoil keep the language going, tens of thousands of people fought and died just to speak Irish and to have our own culture and now we have what they fought for except the language because the Irish education system cant teach Irish

Godge · 19-10-2015 5:32pm

ODEON123 wrote: »

MY kids are 100% going to a gaelscoil keep the language going, tens of thousands of people fought and died just to speak Irish and to have our own culture and now we have what they fought for except the language because the Irish education system cant teach Irish

Who are the tens of thousands dead?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles#Casualties

3,531 killed as a result of the terrorist campaign known as "The Troubles"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Civil_War#Casualties

For the civil war "For total combatant and civilian deaths, a minimum of 1,000 and a maximum of 4,000 have been suggested"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_War_of_Independence#Casualties

"The total number killed in the guerrilla war of 1919–21 between Republicans and British forces in what became the Irish Free State came to over 1,400"

Even if you include the Civil War (where we were killing each other) as well as the deaths on the other side, you are well short of 10,000 who died, let alone tens of thousands.

ODEON123 · 19-10-2015 7:29pm

Godge wrote: »

Who are the tens of thousands dead?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles#Casualties

3,531 killed as a result of the terrorist campaign known as "The Troubles"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Civil_War#Casualties

For the civil war "For total combatant and civilian deaths, a minimum of 1,000 and a maximum of 4,000 have been suggested"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_War_of_Independence#Casualties

"The total number killed in the guerrilla war of 1919–21 between Republicans and British forces in what became the Irish Free State came to over 1,400"

Even if you include the Civil War (where we were killing each other) as well as the deaths on the other side, you are well short of 10,000 who died, let alone tens of thousands.

If you did a bit of research or knew your stuff you would know that the rebellion of 1798 there was a death toll of between 10000-50000 deaths so there is several thousands and then when you add on all the other deaths from several other uprisings you get a good bit more

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_in_Ireland

Iwasfrozen · 19-10-2015 7:55pm

ODEON123 wrote: »

If you did a bit of research or knew your stuff you would know that the rebellion of 1798 there was a death toll of between 10000-50000 deaths so there is several thousands and then when you add on all the other deaths from several other uprisings you get a good bit more

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_in_Ireland

How many of those guys explicitly died so your sprogs could unlearn Irish in school? Compared to the number who fought because they were hungry and the young Irelanders offered food.

Nichard Dixon · 19-10-2015 7:58pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

How many of those guys explicitly died so your sprogs could unlearn Irish in school? Compared to the number who fought because they were hungry and the young Irelanders offered food.

So we have the usual reduction of one sort of oppression as not being as bad as another sort of oppression. Whether it was as bad or not, Irish people should not have had their culture suppressed by colonialists, neither by musket carrying warriors in the 19th nor their keyboard wielding successors today.

Iwasfrozen · 19-10-2015 8:08pm

Nichard Dixon wrote: »

So we have the usual reduction of one sort of oppression as not being as bad as another sort of oppression. Whether it was as bad or not, Irish people should not have had their culture suppressed by colonialists, neither by musket carrying warriors in the 19th nor their keyboard wielding successors today.

No one is having their culture surpassed. We don't believe Irish should be mandatory in school. That's not oppression, the opposite in face.

The people who feel the need to force Irish on anglophone kids are the only people suppressing culture.

gananam · 19-10-2015 8:36pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

No one is having their culture surpassed. We don't believe Irish should be mandatory in school. That's not oppression, the opposite in face.

The people who feel the need to force Irish on anglophone kids are the only people suppressing culture.

The state forcing people to speak English when conducting their business with the state is in fact the state suppressing the Irish language, especially when it happens in Gaeltacht areas.

Iwasfrozen · 19-10-2015 8:43pm

gananam wrote: »

The state forcing people to speak English when conducting their business with the state is in fact the state suppressing the Irish language, especially when it happens in Gaeltacht areas.

The state choosing the language is which it conducts business with its citizens is not suppression. By that definition we are suppressing all languages but Englsh.

gananam · 19-10-2015 9:10pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The state choosing the language is which it conducts business with its citizens is not suppression. By that definition we are suppressing all languages but Englsh.

Irish is ingenious to Ireland, by forcing Irish speakers to speak English in their own country, the state is suppressing Irish.

If forcing a language community to speak a different language in their own county is not suppressing that language, then what is?

Iwasfrozen · 19-10-2015 9:39pm

gananam wrote: »

Irish is ingenious to Ireland, by forcing Irish speakers to speak English in their own country, the state is suppressing Irish.

If forcing a language community to speak a different language in their own county is not suppressing that language, then what is?

But that's not what you wrote. You wrote "The state forcing people to speak English when conducting their business with the state is in fact the state suppressing the Irish language" that has nothing to do with Irish being native to Ireland.

No one is forcing Irish speakers to speak English. The state is making a decision that they will only correspond with their citizens in English. The citizens themselves are free to converse in whatever language they choose.

katydid · 19-10-2015 10:05pm

ODEON123 wrote: »

MY kids are 100% going to a gaelscoil keep the language going, tens of thousands of people fought and died just to speak Irish and to have our own culture

Tens of thousands? When?

katydid · 19-10-2015 10:08pm

ODEON123 wrote: »

If you did a bit of research or knew your stuff you would know that the rebellion of 1798 there was a death toll of between 10000-50000 deaths so there is several thousands and then when you add on all the other deaths from several other uprisings you get a good bit more

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_in_Ireland

And how many of them died so future generations could speak Irish?

gananam · 19-10-2015 10:13pm

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

But that's not what you wrote. You wrote "The state forcing people to speak English when conducting their business with the state is in fact the state suppressing the Irish language" that has nothing to do with Irish being native to Ireland.

Of course it does, Irish is native to Ireland, the state forcing these people to use English when dealing with the state is a denial of these peoples language rights. That the language is native to Ireland is a key issue. Irish speakers are not a group of people who came here knowing that the state was an English speaking one. They are an indigenous community which places an obligation on the state to cater for them in their own language. There are Irish speakers in the US and Canada but no one complains when the state does not provide services in Irish for them, Irish is not native to North America.
In the case of First Nations and their languages however it's a different story.

No one is forcing Irish speakers to speak English. The state is making a decision that they will only correspond with their citizens in English. The citizens themselves are free to converse in whatever language they choose.

This is an almost Orwellian level of delusion. If someone wants to speak in Irish when carrying out their business with the state and the state does not give them that option, how is the state not forcing Irish speakers to speak English? You do realise that interacting with the state is not always optional, right?

'The state is making a decision that they will only correspond with their citizens in English.'
Sorry, but the state has no business making such a decision, this is in breach of the rights of Irish citizens.

Iwasfrozen · 19-10-2015 10:30pm

gananam wrote: »

Of course it does, Irish is native to Ireland, the state forcing these people to use English when dealing with the state is a denial of these peoples language rights. That the language is native to Ireland is a key issue. Irish speakers are not a group of people who came here knowing that the state was an English speaking one. They are an indigenous community which places an obligation on the state to cater for them in their own language. There are Irish speakers in the US and Canada but no one complains when the state does not provide services in Irish for them, Irish is not native to North America.
In the case of First Nations and their languages however it's a different story.

I don't follow you. Either you claim the ability to receive state services in your native language is or is not an inalienable right. Rights are not conditional on the geographic location the claimant is stationed. It seems you're trying to say the government must provide services in Irish but not any other language because it happens to have jurisdiction over the territory Irish used to be spoken in.

In other words you're saying language rights are inalienable for those who speak a language with historical precedence in the area they live but not for those who have moved to another country / territory / jurisdiction / made up line in the sand.

French used to be spoken in Ireland by the Norman lords, should we provide services in French? What about Viking? Vikings were quite common on the Eastern shore and of course founded Dublin. Latin? The church spoke almost exclusively in Latin.

This sounds farcical but you're claiming people have a right to access services in a language that has precedence in the land the government happens to hold jurisdiction over.

This is an almost Orwellian level of delusion. If someone wants to speak in Irish when carrying out their business with the state and the state does not give them that option, how is the state not forcing Irish speakers to speak English? You do realise that interacting with the state is not always optional, right?

'The state is making a decision that they will only correspond with their citizens in English.'
Sorry, but the state has no business making such a decision, this is in breach of the rights of Irish citizens.

Rights that are only granted by legislation and can be removed by legislation or inaction on the part of the Government. I'm sorry but this is an anglophone country and that isn't going to change.

Irish Language Act

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