Trying to get empathetic with opponents of an Irish Language Act

The Revs Norman Hamilton and Martin Magill were on Raidio Uladh/Radio Ulster this morning, talking about political division. Martin Magill focused particularly on social media and specifically Twitter, and suggested that people often put up statements attacking opponents in a personal way; instead of arguing a case they were intent on getting retweeted or Liked as many times as possible.

Fr Magill has a point. I wouldn’t for a moment claim sinlessness myself, but certainly when I allowed comment on my blogsite, 90% of comments were aimed at making the opposition look stupid or winning an argument conclusively, rather than exploring the issue and accepting when those opposed had made a valuable point.

Essentially what the Revs were talking about was empathy: seeing things from the other guy’s perspective. So let me try that in terms of the Irish language. I’m a unionist.

1. I don’t like the Irish language because it was used by the IRA –in prisons, at funerals when a volley of shots were fired, as a way of shoving Irishness down my throat.
2. I’m against an Irish Language Act for the reasons above and because Irish would be made compulsory on the curriculum, there’d be preference given in the Civil Service to Irish speakers, and all the public signage – street names, for example, and public toilets – would be in Irish. I don’t intend to let that happen.
3. The Irish language is a weapon which republicans are using to hollow out our Britishness. The more they can have the Irish language imposed on this state, the more Irish the state will look and the less secure our future as a part of the United Kingdom will be.

OK, I could go on but let’s stop there and look at the reasons given for being anti-Irish language.

1. It is indeed true that the IRA used the Irish language in prisons and when firing volleys over the coffins of IRA volunteers. Emotionally that link is hard to contemplate for unionists. But we all need to move beyond our reflex reactions. It’d be a poor reason for abandoning the use of German because Hitler used it, or for stopping listening to Beethoven’s marvelous symphonies because he was born in Bonn. In fact, the obvious way to weaken the link between militant republicanism and the Irish language would be for those who are not republican to learn and use it. What was considered hi-jacked would then be hi-jacked back.
2. These reasons of compulsory Irish in schools, advantage for Irish speakers in the Civil Service , all street names in Irish – they’re straw men. While we may not be sure what will be in an Irish Language Act, we know that it won’t be made a compulsory subject on the curriculum, we know that signage will be only in shared spaces – in other words, if your street or area doesn’t want Irish signage, it won’t have it. As for advantage in the Civil Service for Irish speakers: there’d be some truth in that. But only in that a number of Irish-speaking civil servants would be needed to respond to Irish-speaking members of the public. And as unionist politicians often point out, that’s a small percentage. So just as many different jobs in the Civil Service have different criteria for employment, so with those Civil Service jobs that’d involve communication with Irish speakers. It’s not an unreasonable provision, once you grant that people have the right to live their lives using Irish if they choose.
3. Linda Irvine is on record as saying that use of Irish affirms British identity, rather than weakens it. I’m assuming she means that if unionists were as prominent as republicans in using Irish, it’d cease to be a marker for Irishness as distinct from Britishness. Even though I can understand unionist concerns under this heading – it will indeed make the north of Ireland more Irish, assuming that unionists keep the language at arm’s length. But if they embrace it, it’ll cease to be a political weapon of any kind.

The last and final point I’d make to unionists is “Why would you want to block a language of such a local nature, where the names of towns, villages, townlands, mountains, rivers all call out to us in Irish?”  The Irish language is a treasure house, open and inviting to all. My argument would be that it’d be very short-sighted to turn your back and walk away, because at the moment it’s used mainly by your political opponents.

I don’t know that I’ve managed to show real empathy for those opposed to the Irish language. Maybe that’s because, in part at least, hostility to the language seems to me often based on misinformation or  irrational fear.

Come on, guys. We even speak Irish in an Ulster dialect. You’re free to ignore it if you want, but we really, really wish you wouldn’t.