What does Unionism fear from the Irish language? It’s quite the question when we look back at the history of the goings on around the language from the founding of the Northern state. In 1921 there were still strong Gaeltacht areas within the newly formed state of ‘Northern Ireland’. Areas where a strong Irish identity still lingered in this new British, Protestant and Unionist state and places where, more importantly, the English language wasn’t spoken by an Irish tongue and we couldn’t be having that now could we? Considering the new Northern Irish state was British. One might have understood a challenge against the Irish language being used in Government if the majority of those elected at the time were predominantly English speakers but an attempt to kill it off entirely in the North was to be the preferred course of action for the now Stormont seated Unionist Government.
For instance, in 1922 the new Unionist Government in the North interned almost 700 people, all Nationalist and predominantly Irish speaking, claiming they were a “threat to public order.” The speaking and or teaching of the Irish language in the internment camps was forbidden and those who broke that directive were moved to solitary confinement to keep them away from the rest of the interned population. The problem Unionism and the Unionist Government of the time had, was that the Irish language was associated with Home Rule and Irish Republicanism, both of which were a threat to the new Northern state. Indeed at the time de Valera’s Sinn Fein won 6 seats with Joe Devlin’s Nationalist Party winning 6 seats. While not a threat to the Unionist state politically, having an Irish Republican party and a Nationalist party present in the new Unionist state sent out a message to the electorate that Irish Nationalism was still here as was Irish Republicanism…and both were associated with the native language of the country…Irish.
Indeed, looking back to the second half of the 19th century, the Irish language was seen as such a threat by some within Unionism at the time that people like Thomas Lea, an English born MP from South Derry proposed an amendment to the draft of the second Home Rule Bill that would prevent the passing of laws which would increase Irish language use in state schools, legal courts and other public arenas. From the early years of the ‘Northern Ireland’ Government, education in Irish was marginalised and indeed was at times frowned upon. The number of primary schools teaching Irish was halved between 1924 and 1927 due to lack of funding, and numbers studying Irish as an extra subject fell from 5531 to 1290 between 1923 and 1926. The subsidy for Irish as an extra subject was abolished in 1934.
What really got up Unionism’s sniffer was when Irish Republicans and Nationalists started learning Irish while interned in places like Long Kesh after the likes of Operation: Demetrius, and began communicating between cells in Irish so that screws couldn’t understand them when they were being ‘slagged off’ or conveying ‘news’. Then people and parties as high profile as Sinn Fein and Gerry Adams started speaking Irish on the airwaves and on TV which Unionists really didn’t like because sadly, for them, they couldn’t understand the native language of the country they were born in – that being Ireland, which they kind of got around unintentionally, by banning Sinn Fein members voices on the airwaves and on TV.
Fast forward to modern day ‘Norn Iron’ and while everyone else has seemingly moved forward and embraced our new found peace and various cultures, we have Unionists calling into radio shows claiming acht na gaeilge would erode their culture of…well, they have yet to specify, but whatever it is, we can be assured an Irish Language Act would erode it. The TUV have had to apologise in the past for calling Irish a “Leprechaun language” and our new First Minister (for a limited time only) in 2017, moments ahead of the Christmas Assembly break, announced a £55,000 cut to the Líofa Gaeltacht Bursary Scheme, finishing the announcement with the words “Merry Christmas.” The Líofa Scheme gave people from disadvantaged backgrounds the opportunity to travel to parts of Donegal where Irish is predominately the main language.
You see, the thing that highlights Unionisms stance on the Irish language is this. The DUP didn’t threaten to bring down Stormont when abortion legislation or gay rights were legislated for from Westminster. It seems their inability to stomach the Irish language is more about the symbolism of the language than anything else. How dare the Irish language be held in such high esteem as the English language. Unionists today deny their opposition to a language act is based on spite. They claim their resistance is founded on practical considerations. But hatred always tries to hide behind the mask of logic. No-one ever admits to being a bigot, after all.
When all is said and done, Unionist opposition to an Irish Language Act or indeed a cultural package is supremacist and sectarian. An ILA is merely symbolic but we all know how important symbolism is in the North of Ireland. That symbolism is what Unionism’s aversion to an ILA is based on. To agree to an ILA or a cultural package would give the Irish language and Ulster Scots (yeah I know it’s not a language and sounds more at home in deepest Portavogie) equal protection to the English language and that can’t be allowed because that would make those speaking Irish equal by all accounts to those speaking English. The Irish Language Act would simply recognise that the Irish Language has a right to exist on equal terms with the English language which the Unionist Government attempted to abolish at the birth of ‘Northern Ireland’ because it was dangerous…because it was and is and always will be IRISH.
“The Irish language, thank God, is neither Protestant nor Catholic, it is neither a Unionist nor a Separatist.” – Douglas Hyde 1905.
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