No Irish-Speakers

Following the news yesterday that several hundred jobs are to be lost as three companies reduce or cease their operations in Ireland (one of which will have a major impact in the local economy of north Dublin) one might imagine that the potential for up to 200 new jobs for Irish citizens would be greeted with some joy. From the Irish Times newspaper:

“Irish is the 14th largest language out of 23 in the EU’s terminology database, the Dáil has heard.

Minister of State for Gaeltacht Affairs Dinny McGinley said the database contained nine million terms in the 23 official EU languages.

Mr McGinley expressed the hope that a derogation on translating all EU legal text into Irish could be lifted next year ahead of the December 2015 target.

He was responding to Fine Gael TD Terence Flanagan who said about 180 jobs could be created in translation services if a derogation on the use of Irish in the EU was lifted.

Mr McGinley said his department had spent €11 million in funding specialised third-level Irish language course in Ireland in areas such as translation, interpretation, information technology and law.

Mr Flanagan said that by the end of 2012, 243 people had graduated from those courses.”

However this is Ireland, an island-nation where the only role Hibernophones are expected to fill is that of second class citizens with second class rights. So we go to the Commentariat of the journal.ie replete with its usual brigade of Anglophone supremacists. Irish-speakers being treated as the equals of English-speakers? In Ireland? In the European Union? Shock, horror! What next, letting them sit at the front of the bus?

Ah, if only the English lobby in this part of the country had the likes of the bible-thumping, Creationist-believing, gay-hating Edwin Poots, the regional “minister for culture” in the north-east of Ireland, to stand up for what they believe in. From an interview featured on Slugger O’Toole:

“On his time as Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure he told me that his greatest achievement was ‘burying the Irish language act’…”

Blocking equal treatment under the law for Irish-speakers? Now there is a political leader the Angloban could really rally behind.