Tag Archives: Ciníochas (Racism)

Anglophone Supremacists Don’t Just Hate Irish – They Hate Those Who Speak Irish

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The truth in the headlines

The truth in the headlines

“Irish language schools targeted over restrictive entrance rules”

So screams the headline in today’s Anti-Irish Independent newspaper. In the follow-up article we are told that:

“ANY Gaelscoil that refuses entry to prospective students if they do not speak Irish at home will have to change its approach under new enrolment rules.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has expressed concern about restrictive practices at some all-Irish schools, which are prohibiting some pupils from entry.”

And the evidence for these alleged restrictive practices?

“Yesterday, Mr Quinn said he was “concerned that in some cases, Gaelcholaiste have indicated to some applicant parents that unless the language at home is ‘as Gaeilge’ that they would not be inclined to accept a pupil for a place in a Gaelcholaiste”"

Wow. Such damning proof of the wicked ways of the Irish-speaking population of Ireland. How could anyone even begin to challenge the obvious truth of a statement laden with such absolute words as “some“, “indicated” and “inclined“? No anti-Irish hyperbole there.

Don’t worry though in case you are missing your daily dose of hate. The Anglobigots have plenty to contribute in the Comments beneath:

“Tony Dalton: It’s called ‘white flight’. If you do not believe this, take a look at the overall Gaelscoileanna website and than all the associated websites (for individual Gelscoileanna) and answer honestly what you see in relation to ethnic mix in comparison to the schools that are located near any Gaelscoil.

I am Irish and my native language is English and English has been our family language for at least five generations. Indeed, there are many languages that pre-date Gaelic in Ireland. You would do well to look up the definition of ‘native’ language.

I suppose you want the 98% of our citizens who have English as their native and national language to move across the water? Ironically, most of the Gaeliban like your ilk are first to head to England when there are no jobs here and are more than willing to take money with the royal head emblazoned on it. What a muppet you are.

Why do you Gaeliban bother using English? Why not just confine your limited ablities to Foinse and Gaelsceal?”

Ah yes, “there are many languages that pre-date Gaelic in Ireland“. A pearl of wisdom there from the David Icke school of history. One wonders, does the writer believe that Irish-speakers are actually 3 metre tall alien lizards?

“Didillusioned: What in heavens name do they think they are trying to do to children. Like it or not, the Irish language is an irrelevancy, and it is this writers opinion that any parent who chooses to have their children educated through Irish are doing them (their children) a disservice. Being realistic, time would be better spent teaching children to speak proper English and in giving elocution lessons. The standard of English spoken is deplorable, as are most regional accents. Most Irish accents are grating on the nerves and proper enunciation of the spoken work would be far better and more relevant in the modern world. Then of course when all of that is achieved, there are the continental and other world languages.

You sir are a fanatic, and, it is the likes of you that keep Ireland in the dark ages.”

So, Irish-speaking men and women are child abusers? Sounds familiar.

“SamVin: Tied in with compulsory Irish for state jobs Gaelscoileanna look like another subtle form of ethnic cleansing.”

More history (and facts) from the fringe there. Though the Irish-speaking population of the island of Ireland and ethnic cleansing do go together. As in the former suffering the latter. No doubt our Anglophone supremacist friends above remember those times with heart-warming fondness.

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Dehumanizing Irish-Speakers – Anti-Irish Propaganda In Modern Ireland

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English versus An Ghaeilge

English versus An Ghaeilge

So I took a few days break away from An Sionnach Fionn. Not to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, you understand, which to be honest is a festival that I have little regard for. My own form of Irishness has more in common with the Feis na Samhna than the Féile Phádraig. Rather I simply sought some rest and recuperation after fending off a torrent of abuse stemming from my highlighting of the (almost certainly illegal) arrest and detention of a young citizen of Ireland by the Gardaí (police) in Dublin for answering in the Irish language to a question put to him in the English language. As his description of the incident to the Language Commissioner makes clear, he was made to feel (English translation):

“…shamed and insulted and I was told several times that I did not have a right to conduct business through Irish, that I should desist and that I would not have been arrested if I hadn’t spoken in Irish. It was approximately one hour from the time of my arrest to my release but I felt under threat and nervous all the time. I am convinced that I was arrested for speaking Irish and for that reason alone. Their excuse was that I was refusing to give them my licence but that was not true at all. I am very disappointed, angry and upset about what happened and about the lack of respect and the infringement of my rights…”

The Gardaí who arrested the man and kept him in handcuffs during the incident were of the opinion that:

“…those who wished to conduct their business through Irish should be treated
in the same way as “foreign nationals”…”

I’m not sure what that say’s about how members of An Garda Síochána view non-Irish nationals but it certainly says a lot about how they view Irish-speaking Irish nationals. But then they have plenty of supporters in that view. Just take prominent newspaper columnist Declan Lynch in the Irish Independent:

“…Irish is not part of what we are… And it never will be part of what we are…

They have tried everything, including torture.

The only thing they haven’t tried is laying off the bullshit for a while, and abandoning their insane policies of compulsion… And if it doesn’t work, that’s all right too.

They can start the beatings again.”

So Irish-speakers, by the virtue of speaking their indigenous language, are torturers and abusers?

That brings to mind many of the Comments left under my previous post by some of the more militant anglophone zealots out there which shocked so many new and regular readers (while of course leaving many others with a feeling of resigned familiarity):

“Gaelic is a backward primitive language a barbarian language from barbarian times. That is reflected in the culture and mindset of those who speak it. The militant Gael who runs this site is an obvious throwback to the violent low intelligent ancestors of most Gaelic speakers.”

“I have never spoken Irish and never will. I hate it and I hate you bog savages who speak it… When you are not speaking your Irish you are busy raping your daughters. That is what being an Irish speaker is about. Look at the Abos in Australia. Drunken violent cretins…”

One wonders how far this has to go before someone somewhere will be effected by this subliminally violent propaganda in a way far worse than simple institutional or social discrimination? Does the powerful anglophone elite that dominates the media in Ireland wish to create a climate in this country where Irish-speakers are in the same position as the Jews were in 1930s’ Germany? That Irish-speaking citizens and communities in Ireland are so demonized, so stripped of humanity, that they become the scapegoats for all of Ireland’s cultural, social and economic ills?

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Mind Your Language!

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Ireland in chains

Éire in chains

Following on from my post examining the scandal of a young Irish man arrested and detained in handcuffs by the Gardaí (police) in Dublin for answering in Irish to a question put to him in English by a Garda, here is a recent story from Brian Ó Broin, a professor of linguistics, medieval literature and Irish studies at William Paterson University, New Jersey, on the casualness of anti-Irish discrimination in Ireland:

“While hurrying for an American departure in Dublin Airport last week I heard the latecomers being paged on the terminal intercom. Reaching the gate several seconds later I humorously chided the gate agent for forgetting to call my name. “No,” she said, “I saw your name, but it was in Irish, so I left it out.”

I made my flight, and no damage done, but I returned to America amazed that casual acts of discrimination like this can still occur in Ireland without apology or consequence. Would the gate agent still have a job if she applied this policy to names in German?”

Ah, the joys of being a “non-person” in 21st century Ireland.

Just ask Irish Independent journo and professional Irish-hater Declan Lynch. He can tell the real Oirish from the Gaels when he sees ‘em! And thank God we have RTÉ, Ireland’s national public service broadcaster, to give airtime to the not-at-all-prejudiced views expressed so vigorously by so many Irish people journalists.

Eoin Ó Catháin has some more views on the increasingly strident anti-Irish sentiment being publicly expressed in Ireland here.

Update 11.00: To the guys from the same four or five IP addresses who keep trying to post abusive (and frankly racist) Comments don’t bother. I allow the vast majority of views and opinions on An Sionnach Fionn without interference or censure. However there is a line and you people are going well beyond it. If you oppose the Irish language and culture, and the rights of Irish-speaking citizens in Ireland to equal treatment with their English speaking peers, then make your case. I have no problem with a contrary argument, no matter how objectionable to me personally. However sinking to the level of hate-speech will get you nowhere.

Update 13.00: And here comes Squire Myers of Ballyshoeneen with his studiously gratuitous anti-Irish rant. At least I know where the anglophone fundamentalists leaving Comments on An Sionnach Fionn pick up their lexicon of discriminatory words and phases. “Young chimps” is it?

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Arrested For Speaking Irish – Welcome To Anglo-Ireland!

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An Ghaeilge

An Ghaeilge!

Seán Ó Cuirreáin, an Coimisinéir Teanga or the Language Commissioner, released his Annual Report for 2012 at an event in Galway yesterday and it has proven to be yet another dreadful year for the advancement of civil rights for Irish-speaking citizens in Ireland (you can read last year’s 2011 Report here). 2012 saw the highest number of complaints yet, 756 in total, the vast majority relating to practices or services provided by state bodies which discriminate against Irish speakers.

Among the more notable incidents was the arrest by an Garda Síochána in Dublin of a young man who replied in Irish to questions put to him in English by the Gardaí. Though completely innocent of any crime, and later released without charge, he was taken in handcuffs to a Garda station and held in custody until an Irish-speaking Garda could be found to interview him. Again, as the Language Commissioner makes clear, this man, a citizen of Ireland, was completely innocent of any offence and was detained in custody because he chose to speak in Irish when questioned; as is his legal right under the Constitution of Ireland.

“Senior management at An Garda Síochána are organising an overhaul of procedures for dealing with the public through Irish following an investigation by An Coimisinéir Teanga into an incident in Dublin where a young man, who attempted to conduct his business through Irish when stopped by Gardaí in relation to a road traffic matter, found himself arrested and escorted in handcuffs to a Garda station where he was detained until a Garda was found who could deal with him through Irish.

An Coimisinéir Teanga found that An Garda Síochána had failed in this instance to comply with a statutory commitment which recognises the right of the public to conduct business with the force in either official language, Irish or English.

An Coimisinéir Teanga noted a Garda attitude in his investigation, notwithstanding the constitutional status of Irish, that Irish speakers should be dealt with as if they were speakers of a foreign language. The discourse during the investigation placed “using Irish” and “dealing with foreign nationals” in the same space, he said. The person detained in the case was not involved in an accident nor were there any allegations made concerning speeding or driving under the influence of alcohol.”

Not so much Ireland 2012 as Ireland 1912. Among the main abuses noted in the report for last year are:

“…756 cases of difficulties or problems accessing state services through Irish – the largest number of complaints from the public to the Office since its establishment.

A total of 13 formal investigations were commenced during 2012. Findings of breaches of individual elements of language legislation were made against An Garda Síochána; the Department of Justice and Equality; the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform; the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government; Ordnance Survey Ireland; the Health Service Executive; the Central Bank of Ireland; the National Transport Authority; the University of Limerick; Ennis Town Council; Donegal County Council; and Kildare County Council.

“2012 was not a vintage year for the promotion of the Irish language in the public sector, and for every one step forward there appeared to have been two steps backwards,” according to An Coimisinéir Teanga.

While statistics from the most recent Census showed a positive trend from the previous one, with a 7% increase in the number of people who have Irish and those who use it daily, there was considerable concern among Irish speakers about the future of the Irish language and serious apprehension about the State’s efforts in its protection and promotion.

Three quarters of language schemes (statutory language plans) agreed for state bodies under the Official Languages Act had expired without renewal by the end of 2012 with a quarter of them out of date for three years or more.

“Only 9 language schemes were agreed or renewed during 2012, and at that annual rate of renewal the current schemes might not be fully replaced for twelve years,” said An Coimisinéir Teanga.

In 10 other cases, more than 6 years have elapsed since the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht requested state bodies to prepare draft language schemes but they remain to be agreed.

A further significant step was taken during 2012 that could prove a dangerous precedent with regard to the language scheme system: for the first time ever, a scheme was amended to cancel an obligation that had previously been confirmed when a member of the public complained that the state body in question was not in compliance with this obligation.”

In other words the institutions of the Irish state are actively and knowingly breaking the law in regard to their legal obligations under the Official Language Act of 2003. Or where they cannot breach the law (with apparent impunity) they are twisting or amending the law to suit themselves.  But then the Irish state as a whole under the Fine Gael-Labour coalition government is in the process of systematically rolling back a decade’s worth of civil rights legislation for Irish-speaking citizens in Ireland while starving Irish-speaking communities across the country of resources and legal protection.

One wonders how far all this has to go before the institutional discrimination against Irish-speakers that permeates the anglophone culture of the Irish state is finally tackled head on? Or do the Irish-speaking citizens of this nation need their own Derry March of 1968 or their own Burntollet? Will it take a Gaeilgeoirí Battle of the Bogside before anyone will take notice?

But then some would love to see the Irish-speaking population beaten into the ground. Just look to the Comments section of the Irish Independent or the online Journal. So many anglophone voices filled with subliminal violence, hatred, discrimination and racism. As I said, beaten into the ground.

The 2012 Annual Report by An Coimisinéir Teanga can be read in full here (PDF). More analysis on the report and its conclusions by Eoin Ó Riain here.

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We Shall Overcome - Civil Rights In Ireland - The 1960s

We Shall Overcome – Civil Rights In Ireland – The 1960s

Update 23.10, 13/03/2013: Ever feel like you are under attack? Perhaps because you are.

Update 13.10, 14/03/2013: Okay. There has been a lot of hate-messages coming my direction in relation to this article. Some of it directly via email, Twitter or Facebook. Some of it in the Comments facility provided by the blog. I certainly seem to have annoyed a lot of anglophone people in Ireland by highlighting the erosion and abuse of civil rights for Irish-speaking citizens in this country. Who knew so many English-speaking Irish people identified with English colonial ancestors? Who knew that so many  English-speaking Irish people regarded the pre-English Irish-speaking population as “uncivilized”, “barbarians”, “savages” and “animals”? What does that say about their ancestry?

There have been several threatening messages or Comments. Rather silly ones to be honest, not to be taken seriously. And a lot of stuff about Jews and Native Americans that would put the KKK to shame. I’ve passed the less extreme Comments. The full-on Neo-Unionist and Neo-Nazi ones are in the moderation queue.

Thanks to the many, many people on Twitter and Facebook who sent private messages of support and I understand why you didn’t feel free to make them public (for obvious reasons). Thanks also to the emailers and the regular WordPress posse.

 

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Flying The Flag For English In The North of Ireland

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The only culture the British Unionist minority in Ireland recognises is their own

The only culture the British Unionist minority in Ireland recognises is their own

The Detail has a lengthy article based on an original investigation by Meon Eile examining allegations of anti-Irish polices being pursued by the DUP’s Arlene Foster, the minister for enterprise in the regional executive in the North of Ireland. Cadogan Enright, a well-known independent councillor on Down District Council, has accused Foster of “…going off on what I can only call an anti-Irish crusade within her department, which is manifestly illegal” (something which Councillor Cadogan has highlighted before). The “anti-Irish” campaign allegedly waged by Arlene Foster and her Unionist colleagues turns, this time, on the issue of bilingual Irish-English tourist information signs in the north-east of Ireland.

“A BAN on the Irish language being used in tourism signs appears to be heading for the courts amid allegations that the authority responsible, the NI Tourist Board [NITB] is providing no rational explanation for it.

A row has erupted over the issue in recent months, with Down District Council being forced to accept English-only signs for its tourist signs project before the Tourist Board would hand over the funding needed.

But the Irish language website Meon Eile has learnt that the civil liberties group, the Committee on the Administration of Justice has intervened, saying it believes the board’s position is unlawful and that months of correspondence on the subject have failed to elicit any valid explanation for the ban.

CAJ Deputy Director Daniel Holder has also rejected as “absurd” a suggestion from the board that bilingual signs could present a road safety hazard.

Mr Holder was also informed in correspondence with NITB Chief Executive Alan Clarke that the ban was a result of a Ministerial Direction – the suggestion being that this had come from Enterprise Minister, Arlene Foster.

However Mrs Foster’s department has denied that there has been any direction – as did the Tourist board itself. But DETI has told us that Mrs Foster is content with the board’s policy on signs and has reiterated in recent correspondence that it should be adhered to.

A long-running wrangle with Down District Council on the subject ended last month with the council agreeing “under duress” to progress with its £1m tourism signage project in English only in order to get the £200,000 grant from NITB needed to get the scheme under way.

This latest row has again brought the issue of an Irish Language Act, promised in the Good Friday Agreement but which never materialised, to the fore.

Janet Muller, chief executive of the Belfast-based campaign group Pobal strongly believes that bilingual signage should be allowed and that this debate follows a series of problems between NITB and local councils. Ms Muller believes NITB do not understand its legal obligations to accommodate the Irish speaking community. She believes NITB’s ‘English only’ policy breaches the law under both the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, which is to protect traditional place names, and also the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.

Independent councillor Cadogan Enright and Sinn Féin’s councillor Éamonn Mac Con Midhe believe that the erection of bilingual signage would show respect for the community as well as being in keeping with the bilingual policy. They mention the many Irish language schools within the community and how the refusal of bilingual signage is discriminating against families, students, teachers and tourists.”

The political leaders of the British Unionist minority in Ireland demand respect for “their” flag while busily erasing the history and language of the country they live in so that not even the landscape is our own.

What is that but colonialism?

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Indigenous Peoples Fight Back With Hunger Strikes In Canada

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Idle No More, the Canadian and North American indigenous rights' movment

Idle No More, the Canadian and North American indigenous rights’ movment

A quick post to draw attention to the protests by the indigenous rights organisation “Idle No More” which have swept Canada in recent weeks. They have culminated in a hunger strike by Theresa Spence, leader of the Attawapiskat First Nation (one of the recognised aboriginal peoples of Canada), which is drawing major media attention now that it has reached its third week.

From the Globe and Mail:

“The aboriginal interpretive centre on an island in the middle of the Ottawa River where Theresa Spence is living out her hunger strike is not an unhappy place. There are fires and drumming and even the occasional round of song.

Native leaders have come from disparate parts of Canada to meet with the Attawapiskat chief who has said she will fast until the federal government gives in to her demand for a meeting among first nations, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a representative of the Crown.

Ms. Spence wants to discuss the treaty that was signed in the first decade of the last century that covered a broad swath of Northern Ontario, including her own impoverished reserve. It promised money, education and health care in exchange for sharing the land.

Ms. Spence, like the descendants of the signatories of similar treaties across the country, says Canada is no longer living up to its part of the bargain.

…her personal crusade began about the same time as first nations across Canada embarked on a widespread and prolonged series of demonstrations under the banner of “Idle No More.” Those actions were also aimed at the Conservative government – specifically at a number of bills that will have a direct effect on aboriginal communities.

…disruptions are continuing across Canada. Boxing Day round dances were organized in shopping malls, and a blockade of a CN rail track in south-western Ontario continued into its sixth day.

In downtown Vancouver, dozens of supporters disrupted Boxing Day traffic as they marched through the streets in solidarity. Police closed sections of Granville and Georgia Streets and directed traffic as the group wound through the downtown core, banging drums, waving flags, chanting and holding up signs reading, “Assimilate us no more” and “Honour the treaties, stop C-45.” At the intersection of Robson and Burrard Streets, the supporters formed a large circle, stalling traffic for about 15 minutes.”

Idle No More are looking for support from around the world, especially from fellow indigenous peoples. Please contact them here, or express your support on Facebook or add on Twitter.

More below in an interview with Theresa Spence:

 

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Angloban – The Anglophone Fundamentalists Of Britain And Ireland

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Heil England - Anglophone Supremacism

Heil England – Anglophone Supremacism

We all know that the internet is the mother of all lies. The world wide web of falsehoods. Which is why I so rarely let anything I read or see on it get to me. However every now and again something comes along to turn even the mildest of us into something resembling a keyboard-chewing Tea Party supporter exposed to an online clip of “Modern Family”. Over the last few weeks we’ve seen something like a concerted effort in the right-wing British press to stir up a renewed atmosphere of hatred towards the Welsh language. Or more accurately towards the speakers of the Welsh language. For though certain Anglophone fundamentalists will claim that they hate the Welsh language without hating Welsh speakers that is like certain Christian fundamentalists saying they hate homosexuality without hating homosexuals.

And who believes that one?

The latest in this series of propagandist pieces comes via the Daily Mail and regular anti-Welsh hack Roger Lewis. Yes, that Roger Lewis, the British writer who last year informed us of his opinion of the indigenous speech of the Welsh people:

“I abhor the appalling and moribund monkey language…”

Oh yes, he really did say that. Understandably the article sparked an outrage in Wales with demands for Lewis to be charged under legislation covering allegations of incitement to hatred. Then to make matters worse the centre-left and London-based Independent newspaper launched a blistering defence of Lewis and his appalling views. Despite the fact that he wrote them in a rival newspaper!

Now he is back again with a lengthy article attacking pretty much everything that is Welsh in Wales, with an ideological claim that is common to Anglophone supremacists everywhere:

“…his was the view of my great-grandparents in Bedwas. ‘English was embraced for reasons of social and economic advancement.’

This is what those teachers in  Ceredigion – and those who support them – can’t accept: what my friend at Oxford called ‘the evident cultural superiority of English’…”

Sigh. Why is it that there are so many English-speakers who believe that their language and their culture is inherently superior to the indigenous languages and cultures of the island of Britain, be it Welsh, Scottish or Cornish? And why are there so many English-speaking Irish people who believe the same?

What is it that turns some English-speakers in Britain or Ireland into unashamed hate-mongers? Despisers of other peoples’, other communities’, languages and cultures? Deniers of others peoples’ identities? People they share the same nations with.

Why the need to twist language and views to promote something that is little different from racism? Something, in fact, that is simply racism.

And why is it that in modern 21st century Ireland to identify with the indigenous language and culture of this island-nation is to render oneself a second class citizen with second class rights?

Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Cornwall. Different nations – but the same discrimination.

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Language Wars In Wales

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Here we go again. The obsessive Anglophone supremacism of the right-wing news media in Britain is becoming something of a running joke here on An Sionnach Fionn. We’ve had conveniently anonymous internet claims of English-speaking children being “discriminated” against in Welsh-speaking schools (not once but twice), mysterious anti-Welsh websites that have managed to find the ear of right-wing British journalists but are strangely deaf to anyone else, and now an English-speaking Santa Claus being pressured into resigning from his job because he was unable to speak to the children he was meeting – that is Welsh-speaking children in a Welsh-speaking region of Wales.

According to claims made in the Daily Mail:

“With his authentic bushy beard and red suit, Richard Burnell appeared the obvious choice to inhabit the Christmas grotto at his local museum.

But that wasn’t enough for parents on the Isle of Anglesey.

Because when they learned that Father Christmas could not speak Welsh they mounted a revolt to oust him.

Yesterday the 72-year-old retired housing officer admitted he had stepped aside after complaints that he wouldn’t be able to listen to children’s wish lists in their native tongue.

Mr Burnell, who belongs to an American organisation called the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas, was due to don his red suit for the opening of the Christmas grotto at Oriel Ynys Mon, the island’s history and culture museum, in Langefni, on December 9.

But when parents realised he wasn’t bilingual they lodged complaints with the local council.

‘I think it is a disgrace that you have an English-only Father Christmas coming to Oriel Ynys Mon,’ one mother said.

‘It’s going to cost £6 a child to meet him, so I’d expect they could find one who can speak Welsh.

‘I have young children who are still not that confident when speaking English, I think it is a shame they won’t be able to chat to Father Christmas in their own language.’”

Indeed.

Would you hire a man to portray the figure of Santa Claus who could only speak Welsh for children who could only speak English in an English-speaking region of England? Of course not. So why on earth would it be justifiable the other way around?

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Cultural Terrorism Masquerading As Vandalism

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An erratic, near Okotoks, Alberta, Canada

Back in June I highlighted the mysterious act of vandalism inflicted on the Lia Fáil or Stone of Destiny at Teamhair (the Hill of Tara), a crime that remains unresolved, but we are not the only ones whose history has suffered at the hands of cultural terrorists. From a report in the Indian Country Today:

“A rock drill, acid and a power washer; it’s not the beginning of a joke about a hardware store—it’s what was used by cultural vandals to destroy aboriginal pictograms and petroglyphs on a boulder in Alberta, Canada.

The damage was discovered when historian Stan Knowlton, Piikani First Nation, went to photograph and test the markings on the Glenwood Erratic near Pincher Creek in southern Alberta on September 9.

“It seems a little coincidental that the night before I was planning to go in with a high definition camera to record the markings, someone in a truck brings in a generator or compressor, a large hammer drill, maybe lights and a ladder and decimates the very thing I was hoping to preserve,” Knowlton said a report, titled “Desecration of Glenwood Erratic,” which the Pincher Creek Voice published with its story.

Knowlton pointed out in his report that this is just the latest in a string of vandalized pictogram and petroglyph sites in Alberta…

The vandals used a truck to get to the rock—Knowlton saw the tire tracks as he arrived on September 9—and he suspects they used a power washer to remove the lichen covering the symbols before spraying acid on the paintings and drilling away the carvings with a rock bore or hammer drill.”

A gross act of historical revisionism in the most literal of sense of the word and to be utterly condemned.

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Australia Postpones Referendum On Recognition Of Indigenous Peoples

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For anyone who is aware of the history of the Aboriginal or indigenous communities of Australia over the last two centuries this latest piece of news from The Journal will come as no surprise:

“AUSTRALIA HAS SHELVED plans to hold a referendum on formally recognising the country’s Aborigines in the constitution, saying there was not enough public support for the move.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard described the vote as a “once in 50-year opportunity” when she first unveiled plans for the referendum in 2010, saying there was a rare moment of widespread public and parliamentary support.

Gillard had said the vote, which would have followed a historic 2008 government apology to Aboriginal Australians for wrongs committed since white settlement in 1788, could be held before or in conjunction with next year’s national elections.
But Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said the plan had been shelved for two or three years due to a lack of community support, with the government instead set to pass a special “Act of Recognition”.

Macklin said the Act of Recognition would address the recommendations of an expert panel into the proposed referendum in the interim. They included recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as Australia’s original inhabitants and acknowledging the need to secure the advancement of these groups, the nation’s most disadvantaged minority.”

However, Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott has already rejected the proposed legislation and though some have welcomed the move to postpone the referendum many Aboriginal activists believe that Australia will never recognise their status as the original inhabitants of the country.

Speak Welsh? Get Out!

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Welsh Not – Anti-Welsh Racism In Britain

Imagine moving to France or Germany, taking over the management of a local bar, and then demanding that all the customers speak English in the bar or get out? Outrageous no? Such seems to be the situation in a court case being reported in Wales where an English landlord is on trial after threatening and banning Welsh-speaking customers from his pub in a Welsh-speaking region of Wales.

From the Daily Post:

“A pub landlord brandished a gun in his own bar after a row with customers who’d been told not to order drinks in Welsh, a court heard.

Gareth James Sale, 26, denies possessing a firearm – an air rife – with intent to cause fear of violence at the Royal Oak, Penrhyndeudraeth in the early hours of June 18 last year.

Outlining the case at Caernarfon Crown Court today prosecutor Sion ap Mihangel said Sale, originally from Bedfordshire, and his then partner had taken over as temporary licensees at the pub.

Both were from England and didn’t speak Welsh.

Sale told police he’d drunk eight units of vodka and his partner “significantly more” between 3pm and midnight that day.

Mr ap Mihangel said: “He described her as being argumentative with locals.”

He said Sale’s partner confronted locals and “told them to order their drinks in English.”

“She became very aggressive and it eventually culminated with the Welsh drinkers being told to leave.”

Mr ap Mihangel said: “The defendant left the bar area and went upstairs later returning carrying a gun in his hands.”

Witness Alys Owen said she’d gone out for a drink with her partner Philippe Murphy and heard the landlord and landlady telling locals not to speak Welsh by the bar and not to order their drinks in Welsh.”

Another example of the attitudes born of Anglophone supremacism. Of course it is only a few years ago that Irish-speaking employees were banned from speaking their own language in a foreign-owned Gaeltacht-based company in Ireland until threatened with legal action. I myself have experienced discrimination in the workplace because I have used Irish, including being ridiculed by a former manager and told that I shouldn’t be working or living in Dublin if I wanted to speak “…that language”. I have also been attacked in public for even the most casual use of Irish by those who object to its very existence. Or perhaps more accurately the existence of those who speak it or those who don’t speak it but who still identify with the language and regard it as their own.

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Dragging Ireland Back To The Middle Ages

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The TUV Goes Irish! Ah, Those Were The Days…

Oh please…

Jim Allister, that infamous throwback politician from the British Unionist minority in the north-east of Ireland, is kicking off again at the thought of those who speak the indigenous Irish language being granted equal rights under the law with those who speak the English tongue. From the Newsletter:

“AN Irish language strategy published by a Sinn Fein minister could disadvantage Protestants from government jobs, TUV leader Jim Allister has said.

The document, produced by Culture Minister Caral Ni Chuilin’s department, proposes that Irish language speakers should have “the right” to conduct all their business in Irish with the government.

Mr Allister said that meant that if the law was implemented it would seriously disadvantage Protestants attempting to gain employment with virtually any public sector body in Northern Ireland.”

His evidence for this? More “Roman Catholics” speak Irish than “Protestants” in the north of Ireland. Given the anachronistic 16th century bigotry and apartheid attitudes of people like wee Séimí Mac Alasdair is it any bloody wonder?!

“The document also sets out plans for substantial changes to Irish medium schools, making it easier to get government funding for an Irish-only school even if there is no need for one because there are English-speaking schools in the area.”

And who decides if there is no need for an Irish-speaking school? The community that speaks English? What about the one that speaks Irish? Should they be forced to send their children to an English-medium school because the other community declares “there is no need” for an Irish-speaking one? Oh, but that is not disadvantageous at all, is it Séimí?

In fact look at the real evidence for Protestant attitudes in the North of Ireland to the Irish language from the ‘Public Attitudes towards the Irish Language in Northern Ireland: Findings from the Northern Ireland Omnibus Survey January 2012’ which are a lot more hopeful than Jim Allister would ever admit:

“Of all respondents surveyed:

35% in favour of Irish language usage in the North of Ireland.

29% against.

35% no opinion.

A considerably higher proportion of Catholics than Protestants were in favour of Irish language usage (66% and 14% respectively). However, two-fifths of Protestants (40%) and around a quarter of Catholics (27%) were neither in favour nor against the usage of the Irish language in the North.

44% would like to see and hear more Irish being used in the North of Ireland.

46% would like to see and hear less.

Around three-quarters of Catholics (76%) and a fifth of Protestants (21%) would like to see and hear more Irish being used. Around two-thirds of Protestants (67%) and a sixth of Catholics (16%) would like to see and hear less Irish being used.

56% thought that Irish should be offered as an option on documents, leaflets, notices etc. where other languages are offered.

Three-quarters of Catholics (75%) and just over two-fifths of Protestants (41%) said they would like to see Irish offered as a language option in documents, leaflets, notices etc. where other languages are offered.

24% felt Irish was important to personal identity.

52% felt that it was not important.

23% no opinion.

Around one out of every two Catholics (52%) said Irish was important to their personal identity compared with one out of every twenty Protestants (5%). Almost three-quarters of Protestants (74%) and a fifth of Catholics (21%) said that Irish was not important to their personal identity; while a fifth of Protestants (20%) and a just over a quarter of Catholics (26%) said it was neither important nor unimportant.

49% agreed that Irish is important to regional culture of the North of Ireland.

32% did not agree.

19% no opinion.

Three-quarters of Catholics (75%) and almost three-tenths of Protestants (29%) agreed that Irish is important to culture in the North, while a half of Protestants (50%) and a tenth of Catholics (10%) disagreed. However, around four in every twenty Protestants (21%) and three in every twenty Catholics (15%) neither agreed nor disagreed.

46% disagreed with the statement: “Irish is not relevant for Northern Ireland today”.

32% agreed.

21% no opinion.

Around three in every twenty Catholics (16%) and nine in every twenty Protestants (45%) agreed with the statement “Irish is not relevant for Northern Ireland today”. Just under a third of Protestants (31%) and two-thirds of Catholics (66%) disagreed with this statement, while 24% of Protestants and 18% of Catholics neither agreed nor disagreed.

52% agreed that it is important that the North of Ireland does not lose its Irish language traditions.

26% disagreed.

22% no opinion.

More than eight in every ten Catholics (83%) and almost three in every ten Protestants (29%) agreed that it is important that the North does not lose its Irish language traditions. Four-tenths of Protestants (40%) and under a tenth of Catholics (7%) disagreed, while three-tenths of Protestants (30%) and just over a tenth of Catholics (11%) neither agreed nor disagreed.

42% agreed that Irish makes a valuable contribution to promoting the North of Ireland’s identity overseas.

36% disagreed.

21% no opinion.

Just over two-thirds of Catholics (68%) and a fifth of Protestants (22%) agreed that Irish plays an important role in promoting the North abroad, while around eleven out of every twenty Protestants (54%) and three out of every twenty Catholics (14%) disagreed. There were similar proportions of Protestants (22%) and Catholics (17%) who neither agreed nor disagreed.

24% disagreed with the statement “Irish is only relevant in certain parts of Northern Ireland”.

56% agreed.

18% no opinion.

Around a half of Catholics (51%) and three-fifths of Protestants (62%) agreed that Irish is only relevant in certain parts of the North, while two-tenths of Protestants (20%) and three-tenths of Catholics (30%) disagreed. Similar proportions of Catholics and Protestants neither agreed nor disagreed that Irish is only relevant in certain parts of the North (19% and 17% respectively).

81% agreed that pupils, who wish, should be able to take Irish as a subject at school.

8% disagreed.

10% no opinion.

Around nineteen out of every twenty Catholics (93%) and fifteen out of every twenty Protestants (73%) agreed that those pupils, who wish, should be able to study Irish at school. The same proportions of Protestants disagreed and neither agreed nor disagreed (13%). For Catholics, the respective proportions were 2% and 6%.

53% agreed that there should be more opportunities for people to learn Irish across the North of Ireland.

20% disagreed.

26% no opinion.

Almost four-fifths of Catholics (79%) and over a third of Protestants (35%) agreed that there should be more opportunities for people to learn Irish across the North, while 30% of Protestants and 6% of Catholics disagreed. However, amongst Protestants, similar proportions agreed, disagreed and neither agreed nor disagreed that there should be more opportunities for people to learn Irish across the North (35%, 30% and 34% respectively).

41% agreed that the use of Irish should be supported and encouraged throughout the North of Ireland.

35% disagreed.

23% no opinion.

Almost three-quarters of Catholics (74%) and less than a fifth of Protestants (18%) agreed that the use of Irish should be supported and encouraged throughout the North. Over a half of Protestants (54%) and a tenth of Catholics (10%) disagreed, while 27% of Protestants and 16% of Catholics neither agreed nor disagreed.

The most frequently cited factor that would encourage more use of Irish was: “More opportunity to study Irish in schools and further education” (18%).

Approximately five times the proportion of Catholics than Protestants agreed that more should be done to encourage and promote Irish in the North (71% and 14% respectively). Around eleven out of every twenty Protestants and two out of every twenty Catholics disagreed (56% and 9% respectively). Two-tenths of Catholics (20%) and almost three-tenths of Protestants (29%) neither agreed nor disagreed that more should be done to encourage and promote Irish in the North.

When shown a list of nine elements which are contained in language acts in other jurisdictions, 52% selected at least one that they thought should be included in an Irish Language Act in the North of Ireland.”

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The Final Solution To The Irish Problem

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Well it would seem that the anglophone supremacists driving the anti-Irish agenda in Fine Gael and the Labour Party are preparing themselves for a major victory as the legislation within the Gaeltacht Bill 2012 is likely to be rammed through Dáil Éireann with barely a breadth for democratic, legislative or judicial accountability. Stage one of the final solution to Ireland’s Irish-speaking communities and citizens was achieved with the scrapping of the separate office and role of the Language Commissioner. Stage two, the new Gaeltacht Bill, is about to be passed into law. Stage three, the gutting of the Official Languages Act of 2003, is a work in progress. Stage four, the degradation of the Irish language in the national education system is in preparation. Stage five? The alteration of the status of the Irish language in the Constitution of Ireland as the sole national and first official language of the state?

From the Galway Independent:

“Galway West Fianna Fáil TD Éamon Ó Cuív has expressed concern that the Government is attempting to force its controversial Gaeltacht Bill through the Houses of the Oireachtas without allowing sufficient time for debate.

The Bill was last week guillotined in the Seanad with just ten per cent of the proposed amendments debated and committee and remaining stages look set to be rushed through before the summer recess.

Deputy Ó Cuív said that is quite clear that the Government is trying to force this controversial piece of legislation through the Houses of the Oireachtas “without allowing enough time for public scrutiny and debate”.

Referring to the bill as it stands as “fundamentally flawed”, he said it is in desperate need of amendment.

He added that the bill spells an end of the democratic elections to the board of Údarás na Gaeltachta, giving powers to the Gaeltacht Minister to appoint many of the board members himself.  The remainder of the board will be nominated by County Councillors, “many of whom have no connection with the Gaeltacht whatsoever”.

Deputy Ó Cuív’s concerns have been echoed by Sinn Féin Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh, who said there is a great deal of concern among many quarters at what is contained in the Bill, not just among political parties, but also among Irish language organisations, and within Gaeltacht communities.”

Meanwhile, a bit of meaningless window-dressing to distract the masses that proves just how hollow and empty the proposed new legislation is. Via the Galway News:

“Galway is to become Ireland’s only “Gaeltacht Service City” as part of government plans to enhance the role of the Irish language.

The proposal is part of the Gaeltacht Bill which is being debated and voted on in the Dáil this week.

The measure provides for key support areas such as Galway City, Dingle and Dungarvan to be designated as “Gaeltacht Service” areas.

Speaking to Galway Bay fm news, Galway West Deputy Sean Kyne says Galway would have a key role to play as Ireland’s only service city.”

Role? What role? How is anything going to change? What does “Service City” actually mean? The truth is no one really knows because it is an utterly meaningless, bureaucrat-speak title devoid of substance.

English Ireland is trying to achieve what English Britain never could. The final death knell of Irish Ireland.

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One Less White Nigger – Britain’s Anti-Irishness

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British Nationalism In Ireland – Racism And Sectarianism As The Orange Order Identifies With The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) – One Reflection Of British Anti-Irishness

Quick post to highlight an article by Brian Whelan in the Irish Times on the persistent and enduring nature of anti-Irish racism in Britain:

“Last week saw the announcement of an “anti-IRA” march in Liverpool by hardline English Defence League splinter group the North West Infidels (NWI), a  far-right street protest movement. The march is an anachronism, a feeble attempt by the far-right to relive past ‘glories’ – but if you scratch beneath the surface of English society anti-Irish prejudice still lurks.

Thousands of Irish people have emigrated to England over the last three years. They’ve arrived in the country with over 600,000 Irish born citizens, but are quite often completely unaware of the difficulties past generations faced moving here.

For me the soft face of anti-Irish sentiment first hit home when people began to leave comments under articles I’ve written suggesting it’s time for me to move home and hand my job and house over to a British person. I felt it was my own fault for venturing below the line.

It turns out I’m not alone. British-born journalist Brendan O’Neill regularly receives “Paddy-bashing’” abuse for simply having an Irish surname and occasionally speaking out against “Catholic-bashing”.

Last February, in scenes unseen since the ‘80s, hardline British nationalists stopped a march commemorating Liverpool-born Republican Sean Phelan and racially abused marchers.

The NWI, usually dedicated to harassing the Muslim community under the pretence of protesting “extremism”, have openly expanded their remit to include targeting Irish families.

The rhetoric of groups like the English Defence League is just the recycled racism of the 1980s when the National Front and British Movement would stage “anti-IRA” marches as an excuse to attack and intimidate Irish immigrants.

The unspoken rule seems to be that Irish people are white, so discriminating against them can’t be racist. When BBC3 screened RTE’s documentary about Irish rappers last week the soft face of anti-Irish prejudice quickly surfaced on Twitter:

“You should be Happy They Spitting Bars and Not Blowing up Sh*t#IRA”

“Irish rappers on bbc three!? Give it a rest, f**k off back to the fiddle and flute you potato eating chumps!“

“Irish rappers!!…potato famine has resulted in some damage chromosomes me thinks”

Similar Tweets about any other nationality could potentially get the person arrested or fired from their job, but when the jokes are aimed at the Irish it is written off as “banter”.

A fractured Irish community with no connection between the old generation and the new arrivals can make an easy target. Without a sense of our own history anti-Irish sentiment might seem like something that doesn’t affect you, but if left unchecked it could come marching down your street next.”

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In The Shadow Of The Maple Leaf

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Children of the First Nations in Canada (Photo. Andrew Stawiciki)

In recent years Canada has become something of a prestige go-to-destination in these economically straitened times for many people in Ireland seeking a better life overseas. For a whole generation of Irish people Canada has become the new “America” – though one markedly more familiar in its cultural and social attitudes than its southern neighbour.

Yet there is another side to Canada, a far darker and more troublesome one. Der Spiegel International shines a light on it:

“The view from our van could be straight out of a tourism brochure. There are snow-covered peaks, forests painted in fall colors, and next to the road flows a mountain stream where fishermen are catching salmon.

As we travel deeper into this idyllic landscape, the mood of our driver, Gladys Radek, becomes darker. She plays the Patsy Cline song “If I Could See the World (Through the Eyes of a Child),” over and over again. It is a ballad about longing for a childhood like the one Gladys never had.

Gladys was born 56 years ago on the reserve for the Gitxsan indigenous people in British Columbia, but she never gets homesick as she drives along Highway 16, the “Highway of Tears.”

“There are too many ghosts,” she says.

The ghosts are the women who have been disappearing without a trace along the 700-kilometer-long (435-mile-long) stretch of highway. Official police statistics list 18 women in all, 17 of whom are First Nation, as much of the indigenous population in Canada is called. Amnesty International assumes, however, that there are considerably more. Not a single case has been solved.

It is a three-day trip from Prince Rupert to Vancouver, where we meet with the private detective Ray Michalko. He was once a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Mounties. Six years ago, the Mounties formed a special commission to look into the Highway 16 cases. They invested $11 million (Canadian) to investigate the murders, but without success.

Michalko is not surprised. “They put 50 people in front of computers and hoped that a serial killer would jump out at them,” he says. Data was collected and profiles were created. The only thing that is not being done, Michalko says, is real detective work.

He couldn’t stand by and watch anymore, he says. That’s why he drives along Highway 16 now, knocking on doors and asking questions. Michalko doubts that the special commission wants to achieve serious results. Each real result would only produce uncomfortable questions.

On the route from Prince Rupert to Prince George we pass Moricetown, the reserve where Gladys grew up. Her mother still lives here in one of the prefabricated houses that one can pick up at any home improvement store. The whole reserve is filled with them. The muddy street that connects them is littered with garbage — TVs, wrecked cars and empty beer cans.

When Gladys’ sister Peggy opens the door, a musty smell drifts our way. Peggy, Gladys explains to us later, has spent two years in prison for assaulting a man who was trying to rape her. Her mother is sitting silently on a sofa filled with holes, gazing absent-mindedly. Her hair falls in oily strands from her head, and her blind eye peers eerily around the room.

“It is unbearable, how our people are forced to live,” Gladys says, when we turn back onto Highway 16 an hour later.

It is almost a miracle that she escaped this misery. Her parents were almost always drunk. When her younger brother starved to death, they were in a bar. Gladys was five then. That’s when she was taken away from her parents.

Her foster parents didn’t provide her with a childhood she would have wanted either. Her foster father started raping her when she was eight. When she was 13, she had the courage to report him to the reserve police. They shrugged their shoulders in response. After that, she packed her bags and ran away.

Gladys could easily have become one of the missing on the Highway of Tears. But she survived, moved to Vancouver, and raised five children. Now she is working as a spokeswoman for an organization for “Missing and Murdered Women.” Her group estimates that there are 500 missing and murdered women in Canada.

“Someone has to give a voice to the many families who don’t know what happened to their loved ones,” she says. The worst, she says, is the feeling of being alone in your pain.”

Burning The Village To Save The Villlage

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It seems that the British Nationalist campaign to “save the Union” is quickly reverting to type (not to mention historical precedence) by yet again playing the Orange Card – this time in Scotland. In recent years the Labour Party north of the border has become openly sympathetic to the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland (the Orange Order to most folks), after many decades of socialist snobbery.

Now there’s a surprise.

From the Scotsman newspaper:

“It was the moment the police officer had been dreading. As the Orange Order parade passed by the Catholic church, the band struck up, The Sash My Father Wore. “There was a funeral mass going on inside, and I’d made it clear there was to be no playing of music, so I gave the instruction for people to be arrested,” he recalls. “There were complaints lodged against me later, but I was adamant there was no grey area – that kind of behaviour could not be tolerated.”

Later that day, on the last leg of the parade, the same officer found himself bombarded by missiles as the marchers were ambushed by anti-Orange protesters. “It was like the exit scene from Black Hawk Down,” he says. “They were coming at us from all sides, we were penned up in this narrow street in the east end of Glasgow.”

For many years such scenes were, if not commonplace, then at least unexceptional.

It was to offset such disturbances – and reduce the £1 million plus the marching season costs the police – that Glasgow City Council drew up its Code of Conduct on Public Processions, a pioneering document which aimed to balance the rights of all groups to free assembly with the rights of ordinary people to go about their daily lives.

Though at first criticised as “an affront to human rights” by the Grand Orange Order of Scotland, which believes its members’ freedom to celebrate their Protestant heritage is being systematically destroyed, it was lauded by Strathclyde’s Chief Constable Stephen House as a template for other local authorities.

Yet now, as the marching season begins once more, the code is the focus of fresh controversy. Glasgow City Council leader Gordon Matheson stands accused of currying favour with the Orange Order by pledging to review its provisions, and concerns have been raised that parades might once again be allowed to play their music outside places of worship.

The controversy began in the run-up to the council election – which some predicted would see Labour lose its grip on Glasgow – when Matheson appeared at an Orange Order hustings. To loud applause, he is said to have told members he was prepared to “hold his hands up” and admit that the code – brought in by Labour – was “flawed”. He stressed he could make no promises about specific outcomes. But, if Glasgow voted Labour, the council would look at it the issue afresh.”

And guess who turned out in droves to vote Labour in Glasgow?

Of course this is not the only evidence of Labour making common cause with that most extreme of anti-Catholic, anti-Irish, anti-Scottish Nationalist organisations. The recent Jubilee celebrations in Britain witnessed 9500 official street parties in England (and Wales). However just 60 were held in Scotland, and 20 of them were organised by the Orange Order in co-operation with the Labour Party.

Despite the Orange Order’s deplorable sectarian and racist history, and it’s continued advocacy of fundamentalist Protestantism, it seems the British Nationalist and Unionist parties will sink to any low in order to protect the territorial construct of Greater England.

Native Americans – Trapped In The USA

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Unexpected but welcome news in the Guardian as a United Nations (UN) committee is about to carry out an investigation into the treatment of the citizens of the Native American nations within the United States of America.

“The human rights inquiry led by James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on indigenous peoples, is scheduled to begin on Monday.

Many of the country’s estimated 2.7 million Native Americans live in federally recognised tribal areas which are plagued with unemployment, alcoholism, high suicide rates, incest and other social problems.

The UN mission is potentially contentious, with some US conservatives likely to object to international interference in domestic matters. Since being appointed as rapporteur in 2008, Anaya has focused on natives of Central and South America.

A UN statement said: “This will be the first mission to the US by an independent expert designated by the UN human rights council to report on the rights of the indigenous peoples.”

Anaya, a University of Arizona professor of human rights, said: “I will examine the situation of the American Indian/Native American, Alaska Native and Hawaiian peoples against the background of the United States’ endorsement of the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples.”

Apart from social issues, US Native Americans are involved in near continuous disputes over sovereignty and land rights. Although they were given power over large areas, most of it in the west, their rights are repeatedly challenged by state governments.

Most Americans have little contact with those living in the 500-plus tribal areas, except as tourists on trips to casinos allowed on land outside federal jurisdiction or to view spectacular landscapes.

Anaya is originally from New Mexico and is well versed in Native American issues.

He will visit Washington DC, Arizona, Alaska, Oregon, Oklahoma and South Dakota, and will conclude his trip with a press conference on 4 May. He will present his findings to the next session of the UN human rights council.”

Following on from a period of unprecedented rapprochement between the indigenous peoples of the US and the government in Washington under President Barack Obama, this is a very promising development, even at this most partisan of times in American politics. However even a casual examination of the facts on the ground shows how truly abysmal life is for the vast majority of Native Americans in the “Reservations” (itself a terrible and all too revealing word: wild animals are kept in reservations not human beings). It is difficult to see how this can change without a radical transformation in the political and judicial fortunes of each of the individual Tribal Nations in relation to the United States.

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The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

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We’re in the middle of Seachtain na Gaeilge, the celebration of culture and identity that is the 109-year old Irish Language Week, and two very different views of the current state of our native tongue have emerged. In the Irish Times the Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin correctly points out that the geographical spread of Irish speakers on the island of Ireland is wider now than at any time since An Gorta Mór or the Great Famine of the mid-1800s.

“IRISH IS being spoken in some areas of the country for the first time since the Famine, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin claimed in the Dáil during a debate on the language for Seachtain na Gaeilge.

Mr Martin acknowledged the ambition of the 20-year strategy to increase the number of people speaking Irish on a daily basis from 83,000 to 250,000, but he said children were now speaking Irish in towns and cities around the country and he claimed the previous government had made great progress in Irish.

He warned, however, that the Government was “about to make a terrible decision in regard to small rural and Gaeltacht schools”, and the move would endanger Gaeltacht areas.

Opening the debate, which took place through Irish, Mr Kenny said the Gaeltacht Bill would start the process of linguistic planning in Gaeltacht areas based on the 20-year strategy.”

However a newly published study by Conchúr Ó Giollagáin reflects the growing concern that the revival in the number of Irish speakers in urban areas is masking trouble elsewhere, as examined in a separate article for the Irish Times:

“BILINGUALISM IN Gaeltacht areas is “destroying the Irish language from the inside out”, according to a leading NUI Galway academic.

“Delayed bilingualism”, whereby there is greater focus on raising young children solely through Irish, may counteract the threat to the language’s survival, Dr Conchúr Ó Giollagáin has said.

He is joint editor of a book published during Seachtain na Gaeilge this week on the impact of the “pervasive” majority language in Irish-speaking communities.

The book, An Chonair Chaoch: An Mionteangachas sa Dátheangachas , in which work debated at NUIG’s Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge is collated, cites research to back its key argument.

Dr Ó Giollagáin argued young speakers of Irish were “under-users” of the language, reflecting the fact that social bilingualism was “actually undermining linguistic diversity rather than supporting minority languages”.

“The intrusion of English in the remaining Irish-speaking Gaeltacht communities is being endured as a linguistically colonial experience,” he said.”

Meanwhile some of the “colonial experience” that pressurises young, native Irish speakers into speaking English continues to be reflected in our national news media. In the Herald newspaper television reviewer Pat Stacey shows the kneejerk tendency of the anglophone extreme to any type of challenge to their linguistic hegemony.

“Bernard [Dunne, former Irish boxing champion] is also a pretty good television presenter, vibrant, immensely likeable and blessed with natural on-screen charisma. But you get the distinct feeling from the opening part of Bernard Dunne’s Brod Club that he’s fighting a losing battle.

I confess I had to ask our youngest daughter, who’s in her last year at primary school, what “brod” meant. When it comes to the Irish language, I’m a willing ignoramus, and I suspect I’m far from alone.”

I could just leave it at a “willing ignoramus”, since its sums up so much of the indolent attitudes of a minority of English speakers in Ireland, but there is more.

“For the record, “brod” translates as “proud”. So Bernard — whose love of Irish was rekindled while he was in America, of all places — is on a six-week mission to restore people’s pride in the language and get them to re-engage with it.

Bernard’s not out to single-handedly revive a dying (dead?) language, nor does he expect anyone to be able to speak it fluently. His aim with Brod Club is to recruit “100,000 reborn users of Gaeilge”, who’ll use whatever focail they have in their daily lives.”

The ridiculous claim that Irish is a dying or indeed a dead language shows the complete inability of the English-speaking extreme in this country to deal with the facts before them. What language is Bernard Dunne speaking if Irish is a “dead language”? How can a dead language be spoken?

“To this end, he’s roped in what he called “a pretty motley bunch of personalities”, including, among others, Brendan Courtney, Paul McGrath, Jennifer Maguire, Ray Foley, Kamal Ibrahim (aka Mr Ireland) and Fiona Looney, who offered the following wisdom: “Just because not a lot of people speak it doesn’t mean it has no value.” Looney also coined the Brod Club’s T-shirt slogan, “Get back on the capall”.

Apparently, 1,602 people had signed up for Brod Club by last Sunday. Kevin Myers, however, the lone dissenting voice here, is not one of them. Describing the Irish language as “redundant to Irishness”, Myers said it was “false and deluded” to suggest people are somehow “more Irish because they speak Irish”.

…I’m in Myers’s corner on this one.“

Indeed? And is that out of genuine agreement and belief? Or perhaps because you recognise an unpalatable truth when you see one?

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Ann Marie Hourihane – Carrying The Torch For The English Language In Ireland!

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Maybe I should start a new series? One devoted to recording the amount of bile and hatred directed towards Irish speakers in the “Irish” news media? There is certainly plenty of material out there. The latest offering comes hot on the heels of a positive review of Irish speakers in contemporary Ireland by the Irish Times. Up to the plate steps regular IT columnist Ann Marie Hourihane, writer-turned-comedian-turned-actress-turned-journalist-turned-whateveryoufancy, bat in hand swinging for every Gaeilgeoir in sight.

It starts with the headline:

“What’s the Irish for ‘leave those kids alone’?”

Reading that you may be thinking Pink Floyd. In Ireland, these days, most people will be thinking a series of scandals involving the sexual abuse of children. A coincidence? In a newspaper headline? Hardly. So the tone is set and off we go, bat swinging.

“…it’s time we all took a closer look at the Twenty Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010-2030 . And that won’t take too long, because it’s kind of on the beag side.

If you look at the Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht website you will see one of the aims of this complex strategy, which emerged from several commissioned reports that were paid for with your airgead, is neatly summed up thus: “To increase the number of people who speak Irish on a daily basis outside the education system from 83,000 to 250,000.”

What’s the Irish word for ambition again? I think we should be told.”

Hilarious. I can see why she was a comedian and sketch writer. Twenty years ago.

“Come on, we’ve wasted enough time on this nonsense. It is one thing to be taught Irish by your loving family in a happy home, as most of the Irish-language enthusiasts quoted in the article Mise agus an Gaeilge , published in this newspaper on Saturday, appear to have been. It is quite another to have the educational opportunities of hundreds of thousands of Irish children squandered in hours of non-teaching of a non-spoken language.”

Erm. A non-spoken language that is in fact spoken in some peoples loving families in happy homes? So it’s not exactly non-spoken then is it? Ah, but of course. These people are “enthusiasts”. Like train spotters. Hmm. So are German people in Germany who speak German “enthusiasts”, or French people in France who speak French?

No? So then Irish people in Ireland speaking Irish is kinda, um, normal?

But what about Irish people in Ireland speaking English? Is that not a wee bit, enthusiastic?

“Too many Irish children leave primary school unable to confidently read or write their mother tongue – by which I mean English. And now we see the numbers of special-needs teachers drastically cut – while of course the pensions of our former taoisigh remain reassuringly high, but that’s another day’s obair – and our unfortunate páistí still being dragooned into this national charade.”

Ah. So Irish speakers are to blame for the numbers of special needs teachers and assistants in our schools being reduced? And the exorbitant pensions of ex-government ministers? Wow. These people really are to blame for everything, aren’t they? It’s like a global conspiracy of Gaels. Irish-speaking rats scurrying behind the walls of society gnawing away at the foundations of our western civilization. We really should do something about it. Maybe hold a night-time torch-lit parade or something? Burn a few books? That’s always good!

“Meanwhile, the second language of this country is actually Chinese.”

Ooops! Did Angloban HQ not send out their latest communiqué to Ann Marie? Anglophone militants in Ireland no longer claim that Chinese is the second most spoken language in the country. No, they claim it’s Polish. No matter that the claim is equally untrue. In fact it’s a flat out lie. But hey, repeat a lie often enough and loud enough and soon everyone will come to believe it. Now which group perfected that form of propaganda? Back in the 1930s? Err… Oh well, I’m sure it will come to me eventually.

“Then there is the whole translation scam, by which all official documents must be translated into Irish. As we all know, the number of people who will read these vital communications in Irish is so small it would be much cheaper to send them all to live in Switzerland, keep them in cocaine for the rest of their lives and phone them individually with each translation as it limps off the presses.”

Oh, hilarious. Why aren’t you still writing for RTÉ, Ann Marie? Really. No matter that the same amount of state documents read in English is proportional to the same amount read in Irish. We’re going for the big lie here, folks. And with a smile!

“…I wrote that the Irish language was our equivalent of the hijab, the headscarf worn by orthodox Muslim women as a badge of identity and compliance, a figleaf to cover a web of unacknowledged weaknesses.”

Well done! There is the perfect analogy. Hijab, Mulsim women, oppression, lack of freedom, religious intolerance, Islam, extremism, terrorism – Irish speakers! It all fits together! Oh Ann Marie, you cute Hourihane, you paint pictures in my mind with your finely crafted words…

But why do I have this sudden urge to buy a beige shirt? Or do I mean a brown one?

Och well…

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Lets Speak The Truth: Those Who Hate Irish Speakers Do So Because They Are Racists…

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In an article to mark the start of Seachtain na Gaeilge (Irish Language Week) on Monday, the Irish Times has asked ten people to describe their lives as Irish speakers. They include journalists and students drawn from places as far away as Ethiopia and Holland. The most interesting, and in a way the most honest, contribution is from the television presenter Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh who gives an insight into the experiences of a speaker of the indigenous Irish language in contemporary Ireland:

“I came to Dublin when I was 15 from a small Gaeltacht in Meath, and the Irish language wasn’t cool at all. Then, crazy as it may sound, the Hothouse Flowers came on the scene, and it became cool – and then became uncool again when I was 18.

When I was a teenager the reaction was, and still can be, “Stupid language: what’s the point?” Then the adult versions: “It was beaten into me”; “you’re all mad ’RA-heads”; and my favourite, “You get a grant for everything.”

My response is: I am so sorry, and that is all terrible, but guess what – I am the minority here, and, however difficult it was for you, it has been and still is a struggle just to respond to all of you. At times it’s racist. Nobody ever calls it that, but no other culture would tolerate it. There has been a huge demise in the promotion of our language and Gaeltacht existence. I heard Paul McGrath during the week on radio, talking about the Irish language, and he was inspirational. Yet I would be scared to ask the people of Ireland [if they were] for or against the language. I fear it would be against. But, hey, I will battle on and wait for the next wave.”

The irony that in modern, independent Ireland the racism and discrimination that was once applied by our former English (and English-speaking) colonial masters to the Irish people as a whole is now applied by the English-speaking Irish against those they perceive as being Irish-speaking Irish.

Speak English, read English, write English – and apparently think English too…

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