https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/suzanne-breen/irish-language-policy-shows-belfast-has-changed-the-old-power-dynamic-is-never-coming-back/a1152596415.html

Irish language policy shows Belfast has changed… the old power dynamic is never coming back

Double standards at play in reaction to council move with so many symbols of Britain, royalty and empire already existing across the capital

Symbols of Britishness are embedded in the everyday life of Belfast, but you’d never guess that from listening to those protesting loudly about the council’s new Irish language policy.

The names of prominent places, institutions and thoroughfares in our city reflect royalty, aristocracy and empire.

We have Queen’s University, the Royal Victoria Hospital, King’s Bridge, Queen’s Bridge, Albert Bridge, Royal Avenue, Great Victoria Street, and Chichester Street to mention but a few.

Applications for 256 Irish language street signs have been approved in Belfast over the past three years. The council’s draft Irish language policy adopted on Wednesday will include the introduction of English-Irish signage at its facilities and a new bilingual logo.

This historic move threatens no community, identity or individual. No rights are being taken away. The English language isn’t being eradicated, Irish is just being added. This is about inclusivity, not exclusivity.

Irish signs no more “impose” that language on people, as the DUP claims, than English signs on our streets and buildings “impose” that language on Irish speakers.

The party’s contention that unionists are being “ignored” is equally untrue. There was a lengthy public consultation period last year: from August 22 to November 28.

There were seven public consultation events held at various locations across the city and online. Sources from a range of parties in City Hall say private approaches were also made to unionist councillors on the Irish language draft policy but they wouldn’t engage.

Out of 60 members of the council, 17 oppose it. Belfast has changed politically and demographically. No amount of protesting — no matter how loudly — is going to change that.

Only one of the city’s four MPs is a unionist — East Belfast MP Gavin Robinson. The number of unionist councillors is likely to decline after the next local government election. The power dynamic once in play in City Hall is never coming back.

Unionists have triggered a ‘call in’ of the council’s decision. There will be a legal opinion on whether or not the ‘call-in’ has merit. If the opinion is that the concerns raised aren’t valid, then a judicial review is likely to be taken by loyalist Jamie Bryson and the unionist parties.

The council and legal process must run its course, but supporters of the Irish language policy believe that the objectors will succeed only in delaying and not denying its implementation.

A year ago, there was loud opposition to Scoil na Seolta in east Belfast. A banner appeared last October saying: “Relocate Irish school to where it is need; relocate Irish school to where it is wanted.”

It was argued that there was no consultation, no engagement and no respect for the Clonduff community.
There was nothing sectarian, offensive or provocative about what was being planned. The school explained it would be welcoming children from all religions and none.

Its co-founder was east Belfast born and bred Linda Ervine. She’s from a Protestant background. Her brother-in-law David was a former UVF man who went on to be leader of the PUP. Her husband Brian also led that party.

Those supporting the school explained the irony. Clonduff literally is Cluain Daimh — Meadow of the Ox. It’s in Castlereagh, An Caisleán Riabhach. Irish is not a foreign language.

Bunscoil na Seolta is now up and running. Nobody in Clonduff is in the slightest disadvantaged or inconvenienced by it. The same will be true when our city’s Irish language policy swings into action.

TUV, DUP and UUP councillors officially trigger ‘call-in’ on Belfast’s Irish Language Policy

Lyric’s play is superb

There’s a stigma and shame around loneliness in our society.

It’s true today more than ever as people compare their situation to the curated perfection of social media.

‘Dear Arabella’ in the Lyric Theatre brings us into the lives of three women in post-war, pre-Troubles Belfast.

Jean is physically and emotionally drained from caring for her elderly mother. Elsie is trapped in a marriage to a husband who lost an arm and his emotions in the war. Young and beautiful Arabella is far wealthier than the other women. Her husband has been lost at sea.

Living alone in a big house by the beach, she is imprisoned by that tragedy. The three women’s lives collide on a single day.

Katie Tumelty, Joanne Crawford and Jayne Wisener are superb in this exquisite Marie Jones play.

‘Dear Arabella’ is a work of art. It runs for another week: see it while you can.

Reeves is so wrong

Labour conference delegates voted to recognise that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Chancellor Rachel Reeves told a Friends of Israel meeting that they’d “always have a friend in cabinet” in her.

Reeves said: “I’ll be here for you this year, next year, and the year after that.” Let’s hope not.

by vague_intentionally_

11 comments

  2. Linda Ervine deserves a lot of credit. She promotes the Irish language for positive cultural reasons instead of using it as a political football.

  4. Dublin, Ireland’s capital, has tried everything SF is now trying to do in Belfast, N.I with the language.

    They’ve put up all the signage, got all the schools, and in the end, the language spoken primarily in Dublin is English. A failure. That’s completely independent of unionism or anyone else.

    A different approach is required. More Irish language cafes, restaurants, bars, cinemas etc It’s surely reasonable to expect people to be speaking it regularly before we go hell for leather with the signage? You won’t hear it on the streets of Belfast City being spoken casually.

    Incentives for native speakers to move here also instead of keeping the language locked away in the sticks. No-one can ever truly learn a language by travelling for two weeks to the back end of beyond for intensive language tuition. There should be more opportunities in cities *outside of education*. (Point being; cities being where people and employers naturally gravitate).

    What is the language pretty well all employers here use? English. So again, how do people practice this language *outside of education*?

    It also seems taught badly. It doesn’t have the same literature bedrock that Welsh has, and yet there seems to be a real dogmatic approach from many teachers as to grammatical strictness and “pureness”. Why not teach it purely as a conversational language and allow it to evolve a bit? As the English language does all over the west.

    Opportunities for immersion in R.O.I and N.I cities are what’s required for people to actually learn this language. The signage policies of Belfast CC come across as at best, ill-thought out and at worst, deliberately trying to stir up tensions.

    You can blame the Brits all you want. We can’t change history, and that won’t change the fact that Dublin has had 100 years of independence to develop the language using similar policies, and has failed.

  5. > Out of 60 members of the council, 17 oppose it. Belfast has changed politically and demographically. No amount of protesting — no matter how loudly — is going to change that. 

    >Only one of the city’s four MPs is a unionist — East Belfast MP Gavin Robinson. The number of unionist councillors is likely to decline after the next local government election. The power dynamic once in play in City Hall is never coming back. 

    Breen is spot on. Unionism is dying, we do not need to care what hills it’s choosing to die on. They will try and frustrate at every turn now as its all they have.

    We aren’t going back to them getting all their own way. If they are truly willing to goto violence over this as was said earlier by Loyalists then NI is done (it’s done either way, this would just speed it up).

    The demographic change is in full swing and I think this is what scares them more as the number of Irish people and their confidence in seeing their culture grows. 

  6. Wrong, the unionist vote is split. If they had any sense they would stand down smaller unionist parties.

    Now that nationalists have had power for 5mins and literally went on a cultural war against its own people. I think you have unleashed something that can’t be put back in the box.

    The single transferable vote (STV) system, allowing minority parties like nationalists better chances of seats proportional to votes is dead and you killed it.

  7. Unionism spent a century convincing its base that Irish language and culture was lesser and that Catholics were scum who couldn’t be trusted. The first NI Education Minister, Hitler’s friend Lord Londonderry, stopped short of an outright ban on the teaching of Irish only because they thought the ban would encourage people to learn it. But the Official Unionist MP’s laughed and mocked anyone who might be interested in it all the same.

    In the 1930’s (34 iirc) there was outrage when the BBC reported the score of a GAA match sparking angry protests in Stormont ultimately resulting in Lord Craigavon insisting on a ban.

    Now they’re in a position where there’s fuck all they can do about it. Rather than just quietly acquiesce to actual progress and equality, the kind which might allow the state-let to limp along, they want a war because they know it’ll play well with their brainwashed, poorly educated, reactionary, racist sectarian base.

    And with the BBC, UTV, Bel Tel being so complicit the message that Irish is a waste of money, rather than a potentially valuable tool for cultural enrichment and the benefits that go with, that no one bothers to ask how money is being wasted on MLA and MP pay to conduct these culture wars.

  8. It’s funny as fuck they’re gurning about the native language of Ireland being “imposed” on them but if you point out that a parade goes about a mile out of its way just to stick it to the taigs in Short Strand they’ll tell you it was the traditional route of their four fathers as embodied by the MAGA carter bill of rights 1688 or some other such ahistorical bollocks

    *They do not care if you can prove them wrong with facts*. It’s a common feature of reactionary ideologies; my truth is more real to me than objective reality. That cunt who told Stephen Nolan he valued the union more than his children’s health and prospects. Or the woman who told him the world should go back to east Belfast in the 1950s when she was young 😅

    Colonialism causes brain damage 

  10. Could edit this down by deleting everything after the following line:

    “…our city’s Irish language policy swings into action.”

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