You probably heard Nelson McCausland on the BBC’s Talkback an hour or so ago. He was on with Carál Ní Chuilín, explaining how an Irish Language Act would cost £100 million a year and how you wouldn’t be allowed to buy a house in a Gaeltacht area if you didn’t speak Irish. He also reprimanded William Crawley for interrupting him while he was interrupting Carál Ní Chuilín. You have to hand it to Nelson – even when he isn’t wearing a kilt, he swings his bits about like a wrecking ball.
Sometimes he uses the bits inside his mouth to damn places with faint praise: for example, An Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich has really tasty apple pie, although he couldn’t understand a word they were saying. Other times Nelson uses his oral bits to imitate Billy Bush. You remember Billy? He’s the member of the Bush clan who interviewed Donald Trump, that time he was explaining how he liked to approach women and which bits of them he liked to grab. Most people listening to that interview were so busy throwing up in the toilet they didn’t hear Billy. Lucky them. Because Billy was doing these little guffawing/giggling noises in the background. That’s what Nelson did at several points in today’s TalkBack debate, always when Carál Ní Chuilín was talking.
But credit where credit is due. Yesterday, Nelson showed signs of being the only Oxford graduate ever to win a degree there while being unable to read. Yesterday Nelson denied any commitment to an Irish Language Act, despite the fact that it’s spelt out in the St Andrew’s Agreement, Annex B: ‘The Government will introduce an Irish Language Act’ Specsavers anyone?
But give him his due – he didn’t deny the commitment today, he just rubbished the whole idea. Far too costly, far too divisive, next thing they’ll be asking people brought into the Royal Victoria Hospital if they can speak Irish, and if they can’t, sorry, bye-bye.
The bright side is,Carál Ní Chuilín will not be spending any time in Purgatory. Ten minutes on air with Nelson earns anyone a partial indulgence. Carál did fifty minutes, which definitely qualifies for a plenary indulgence.
I am tempted to wonder whether it’s the, oft quoted, ‘identity crisis’ of unionists in Ireland which creates their problem.
This ‘identity crisis’ perhaps stems from, as you point out re: Nelson, the kilt wearing. In Ireland too, the traditional dress for men is the kilt, we here however never had to distinguish ourselves through use of different patterns on our over bottom clothing being content with a nationwide gold(ish) colour, the poor neighbours, lost in their own land, unable to tell each other apart, had to rely on the gaily patterned skirts they insist on wearing, unfortunately too so do Irish police bands in the USof but, that’s another story, perhaps, Nelson could decide, if he’s Scot’s, maybe he’d be more comfortable amongst those wearing his pattern and not being here spouting cacs.
On the language, would he go home and take offence at Statiun sraid beannriahnna in Glasgow or the cost his fellow Scot’s had to put out just to erect this, and other, national language signs in their second city?
Remember Nelson, Belfast is Ireland’s second city.
Was the tartan aspect of kilts not a polish-Lithuanian-jacobite-conman invention during King George’s first to Edinburgh in the early 19th century?
the problem with some unionists, their culture is gathered from other countries, Scot;land, England & possibly Wales. Ignoring the culture and language of the island they actually live on has led to the creation of a “culture” which is based on putting the Irish culture down, flags, OO, active discrimination, which as we know has brought them not an inch closer to being English or British.
Hi jude. Nelson doesn’t really surprise me at all.
I’ve been going to An Culturlánn since 1998. I went there that year
with my wife and two daughters as i was involved with a piece of work called
“The Peace Blanket Project”.
We were all made to feel welcome by Fergus O’Hare and some time after that the project was exhibited there having previously been installed in Carrickfergus Castle.
On the surface Nelson and I come from the same background yet I’ve been fortunate enough to not having lost my radical Presbyterian roots.
Over the years I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve stopped off at an Culturlánn for a cup of tea, been to book launches, delivered a few workshops, had work exhibited there and generally just been accepted.
I know Pauline the woman mentioned by William Crawley, who made the apple tart, and her sister Geraldine. I sell some of my books in the book shop where I know Áine, Seamus and Pádraigín along with many others like Seamus and Sean and Máire MacSeain. The list goes on with many Irish speakers I have befriended and they me.
Sad to say the loss is Nelson’s on a number of different levels. You could say he has sold his soul to the DUP, in a sense. And his loss is deeper still as his lack of diplomacy and insight renders him a very foolish person indeed. So full of education, he cannot see further than the end of his wee puffy red nose. So full of himself he spreads the lie that English is not spoken at this Irish centre.
How can we expect political representatives such as Nelson to work for “us” when they are up to their oxters in the pig swill of government ? We vote for them , then they forget about us.
Ragnall Stiofán MacHalla/Randall Stephen Hall. (Educated. Informed. Northern. Irish.)
I wonder how many connections of ‘the committee’ are benefitting from the endless pilfering of public funds? Surely Nelson can tell us?
Yes Jude, I was listening to Radio two-thirds of Ulster myself. And listening to Nelson, in my opinion anyway, vindicates SF’s stance with regards to the DUP and their arrogance, ignorance & bad faith. The boul Nelson is doing wonders for the Sinn Fein election campaign!
And another thing, what about that DUP Councillor who requested to have his council stationary with English only on the headings? I mean this is another prime example of the DUP’s intolerance towards the Irish language. Maybe we should suggest designated days for English only stationary. Pathetic!
Yes, I heard that bit about removing Irish from the letter-head. If I was a recipient of one of said Councillor’s letters, I’d assume he thought I’d be confused if it came with English and Irish at the head.
Over this past two or three days one DUP politician after another have stepped up and proven over and over the very points that have been made against them.Their bigotry, the stupidity , their incompetence , their incivility and probably their criminality , given all the other revelations .It’s all there so I hope some one is making a list of who’s been naughty or nice. What about Poots and the DUP not even signing what everyone else thought was the St Andrews Agreement which started the ball rolling ? Just take that as the starting point. That’s good for starters but all this additional fiction about the projected cost of anything when they’ve wasted ten years of our money already with their scandals and are currently burning half a £billion of it up the chimney while their friends lap up the gravy.
Has anyone stopped to think exactly why one DUP politician after another has come out with bigoted, disrespectful statements like this over the last week?
Could it be they are in election mode?
Could it be that they’re just giving their electorate exactly what they want to hear?
This election in particular will will tell us a lot about the unionist electorate.
Will they continue to vote incompetence, corruption and disrespect or will they choose another path?
The PUPs Sophie Longs tweet keeps reverberating in my head…
“If we’d rather be robbed by a Prod than led by a Catholic then we are in trouble”.
Exactly PK, i couldn’t have said it better. Well said a chara!
The most petty thing I heard was the TUV demanding an Irish word removed from drain covers in Ballymena and they were removed too….just when you think the bigotry and hatred cant go any deeper…..
But as my great grandmother, God rest her, use to say (who married a Protestant btw): “The old people use to say:the Green Grass will grow over Harland and Wolff Shipyards”…..
And they were right….
I must admit I would like to have heard a bit more detail from Caral re the specific provisions of an Irish Language Act and at least an approximate costing, rather than the tedious tit for tat she engaged in with Mr McCausland. Would every word produced by government departments and councils have to be replicated? I receive an annual glossy booklet, of very thin content, from Mid and East Antrim Council, bad enough having to pay for this in English, let alone in Irish, my point being that most of the stuff produced by public bodies is not worth reading in any language. Rather than waste money on this stuff, better to have continued with a worthy project like the Northern Ireland Place-Name Survey, which was being carried out by the Dept of Celtic at Queens,’ but which was suspended due to lack of funds.
Someone above mentioned that Queen Street Station in Glasgow had had its name translated into Gaelic. I always thought this a bit strange as Glasgow was part of the old Welsh Kingdom of Strathclyde, with Gaelic displacing the older language for only a short time in that area, so really Welsh would be more appropriate.
The figure of £100 million is derived from the apparent fact that each council in Wales spends approximately £900,000 each year on implementing the provisions of the Welsh Language Act, the D.U.P. have taken this figure and extrapolated it to N.I., at least that is my understanding of interviews I’ve heard with Poots and McCausland this week.
If you have to ask about the cost then you don’t even get the point Willie.
There wont be an economy or any revenue if a large section of the people aren’t behind the state.
Unionism has yet to realise this.
Why should I pay 10s of thousands in taxes every year just to have a bunch of unionist bigots insult and degrade my identity?
I would dearly love to be a fluent Irish speaker but language was always something I struggled with for some reason and it is a shame to me that I cant.
The translation doesn’t really matter, politics is a load of crap anyway, but the ILA would mean it is prioritised in schools and more people would be able to speak it in the future.
Where do they get this figure of £100m per year? I know their grip on financial matters are a bit iffy but this seems a bit over the top. As regards the courts and the speaking of Irish therein. Why couldn’t the defendant etc engage an Irish speaking solicitor and he could translate for the monoglot British judiciary? That leaves signage. Replace signs as and when replacements are due with bilingual signage. Do the monoglots demand signs in English when they holiday on the continent? Or do they just object to spending money foolishly in an attempt to revitalise the language that their colonial forefathers spent centuries and millions trying to eradicate? I object to a British policeman from the renamed and rebadged RUC asking me questions in English. Is this not politicising the English language?
The Councillor is Anraí Ó Raghailligh.His most recent contribution to societal development was to have units of the British Army returned to Ballykinler Internment Camp rather than a change of use for social housing.
Baile Coinnleora had a franchise to supply candles to Dublin Cathedral over a thousand years ago.
Anraí Bocht.
” Because Billy was doing these little guffawing/giggling noises in the background”
He was doing that on the Nolan TV show last year when he was on with Danny Morrison. He was giggling when Danny Morrison was talking about the murder of Patrick Rooney, a 9 year old child, in his bed by the RUC. Danny Morrison was looking at him in shock when he was doing this in front of a studio audience (not to mention thousands of viewers). No exaggeration, I even caught Stephen Nolan looking at him with a look of disgust on his face. Though Nelson’s giggling stopped pretty sharpish when a woman in the audience pulled him on his support of the RUC’s actions in the 1960’s, which the audience applauded her for.
I don’t know what is wrong with the likes of Nelson and his supporters. We often put it down to “bigotry” or “sectarianism”. I often say on this blog their attitude is due to a mixture of Protestant Fundamentalism, the same kind of fundamentalism ISIS or the Taliban have but obviously they are a different religion. But I think Martin McGuinness is more closer to the mark when it comes to people like Nelson. I seriously do believe they have psychological issues. I studied counselling and psychology at Belfast Met, I’m certainly no expert and nor am I trying to be but I really do think there is something wrong with these peoples brains/minds. Whatever has happened to them has started a very early age.
Now, I want to make clear I’m not talking about all Unionists, obviously. I’m talking about types like Nelson. There has to something wrong with them for them to behave the way they do. And no, it’s not due to the troubles, this has gone on for CENTURIES before the troubles. Whether its biological or “imprinted” on them as psychology would say is debatable.
We have to have an Irish Language Act. I doubt very much it would cost £100 million, though it did cost over £20 million to police the illegal camp at Twaddell which Nelson supported and spoke at. I’m sure it costs many millions to police the many Orange parades every year. So if millions can be spent on those things (not to mention many other things) then it can be spent on an Irish Language Act as agreed in the St Andrew’s Agreement.
I think the DUP are really walking themselves into another humiliating U-Turn. I know they are playing politics because of the election coming up but they know SF wont be back in Stormont unless they, at the very minimum, back an Irish Language Act. There will definitely be one sooner or later, we all know that.
PS: According to Sam McBride from the Newsletter, by one estimate its predicted that the DUP will lose 10 MLA’s in this election, thanks to the lower number of MLA’s returning and how voters will vote. Apparently the DUP had a “sombre” meeting at Stormont over this and left with “grave” faces….if that happens then they lose the power to abuse the Petition of Concern….
There’s great talk entirely these days, Esteemed Blogmeister, about echo chambers in the media and that sorta thingy, and with good reason too.
For there was a real macalla (echo in Leprechaun) of Talkback on the Yawning Ireland Prog south of the Black Sow’s Dyke this very morning.
-Acht na Gaeilge is among the elements of the GFA which the Dublin Government has singularly failed to guarantee.
– Gerry Adams, you mean The Irish Language Act. Whack !
Just what is there not to like about Loyal Liffeyside ? And how the likes of Nelse (who else?) do not get this is h. to fathom. He obviously can’t tell his Orange Free Stateen from his Adam’s Apple. Perhaps, the demolition job done on his namesake’s pillar on March 8 1966 (at, erm, 1.32 am !) is the cause which gives him pause.
If so, this would be a great pity. Even if it is entirely understandable in the context of the Republic’s Rope a M.O.P.E. policy (alleged). i.e. Most Oppressed Prods Ever.
Such a pity then that the Jagged Stump which was left standing after the botched number was done by the dumb demmies on Nelson Pillar was not allowed to remain in situ: lefs we forget. For it bears – as one quick gawk will confirm – an almost uncanny resemblance to the style in which the grey beard of Nelse is (gulp) sculpted.
Yawning Ireland on RTE is, of course, the class programme whose mantra is C.A.S.S.
Mama Cass, Esteemed Blogmeister, was the larger than life singer who made up two thirds of the three person harmony group known as the Mamas and the Papas.
They flourished in the late 60s/ early 70s until the early death in 1974, of heart failure of their signature singer, aged 32, in Flat 12, 9 Curzon Square, Mayfair, London, England. This flat was on loan from Harry Neilson of ‘Everybody’s Talkin’ fame.
Four years later, Keith Moon shuffled off the mortal coil in the same flat, at the same age (32). Also, from heart failure. (Numerologists will notice the recurring 32 in this narrative).
The Mamas and the Papas’ two biggest hits featured dream in their titles:
– ‘California Dreamin’ and ‘Dream a little dream of me’
These two songs came to mind today while listening to Yawning Ireland, RTE Radio 1.
And not just because of the interview / interrogation technique which is the in-house style of this Flegship Programme:
-C.A.S.S.
That woud be the Carrot And S. Stick style. The first S, of course, stands for Sticky. Thus, the CASS:
-Carrot and Sticky Stick.
Naturally it is The Woodman who wields the Sitck, the Sticky Stick with the honed blade at the top-end. It is he who gets to grind his axe which asking the questions in the interrogation. It is said he dreams of the great Red Wood Forests native to Califiornia, nights:
-All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey.
His California axe is particularly apt for the sharpish kind of asking he brings to the interrogation table where Brexit is one of the topics, as it was this morning:
-Whack !
-Gerry Adams, what is your reaciton to the May speech in January?
-Let me begin by saying –
-Whack !
-That is all in the past now.
-But…
-Whack !
-Let me repeat my question, Gerry Adams : what will your reaction be to the May speech in May?
-If you’ll allow me to finish…..
-Whack !
-Our time is up: and now I’ll hand over to my carrot-toped colleague who is about to dream a little dream with, oops, interview Dara Murphy.
-Stars shining bright above you,
Night breezes seem to sing: I love you.
Who dares to speak of Dara ?
Dara Who?
None other than, erm, Dara Murphy , Fianna Fail Better MP for Cork North-Central, boy. He was schooled in the local CBC which is not at all to be confused with a CBS. Just as a cauliflower is a cabbage with a college education so also is a CBC a Christian Brothers School with a college education. i.e. rugby is the curricular game of compulsory choice.
He is also Minister of State for European Affairs and Data Protection. Unlike the innumerate target of the interrogation, the finger counting Fear na Féasoige (see above) Dara Murphy , MP is a product of the renowned Regina Doherty School of Enhanced Economics, as his stellar academic and commerical track record indicates:
-After (gulp) failing his final exams in economics in 1990 at UCC he eventually graduated in (gasp) 2015 after completing the, erm, necessary modules remotely.
-Birds singing in the sycamore tree.
-During the Recession of 2008 his many businesses, sadly, folded one by one, leaving him (gulp) with tax debts which the future Minister of State for European Affairs, subsequently paid off , bit by bit by bitcoin.
-Dream a little dream of me.
To conclude: next time Nelse belts the ‘Celts’ in the FSS with the purpose of raising welts, consider the following movie, for the purposes of not being too,erm Dian on the buachaill:
– Rebel without a McCauseland.
That’s what was missing up here. A deservedly jaundiced eye on the minutiae of the civic and political life in the great blueshirt yonder. May your well of vitriol never dry up,O Great Perkin.
Vitriolic – moi?
Fiosrach, a chara, creid mise ach goilleann an aoir seo níos géire ormsa ná mar a ghoilleann sí orthu siúd, na balaicseanna Thuas, / believe one but one’s verbal frolics hurt oneself more than they hurt those practitioners of the higher hydraulics in High Places.
Aoir, being the Leiprechán for satire, one is, sadly, left with no option but to twin the Republic of Aoir with the unbroken Ayreshire. It’s the very aoir one breathes.
Beir bua !
It is news to me that Nelson is an Oxford graduate!
I was surprised some time ago to learn that Nigel Dodds and Sammy Wilson are also Oxbridge old boys. There may be other DUP members who are so educated.
But what amazes me is how brilliant they are at hiding any semblance of intelligence or education.
Has anyone ever heard a logical, sensible, well reasoned debate from any DUP representative, or have I just been living a sheltered life?
Sherdy,
never equate an education with intelligence.
Never apologise. Never explain.
What baffles me is how a group of people claiming to be Christians can be so rude, uncivil and arrogant.
For more entertainment at Nelson’s expense check out this blog: http://halfnelsonscolumn.blogspot.ca/2014/03/fair-fur-ye-gadgies-today-i-am-enraged.html#!/2014/03/fair-fur-ye-gadgies-today-i-am-enraged.html