But what I can’t understand is why people like GGN and a few others insist on misspelling the name of the newspaper in question.

Lá. Lá Nua. What’s La? Come on. Have you been reading the Indo a lot lately? They have very little respect for the Irish language. Éire…Eire. It’s all the same to them.

The only organisation that is proposing Irish language road signage is Na Ceithearna Coille – http://www.ceithearnacoille.com – and they clearly state that they only want bilingual signs in areas that are supportive of it.

Of course there is no official criteria regarding what constitutes a pro-Gaelic area but a locality in which more than 50%+ of the population speak or have substantial knowledge of the language would be a start.

Your point about most younger people looking towards the future is certainly true, and for thousands of them Irish Gaelic is part of that future. Just look at the vibrancy of Irish language life in our universities; Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Galway’s Irish language niteclubs and the funky new magazine nós* – http://www.nosmag.com – for proof.

As you can see from my posts above I have no time for Sinn Féin and their use of Irish. So I’ll let someone else take up the baton on their behalf.

It’s a bit simplistic to blame nationalists for Lá’s demise. It survived for 24 years, most of that time without grant aid. The British Government, by signing up to the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages and in its submissions to the Council of Europe, say they support the newspaper as an effort to promote an indigenous minority language. They – through Foras na Gaeilge – failed to support Lá sufficiently. Minority languages throughout Europe get government support for daily newspapers. The Welsh language gets over a £100m per year for Welsh language TV. I support that and I wonder why is the Irish language in NI less supported by the government than the Welsh language is in Wales, is NI less important than Wales? Is NI culture, of which Irish is an integral part, less worthy of support than Welsh Culture?

True, it would be folly to ignore the fact that not enough people bought Lá and that’s one of its causes of demise. But in a society which celebrates diversity, Lá’s diverse voice ought to have been supported, for cultural reasons as well as it was a British government commitment to support the Irish language in public life in NI and they have done very little to meet that commitment.

I’m not demanding millions of taxpayers money for an Irish language Act. I want the position of Irish protected within the state. The state can work out how much will that cost and work out a cost effective way of recognising the Irish language as part of NI’s public life. I want it to be cost effective. I think myself that it would be better to spend lets say £500,000 a year on an Irish language newspaper in which public service notices could be issued in Irish as well as the news of the day, and that would be read, than establishing voicemail services which are never advertised nor intended for use.

Believe it or not, I don’t think money should be wasted on Irish. I just don’t think money spent on Irish is necessarily a waste as you seem to do.

And there’s no way I would ever want to read a copy of Hansard in Irish….or English for that matter.

As for McNarry’s bigotry, the facts speak for themselves. It’s very clear that he harbours ill feeling towards the language. Interestingly enough, his name is an anglicisation of an Irish name which means Son of the Person Who Is Ashamed.

I notice that you forgot to mention that there was no caller for the Ulster Scots voicemail in your message. Was there a particular reason for that omission? Do you think that Unionist parties can stand over their calls for ‘parity’ of funding for Ulster Scots and Irish given that there is no take up for the service?

The fact is that unionist parties have used the Ulster Scots to set up a very comfortable situation where the Orange Order gets funding for issuing English language CDs of party songs from the Ulster Scots Agency, Scots Dancing and buying new uniforms for loyalist bands and the likes. There is very little indeed done to promote the Ulster Scots Language – it’s just a means of pumping public money to this faux tartan/orange culture.

As you can see from my posts above I have no time for Sinn Féin and their use of Irish. So I’ll let someone else take up the baton on their behalf.

It’s a bit simplistic to blame nationalists for Lá’s demise. It survived for 24 years, most of that time without grant aid. The British Government, by signing up to the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages and in its submissions to the Council of Europe, say they support the newspaper as an effort to promote an indigenous minority language. They – through Foras na Gaeilge – failed to support Lá sufficiently. Minority languages throughout Europe get government support for daily newspapers. The Welsh language gets over a £100m per year for Welsh language TV. I support that and I wonder why is the Irish language in NI less supported by the government than the Welsh language is in Wales, is NI less important than Wales? Is NI culture, of which Irish is an integral part, less worthy of support than Welsh Culture?

True, it would be folly to ignore the fact that not enough people bought Lá and that’s one of its causes of demise. But in a society which celebrates diversity, Lá’s diverse voice ought to have been supported, for cultural reasons as well as it was a British government commitment to support the Irish language in public life in NI and they have done very little to meet that commitment.

I’m not demanding millions of taxpayers money for an Irish language Act. I want the position of Irish protected within the state. The state can work out how much will that cost and work out a cost effective way of recognising the Irish language as part of NI’s public life. I want it to be cost effective. I think myself that it would be better to spend lets say £500,000 a year on an Irish language newspaper in which public service notices could be issued in Irish as well as the news of the day, and that would be read, than establishing voicemail services which are never advertised nor intended for use.

Believe it or not, I don’t think money should be wasted on Irish. I just don’t think money spent on Irish is necessarily a waste as you seem to do.

It’s pretty weak foaming at the mouth about McNarry’s “bigotry” when the Irish speaking community has failed to provide the demand for services in Irish. The civil service for example has only had 29 enquiries in Irish in four years. The health department which spent £151,000 on Irish translations between 2002 and 2007 recieved no enquiries in Irish. So I very much doubt there are many chomping at the bit to get their copy of Hansard in Irish. At present all it does is allow Sinn Fein Ministers to answer less questions by wasting time in it.

And I’m afraid there is no one else to blame other than the Nationalist community for La’s demise. If they really wanted a newspaper in Irish then they would have supported it. And it’s a bit rich demanding millions of taxpayers money for an Irish Language Act when it supporters won’t spend a few quid a week to support a newspaper.

1 ….. er that is just not true. The proposed Act will impose bilingual conditions on signage, docuemnts etc. Look at the Welsh Act as a model. And even if language activisits dont want that some politicians do – for purely political reasons – to be seen to get one over on thmuns.

2 …. just what is a pro Gaelic area? If you ask many Nationalist will say ‘I am pro Gaelic’. In some communities they dare not do otherwise. Some Unionists might also say that. It doesnt mean that they want signs in Irish. Sorry but it’s really a meaningless catchphrase in this context.

Agree on the media issue but my point was that the collapse is an illustration that there isn’t that much real support in the nationalist community for the Irish language. It’s like the slow collapse in unionist support for the organge order. Many younger people are looking to the future and not the past. Old reference points arent so relevant any more. They want a new identity. Hopefully a shared one.

Irish speakers don’t want every document translated nor are we proposing bilingual roads signs throughout NI, just in areas that are pro-Gaelic.

A strong and vibrant media is essential to any language however and that’s why Lá Nua et al. is such an important issue.

Oh God, what is the world coming to. I find myself agreeing with you almost completely. My prejudices are being damaged – a fatal condition in Norn Iron. Yes I agree…even on the fires…what an outdated drunken shambles that pollutes the place with smoke and dioxins. Not to mention the cost to the Health Service of the drunken patients, assaults and unwanted pregnancies when Shelley wakes up next day feeling queasy and realises that downing 10 bottles of Smirnoff ice wasn’t such a good idea and that she cannot remember what she did after half past nine last night.

“Even at its worst level of sales, more people were reading Irish in Lá Nua on a daily basis than any other book or periodical. The average Irish language book sells a few hundred copies to friends and relatives at best.”

Yes but that sort of proves the point that there’s no real demand for Irish medium materials or an Irish Language Act. It would be force-feeding Irish down peoples gullets, not for any practical or cultural reason but politically just to stick one up to the Prods. Which is why Gerry wants it.

Dont get me wrong. Let’s support the development of Irish for those who want it…but that doesn’t mean translating every bloody document / dual language road signs etc. As for Ulster Scots, I would throw that in the bin straight away. It clearly was a wonderful (and quite clever) vehicle to highlight the absurdity of the SF position on Irish and bugger up funding for it, but we all need to grow up and sort these things out politically.

That will mean electing some politicians – for a change

Type McNarry and or McNasty into Slugger’s search facility. You will discover that many unionists who post here have quite a low opinion of Mr McNarry. Perhaps he is not the pluralist you imagine?

‘The Mayor of North Down then made an intervention with Irish translations, which confirmed that people in Bangor could never spell. [Interruption.] I meant that some people in Bangor could never spell.’

So, no bigots then?

Posted by Darren J. Prior on Oct 23, 2008 @ 03:10 PM

Even though David McNarry utters a remark which would be considered bigoted during a debate on a motion to ban the Irish language in Stormont, which was inspired by nothing less than bigotry in my opinion, he’s not a bigot because….Darren says so.

Lucky escape for David McNarry then….

And the rest of the UUP, with whom Darren appears to be very familiar.

The reality is that both the DUP and UUP have been trying to out do each other in opposition to the Irish language and that’s only increased the animosity and bad feeling towards the Irish language among their followers. The fact that many unionists hold a more reasonable, nuanced approach to Irish is not taken into consideration by their political leaders. What the leaders of the UUP and DUP should be saying, if they were true unionists, is that within the British union, the Irish language would be protected better than it would be within the Irish republic. They could point to the Welsh Language Act and the provision of funding for Welsh language television and, as it happens, a Welsh language online news service (£200,000 per year for the next three years on Golwg) and that would help eliminate the negative attitudes many Irish speakers and nationalists hold regarding both the UUP and DUP. However to expect that to happen may be too much to expect from parties which are stuck between the creation of the planet in seven days and 1690 in terms of political evolution.

The Belfast Media Group has suffered enough losses and has been burnt once too often by Foras na Gaeilge to risk its capital, and the future of its company, on another venture into the Irish language market. That’s my guess. Either way, even if they did enter and win, as I pointed out previously, the only result would be that Lá replaced Foinse and then the people at Foinse would be out of work. Lá is a daily newspaper, that’s its raison d’etre. It may survive online as a daily service but only if Foras na Gaeilge offer a realistic contract, separate from the weekly news paper, for it.

An online news service doesn’t have to be tied to a weekly newspaper to prosper. It could be provided in any number of ways, but it’s unrealistic to expect the publishers of such a service to have to publish a printed newspaper weekly when all they might be interested in is the online news service. To tie both together then reduces the possibility of a new player entering the market.

And the other point to remember is that Foras should increase the funding from €400,000 for the weekly print newspaper to €600,000, €200,000 of which would be for the news service online. That would still be in keeping with the current Foras budget and, on top of that, as Foras is getting no less in 2009, it would mean that it should be able to accommodate this reasonable expectation out of next year’s budget.

That’s a way forward out of this mess….the only way forward I feel. But maybe there are other proposals on the table.

I watched what was televised of that debate on UTV (I think it was) and it was the only time that I had ever heard of or seen David McNarry. He is not a bigot. I don’t think there are any bigots in the UUP. Thats the big difference between the UUP and the DUP.

McNarry’s comment was wrong though and he should apologise.

Let’s face it, FnaG aren’t going to do it. Any thoughts on who might RG? Can’t see any private businesses going for it…

This leaves Foinse – which is owned by the person who runs Aer Arann, which seems to be in some dificulty at the minute – and The Irish News – which is nowhere near all-island enough to serve the whole Irish language community.

Who knows what the outcome will be but one thing is certain – a daily Irish language online service is needed, and the sooner Foras na Gaeilge recognises this, or somebody gets cracking on it, the better.