“Non Irish speakers here in the Republic face fresh discrimination under new language law” – fear-mongering or serious?

9 comments

  1. I’m generally on the side of more Irish language rights, so I’m possibly a bit too biased to fully see what the issue is here…

    In my view, Irish gets special treatment both because of its cultural significance, and because it’s a minority language in practice.

    Am I missing something obvious here?

  3. It looks to be just a nut finding a more exotic outlet for a rant about Sinn Féin.

    I honestly think he’s whipped himself up into such a frenzy that he’s convinced himself that Sinn Féin have hacked into Duolingo and inserted a bug so that if a prod tries to take the Irish course he’ll get an error message popping up saying it’s for Catholics only.

    [Here](https://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/the-tyranny-of-ruthlessness-is-much-closer-to-home-than-wed-imagine-41490934.html) he is last month denouncing Mary Lou MacDonald as Vladimir Putin.

    This is a scared, bewildered old man who’s terrified of change, has become obsessed with Sinn Féin, and related literally everything he sees in the world to them.

    I feel sorry for his wife.

  4. Well the dope who wrote this “article” failed at actually explaining what law and how it discriminates. So sounds like a load of bollocks.

  5. It’s not an article though right? It’s in the “letters to the editor” section.
    No more mental than some of the crap published in other “letters to the editor” sections of Irish newspapers

  7. Irish has not been compulsory for entry into the Civil Service since 1974. This person (with a Dublin address, yet referring to those ‘down south’) is almost an entire half-century out of date.

    Most departments would be doing well to find a Gaeilgeoir in their head offices at all, let alone discriminate against speakers of english.

  8. John F Hyland has been writing to Irish papers for years. He’s a contrarian grump and naturally the Newsletter would publish his anti-Irish language screed.

    Be in no doubt, the Newsletter and its readership hate Ireland but Hyland is just a nut who hasn’t found Reddit or Facebook to post his musings.

  9. As an non-irish speaking person I think we should have had Irish forced onto us in the same way English was. Massive perks for Irish speakers, all civil service jobs requiring irish, all schools gaelscoils. Make the country unlivable without some irish to revive it.

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