Madam, - Just what is Minister OCuiv trying to do? Does he want to save the Irish language from extinction, or does he really believe that everyone in the country will become bilingual if he ploughs enough of our money into Government stationary and road signs. Before he is allowed to go any further with his grand design to make us all speak in tongues, I think he and the Government should fully explain what it is he hopes to achieve through creeping legislation, which couldn't be achieved through 80 years of compulsory language indoctrination in our schools.
Why is this particular Minister given carte blanche to spend millions of taxpayers money, simply because of his fanatical attachment to an academically interesting, but totally impractical language (in the modern setting), that the people themselves allowed to expire in favour of the more sophisticated and widely spoken English language. The regularly wheeled-out chestnut, that the survival of our culture somehow depends on how much Irish we continue to use in our everyday lives, is clearly a falsehood. Even the English that is spoken now bears little resemblance to that of past centuries.
And how do we square this arrogant pursuit of a nationalist dreamworld with our pledge to unionists to uphold the democratic values that they currently enjoy under British sovereignty? If this is what unionists can expect with the full implementation of the Belfast Agreement, then who can blame them if they want no part of it. Are we about to see another 30-year barney over the relative merits of Ulster Scots or Gaelic? We can all learn from the past and admire its riches into the future, but too many of us are unwilling to bury the stinking corpse. Mr OCuiv's largesse with our tax euro is wholly inappropriate. - Yours, etc.,
NIALL GINTY, Killester, Dublin 5 .