Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Hain waves a shillelagh
The government is to publish the draft legislation for the Irish Language Act, only a week after the consultation closed.
Fair Deal @ 11:12 AM
“The government is expected to publish draft legislation setting out how it intends to deal with Irish language rights, while pointing out that if there is a deal by 26 March it will be up to the assembly to decide how it wishes to deal with the matter.”
Accordingly, I expect the Bill to propose a total ban on the use of what passes here for English, cumpulsory green beer on St Patricks’ Day, each new home in NI to be thatched and provided with least at least one pig and a committee comprising of Darby O’Gill and the Little People to chose a new national anthem.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 11:22 AMHain waves a shillelagh
Whilst most on this site expect overt pig-ignorant racial stereotyping from the likes of BonarLaw when it comes to Irish culture, I kind of expected you to be a bit more subtle. Obviously not.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 11:32 AMDec
You don’t get it do you?
Like water charging, capital value rating and academic selection Hain is going to threaten to legislate for his racially stereotyped Irish language protection. Do I hear you asking why? To force an executive into being on 26th March to block it, that’s why.
Seems like FD & I were too subtle for, as you put it, the likes of you.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 11:38 AMFD-
“Hain waves a shillelagh.”
Slightly distasteful. I take it you would object to orangemen being stereotyped as a shower of sour bigóts.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 11:39 AMA wee sweetie for the Shinners.
There will be one coming for the DUPers any time now.
What’s the betting that the Her Majesty will be in town anytime soon???
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 11:45 AMmy, my we’re all v. touchy this morning.
El Mat
are you happy that Hain is going to take the Irish language and use it as a tool in his blackmail of the DUP?
In treating Irish as intrinsically anti-Unionist just who is doing the stereotyping?
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 11:46 AMIrish is only anti-unionist in the minds of unionists who consider it so.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 11:48 AM‘There will be one coming for the DUPers any time now.
What’s the betting that the Her Majesty will be in town anytime soon???’
Are they that easily pleased? Jaysus, can we set up a frequent flyer account for her or build a tunnel so she driver over.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 11:48 AMBonarLaw,
Insightful post, oozing with educated nuance.By the way there are now over 200 Gaelscoileanna outside Gaeltacht areas in Ireland educating 30,000 children through the medium of the Irish language.
To the best of my knowledge none of them are thatched.
Five of the nine new primary schools recognised in the Republic last September were Gaelscoileanna.
It’s just a case of Northern Ireland catching up on this linguistic issue.
North of the border:
The first Irish-medium pre-school playgroup was established in Belfast in 1978 with 7 children. In 2002–3, 34 Irish-medium playgroups and two nursery units were attended by a total of 847 children.The first Irish-medium primary school was established in Belfast in 1971 with an intake of nine pupils. In 2002–3, there were 18 Irish-medium primary schools and seven Irish-medium units. The enrolment at Irish-medium primary level was 1,954.
Watch this space.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 11:48 AMI can think of better uses for the limited resources we have in NI, than promoting a semi-dead language. Language is a method of communication, nothing more. Mexicans manage to be Mexican despite speaking Spanish, Americans don’t feel that they are English just because they speak English. We speak English, happy days. That’ll do. People all over the world are learning English, and I think the Celtic Tiger may owe some of its success to our English speaking culture.
Anyone who has ever visited Quebec will know the kind of country the Shinners would like to create in terms of language. I don’t fancy it.
Of course if you wish to learn Irish as a hobby, go ahead. I just don’t want money diverted from important things to fund it.
I also dislike the subtle implication that you are’t 100% Irish if you don’t subscribe to this obsession with the Irish language. One can’t help but suspect that, in the lack of genuine cultural difference between the Irish and British, some elements are trying to manufacture them.
No one here needs to receive public services in Irish. Show me the people who can’t speak English, and can only speak Irish.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 11:52 AMEl Mat
like Hain. That is why this isn’t about linguistic rights but about blackmailing an executive into being.
George
I think that my analysis of Hain threatening to legislate for what he considers most offensive to the DUP in order to force the 26th March deadline is indeed “insightful ... oozing with educated nuance”.
Problem is, you seemed to have missed the nuance.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 11:53 AMBonar,
A post about pigs, thatched cottages and Darby O’Gill is hardly nuanced. You are the one playing to 19th century racial stereotyping, not Hain.It isn’t Hain’s problem that the DUP find action in support of the Irish language offensive, it’s the DUP’s.
Why on earth would the DUP or unionists consider this Act a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads?
And don’t say they are concerned about cost. This is Northern Ireland we are talking about here - a place where 50 billion wasn’t enough.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:04 PMPerhaps we could teach the kids on the Shankill the shillelagh language - they don’t seem to be doing to well with the English.!!
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:05 PMWhat’s the problem with shillelaghs all of a sudden?
“I take it you would object to orangemen being stereotyped as a shower of sour bigóts.”
An Irish cultural reference to a metaphoric length of wood versus real life human beings. Hmmm tangental leap of the week. This is an Irish language thread. I’m not biting.
If you’re sore about the result just go to a Chris Donnelly thread or Balrog and take your frustration out on him. ;-)
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:06 PMGeorge
“A post about pigs, thatched cottages and Darby O’Gill is hardly nuanced. You are the one playing to 19th century racial stereotyping, not Hain.”
I disagee. Read my post. That was not what it was about.
BTW in the past two days I have come across three cases of Latvians needing interpreters in order to have their rights protected. In twenty years I have never came across an Irish speaker needing the same protection so why the legislation?
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:10 PMFD-
That took all of, um, one post on my part before the ‘result’ was raised. Surely that must be tangential leap of the week ;)
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:11 PMNo doubt some would encourage the Latvians to learn Irish, in order to fit in to the new Ireland.
In fact, that was a joke but all too likely with the language fanatics.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:13 PMI just dont get why people have a problem with the Irish language being afforded the same status as other native languages of the United Kingdom.
Do I hear any of you shouting about Welsh or Scots Gaelic, or even a truely half baked “language” like Ulster Scots (known amusingly across the sheugh as “Galloway Irish")
Get over your petty bigotry, not one of you will be forced to speak Irish so let others use it and have its status respected - just as the language you choose to use is respected.
In fact why do Unionists have a problem with Irish - you are all speaking Hiberno English or a mixture of it and Ulster Scots -liberally peppered here with Gaelic - most of your place names are Irish - so whats the deal - why the fear.
Are you guys really that bloody myopic.
How do you feel about the use of Polish, Latvian, lithuanian, Urdu, Chinese - presumably you are against those as well.
Wise up.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:15 PMWhat is this now? The Punch magazine tribute website? The downhill road is an easy road.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:17 PMEl Mat
You are obviously in a mood and an SDLP supporter, not difficult to draw the correlation.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:18 PMJohnT,
Irish is ‘semi-dead’ eh?
Hope you don’t work in A&E;.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:22 PMBonar law wrote:
in the past two days I have come across three cases of Latvians needing interpreters in order to have their rights protected. In twenty years I have never came across an Irish speaker needing the same protection so why the legislation?
um because this is northern IRELAND, and because we should cherish this language just as the welsh and Scots do theirs.
I dont speak Irish, nor am I likely to learn, I have zero problem with others using it or it being afforded full recognition.
why exactly do you?.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:24 PMTerry Dactyl:
The other nationalities you mention don’t require government support to speak the language. This is because these languages are living languages.
Many place names in Europe have latin roots. Is this an argument to speak Latin?
I have no fear of Irish, or people learning to speak it. I am afraid of the fanatics who want to manufacture a bilingual country where there isn’t one. Do you deny that SF wish to use Irish to create artificial divisions between us? I have mellowed over the years, but in the past I attended numerous republican protests at which speeches were invariably uttered in Irish first.
Almost to a man the crowd hadn’t a notion what was being said, but nodded sagely to convey the impression that they did. They continued this approach on the census forms.
Final point: don’t spend my money on it. And I would feel the same in Wales or Scotland.
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:26 PMBonar,
as I said above, it’s not Hain who is doing the racial stereotyping and it’s not the Act.You still haven’t answered my question about why would the DUP or unionists consider this Act a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.
I’m sure the DUP can campaign for a Latvian Language Act if they are so concerned about gaps in this area.
Can you tell me why it appears that an Irish Language Act can be used as a “shillelagh” against unionists as Fair Deal puts it?
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:27 PMFD-
That would explain it then. Dear fellow Sluggerites, please ignore my comments over the next few weeks as I am apparently ‘in a mood’!
Posted by on Mar 13, 2007 @ 12:28 PM
