The Democratic Unionist Party’s relationship with the Irish language has long resembled a man reacting to a toaster as if it were an unexploded bomb. Mention bilingual signage, an Irish-medium school, or the phrase céad míle fáilte, and somewhere in DUP headquarters a siren seems to go off. The language isn’t treated as a cultural tradition shared on the island for centuries; it’s treated like a republican sleeper agent hiding inside a road sign.
What makes the panic especially absurd is that Irish is one of the least threatening things imaginable. It does not confiscate land. It does not raise taxes. It does not force anyone into a céilí at gunpoint. It mostly sits quietly in grammar books terrifying secondary school students with irregular verbs. Yet parts of unionism speak about it as though every fada added to a signpost moves Northern Ireland six inches closer to reunification.
The favourite excuse changes with the season. Sometimes Irish is “divisive.” Sometimes it’s “impractical.” Often it’s suddenly an unbearable expense, as though adding Baile Átha Cliath beneath “Dublin” will bankrupt the Treasury and force pensioners to heat their homes with copies of the King James Bible. Curiously, the DUP rarely discovers this passion for fiscal restraint when discussing bonfire clean-up bills, ministerial overspending, or another rebrand exercise for Stormont.
Underneath the outrage sits a deeper anxiety: the fear that recognising Irish means recognising that Northern Ireland contains identities beyond hardline British unionism. The language becomes dangerous not because of what it says, but because of what it represents — a culture that stubbornly survived despite decades of ridicule, neglect, and political hostility.
And that is the real irony. Every furious complaint about Irish only advertises its growing visibility. Nothing has done more to popularise the language than unionist outrage itself. If the DUP truly wanted people to ignore Irish, they could have tried ignoring it first.
Great article Jude.
To say that Irish has survived ‘despite decades of ridicule, neglect and political hostility’ is putting it mildly. You could have gone back further and highlighted attempts to extinguish it completely.
The ignorance of the DUP and their ilk to the fact they are surrounded by the Irish language with names, words and phrases derived from Irish isn’t surprising. It smacks of jealousy at an actual culture and identity, something more precious and certainly purer than the bonfires you mention.
But when you see Philip Brett MLA, proudly presenting a grant to a flute band that commemorates and celebrates the very people who murdered his brother, you realise you’re never going to understand the mindset of the DUP.
They hate everything Catholic and or Irish. That’s really all there is to it.
Great article Jude.
From a strategic standpoint if Unionists want to ‘make NI work’ they could become more accommodating of the Irish language and by extension Irishness.
But their innate bigotry and hatred of all things Irish paralyses their ability to think strategically.
That’s their loss. As Republicans we recognise a UI should become a more accommodating place and we’ll not get drawn into petty identity centred disputes over things like language and sport.
SF should defend things like the native language with the same bloody mindedness the DUP and all the other unionists defend their “culture” with.