Thursday, August 02, 2007
Cross border motorway to cut half hour from Belfast-Dublin journey
Just 14 Kms long, but the new motorway link (opening today) between the A1 at Cloghoge in Co Armagh to the N1 at Dundalk will cut out that circuitous/tortuous journey through and around the north Louth border town. At 2 hours, the road link now rivals the rail journey for speed, if not convenience.
Mick Fealty @ 09:58 AM
Great stuff, hope the rest of it gets completed just as quickly.
It is a pity however the new signs on the road aren’t bilingual. About 30% of the population between Newry and the border speak Irish. It would have been a good gesture if this fact was recognised.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 10:25 AMThe route hasn’t gone “that circuitous/tortuous journey through and around the north Louth border town” for almost two years now. The Dundalk Western Bypass was opened in September 2005, and extended the M1 from just south of Dundalk to the Ballymascanlon Interchange. This new road goes north from that point.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 10:38 AMDo you not think the road cost enough? These so-called irish speakers, and i absoultely refute your 30% claim, can all understand English perfectly well.
These people choose to speak a minority language, but it is a second language - the main predominant language across both countries on the island is English and wasting money on bi-lingual everything is disgusting when schools, hospitals, roads etc are so short of funds.
If you want to be pedantic, Mandarin chinese should be on the signs too. And French for that matter (after all, anyone who attended secondary education in NI for the last 50 years will have learned about as much French as these moonbeams who claim to converse primarily in Irish).
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 10:40 AMI have to say i agree RG but i’m guessing it’s a bit late now.
That said, the people of Newry and South Armagh are culturally the same as their neighbours just across the border in Louth and as the new road crosses this area any signage should recognise the homogeneous nature of the local population.
Many road names, though not the directional signage, in the vicinity of the new A1 are already bilingual.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 10:43 AMBLUE HAMMER
You obviously have no knowledge of the Irish language community, nor the cost of bilingual road signage.
When erecting signs, the cost of printing a few more words is negligible.
Irish speakers are an important part of the north’s society and Irish is the second most widely spoken language here.
Most modern European societies recognise their native languages and provide for their speakers accordingly - ever been to Wales, Scotland, Catalunya, Galicia, Basque Country, Tirol, Sardinia, Friesland etc?
Your ignorant comments suggest you have not.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 10:55 AMRG,
What you have to understand is that Blue Hammer has been educated by the state and doesnt realise that Northern Ireland place-names are directly from Irish 96% of the time.
Thats why he thinks that Crossmaglen / Crois Mhic Lionnáin can be written in French of Chinese.
I think you have taken your figures from the census?
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:01 AMWould you want the signage in the Ulster dialect or the standard version which largely ignores the dialect which was once used in that area ?
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:13 AMOn what basis do you ‘absolutely refute’ the 30% figure, Blue Hammer? Give us a fact - rather than your own ill disguised prejudice.
The figures quoted here are derived from the Census and a recent Millward Brown poll on the use of Irish in the north.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:15 AMmnob,
Irish speakers just laugh when people say that.
Its just not true.
And anyway, place-names are not normally subject to dialectal changes in Irish.
I can’t think of a single place-name in Newry and Mourne that would be different in Standard or Ulster dialect.
Look for yourself.
http://www.ulsterplacenames.org/PDF Files/Newry and Mourne English - Irish Street-names.pdf
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:18 AMRG Cuan
‘nor the cost of bilingual road signage.
When erecting signs, the cost of printing a few more words is negligible.’
Making the road signs bigger to accommodate those words while maintaining readability due to spacing must cost more though. Where could one find out these costs in order to make an economic case for dual signage. Money talks, for better or for worse. Which language it talks is hard to determine.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:28 AMYes Seamas, I’ve taken my figures from the last census.
According to that official document the percentage of people who have a significant knowledge of Irish in the three electoral wards that the new A1 either passes through or runs beside is as follows:
Fathom 26%
Forkhill 31%
Camloch 32%
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:31 AMI think it is important that the Irish heritage of our placenames is celebrated and maintained. However, I think that road signage in the Republic is messy and disorganised. I’ve always thought that italicising the Irish, and upper-casing the English was a rather large hint as to what was the most important, and the recent practice of putting English only on the left, and relegating Irish to the right only on warning signs on both sides of the road is another.
It makes the signs look untidy. The tidy Welsh style would be the one to follow if bilingual signage was introduced.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:35 AMRG Cuan
Beware of censuses. People self-declare. They are not language tests. It applies to any language, not just Irish.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:38 AMFantastic news that this road is finished ahead of time. This will save me 15-20 minutes in the morning getting to work.
Sadly, the worst part of the journey was always the tortuous route along the Newry ‘bypass’ which involves no fewer than four roundabouts. I’m told that this ‘bypass’ is only about 10 years old and I curse the short-sighted stupidity of the people responsible for it every day. The same sort of idiots that decided that a motorway to Dungannon was better than one to Dublin.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:38 AMGareth,
I personally like the Scottish Gaelic signs.
http://en.wikivisual.com/images/1/12/Sanas.jpg
In the Western Isles many of the signs are monolingual Gaelic but I don’t have a picture.
Conradh na Gaeilge have a campaign to get the signage in the South updated.
They want the Irish to be in red.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:40 AMI agree Gareth that the census does not give exact figures but it does give a good guide and an insight into the linguistic make-up of any given area.
The format used on the Welsh and Scottish Gaelic signs is the way forward. Italics etc is ridiculous and insulting.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:41 AMRG Cuan
As someone who has had the expense of Irish translation forced upon his workplace, i am well aware of the costs of pandering to a load of “little-Irelanders” who claim their wee diddly-dee language as being in some way equal in status to the mother tongue - English. It is a crass waste of money to facilitate their petty sectarian nonsense, particularly when there is no evidence, of any sort, that there is ANYONE living in NI who cannot comprehend English, even if they do handicap themselves by classing themselves, through choice, as having a dead language as their first. I simply do not accept that.
Mr Cromwell
I absolutely refute the assertion that the people in the area of the United Kingdom through which this new road passes speak Irish as their first language. The question posed in the census relates to “having a knowledge of”, not it being your first language.
I “have a knowledge”, as I can recognise many Irish words, but by the same score i recognise many German words, and have a little knowledge of French and Spanish. This does not make me an Irish, German, French or Spanish speaker.
I fully support people’s right to learn a historical language, and to associate themselves with the cultural outworkings of its use. I do, however, object to scarce public funds being used to promulgate such political posturing from people whose sole use of a dead language is to provoke and antagonise the majority community, and display loudly and unintelligibly their allegiance to some false sense of nationhood.
By the way, absolutely the same argument applies to that bunch of crackpots who claim that speaking English with a thick Ballymena accent spiced up with a few “country” words and phrasings constitutes a Language - “Ulster-Scots” is no more a language than “Geordie” is.
Seamas
What i know or do not know is something you are happily not privy to. But be aware that I can trace the lineage of many place names, and have no bother in acknowledging their origin in dead languages, such as Latin and Irish.
Regardless of the origin of many if not all place names, what impact should that have on current road signs? The London bit of Londonderry comes from Latin. Should road signs in the Maiden City be printed in that equally dead language, and the mileages shown in Roman Numerals?
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:50 AMApparently the last bit of the road at newry is going to take two years to complete.Why is it taking so long . Could some of the southern road builders not come up to help speed it up?
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:56 AMblue , the addition of the london prefix does not justify the use of latin. The original irish name though justify the use of irish.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 11:59 AM//blue , the addition of the london prefix does not justify the use of latin. The original irish name though justify the use of irish.
Posted by ciaran on Aug 02, 2007 @ 12:59 PM//
An unsurprising “my culture is more important than your culture” moment there.
Quelle surprise.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 12:08 PMSorry, what are you wittering about? Where does latin fit into any of our cultures? It is not british or Irish. The prefix of london does not mean we should have latin anywhere. You are taking nitpicking to a whole new level with this one blue.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 12:13 PMBLUE HAMMER
Your views on language are remarkably warped.
You would rather deny people their rights to express their cultural and linguistic choice than recognise the fact that many thousands of people in Northern Ireland use Irish as their main means of communication.
It is astonishing that in 2007 some people are still claiming Irish is dead. In the north alone there is a daily newspaper, a 24/7 community radio station, 43 Irish language nursery schools, 32 primary schools, 3 secondary level schools, numerous tv production companies… the list goes on.
And by the way, the name London has pre-Roman origins and therefore does not come from Latin.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 12:13 PMI believe Londinium is a pre-Roman name, though it’s true origins are unknown.
An unsurprising “my culture is more important than your culture” moment there.
Odd you say that, Blue Hammer, since that appears to have been the general thrust of your argument what with your references to ‘dead languages’ and ‘false senses of nationhood’.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 12:13 PMAnyone want to wake up Adams and McGuinness and tell them after today’s link up they have a new super duper cross border body to brag about.
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 12:21 PMFirst up, apologies. GerryO is dead right. It slipped my mind because last time I drove to Dublin, I had to go into Dundalk to get a petrol station.
Second up: how on earth did we get from cross border transport infrastructure to full scale Kulturkampf?
Posted by on Aug 02, 2007 @ 12:24 PM
