Is Irish to be an official language in the North?
Sin é an scéal, cinnte. Well, it is to get official recognition and protection, at least. The North isn’t being designated a Gaeltacht any time soon, but this is a big deal nonetheless. Historic, in fact, say campaigners who have fought for decades to have similar rights for Irish in the North that Welsh enjoys in Wales and Scots Gaelic in Scotland.
Is Irish widely used in Northern Ireland?
It’s not widespread, but the number of speakers is growing, although archaic laws designed to suppress the language are still on the statute books. Latest figures from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency show that 29 per cent of people from a Catholic background and 2 per cent of those with Protestant heritage have some knowledge of Irish. That is 13 per cent of the overall population, although the number who are fluent is less. People aged 16-44 are more likely to speak Irish than those who are older. Significant numbers have also expressed a desire to learn more.
So what is actually changing?
On Wednesday the UK government introduced legislation, The Identity and Language Northern Ireland Bill, at Westminster. If enacted as expected within six months, it will grant Irish official status for the first time in the North, set up a new commissioner for the language and open a £4 million (€4.7 million) Irish Language Investment Fund. An 18th-century law banning Irish from being spoken in courts will be repealed.
Wasn’t all this promised ages ago?
Fadó, fadó. As far back as 2006, in fact. The cross-party St Andrew’s Agreement to restore powersharing at Stormont pledged an Irish Language Act. But unionist opposition meant it didn’t happen. Provisions for the language were agreed on again in the New Decade, New Approach deal — yet another cross-party agreement to restore the Executive in January 2020, three years after Sinn Féin collapsed it, partly as a result of cuts to Irish-language funding. Alas, unionists baulked once more, despite having signed up to it.
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Then, last June, Northern secretary Brandon Lewis said Westminster would introduce legislation if Stormont would not. A deadline of October 2020 was set, but that was missed. Lewis then said he wouldn’t introduce it during Assembly elections. Now that voters have had their say, the draft laws have been formally tabled in the House of Commons.
Presumably unionists aren’t happy?
Predictably, some are not. The hardliner Jim Allister — his Traditional Unionist Voice party’s only MLA — denounced a speech in Irish in the Assembly last week by newly elected Sinn Féin MLA Aisling Reilly as a “taster of what lies ahead”. Translation services are already available. Despite distaste from the Democratic Unionist Party over what some view as a diminution of their British identity in the North, most have remained quiet. The new legislation will also give official recognition to Ulster Scots, with an Ulster Scots/Ulster British commissioner. An Office of Identity and Cultural Expression, to promote cultural pluralism and respect for diversity, is also to be set up. There is also a small, but growing number of unionists who welcome official status for the Irish language. Linda Ervine, who runs Irish-language centre Turas in loyalist east Belfast, where she also helped open a cross-community Irish language preschool last year, campaigned for the legislation. For her, it is “only the beginning of the journey”.
And what has been the reaction of Irish-language speakers?
Iontach! Thousands of campaigners, dressed in the red of the An Dream Dearg movement, took to the streets of Belfast last weekend, before the UK government announcement, to demand “language recognition, respect and rights”. By Wednesday they were unfurling a giant campaign flag in celebration at the front of Parliament Buildings at Stormont. “We would consider this a historic advancement for our community, it is a staging post on our long, long road towards language rights and equality, and we recognise it as such,” said spokesman Pádraig Ó Tiarnaigh. “This is a day to celebrate and recognise all of that work and those pioneers who challenged the state when it wasn’t cool and when people said no, no, no.” Some campaigners are also cautious and stress the need to ensure legislation is actually implemented.
