Plaid Cyrmu President Dafydd Iwan was in Belfast today speaking at a POBAL organised debate, ‘Moving forward: protecting language; developing society,’ in conjunction with Féile an Earraigh.
Iwan, a folk singer and former political prisoner spoke in favour of an language legislation but reminded listeners that campaigning and legislation go hand in hand, and that one was not more important than the other.
As an admirer of Plaid Cymru I was keen to hear Dafydd on Talkback and I must say I was quite impressed, articulate and reasoned and more than a match for those of an opposing view. He stressed the parallels between Northern Ireland and Wales in contrast to unionists who were stressing that a critical difference was the fact that there were ‘two nations’ here. Dafydd explained that similar oppostion, for similar reasons existed in Wales ’20 or 30′ years ago.
The debate also featured Neasa Ni Chinnéide, President of the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages.
I’ll update this thread if and when I get more information.
Freelance journalist, working mostly in Irish.
Have my own independent news website – antuairisceoir.com – which is in constant need of material.
I am the former editor of the newspaper Gaelscéal, www.gaelsceal.ie
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