Sinn Féin has to stop weaponising the Irish language –
RECENTLY on Raidió na Gaeltachta, I heard an interesting conversation between Máirtín Tom Sheáinín and a young woman from Galicia in northern Spain.
She had her own Galician language, Spanish and fluent Irish.
She had arrived in Ireland about 10 years ago, fell in love with the language and then, at a “comórtas amhránaíochtaing Cathairna Mart” (at a singing competition in Westport), she fell in love with a German guy who was taking part, in Irish.
Here are two total strangers who came to Ireland, recognised the beauty of the Irish language and took the trouble to learn it, such that they now speak it to their two-year-old daughter at their home in the Kerry Gaeltacht.
Many of us – perhaps most of us – grew up detesting the language because of the way it was taught, with belts of a leather if your spellings were wrong, and a Leaving Cert pass in Irish compulsory if you wanted to go to university.
However, any objective assessment of our native tongue, ancient and modern, would conclude that it is as expressive as any of the more widely spoken languages in the world.
The heated debate about reviving Irish as a spoken language and how best that might be achieved is never-ending, but one thing all are agreed on is that any form of coercion is counter-productive.
Nobody is forcing parents to send their children to gaelscoileanna but they continue to do so in everincreasing numbers, and adult Irish classes are thriving.
This is the context in which Sinn Féin has refused to restore the Stormont Executive, unless it gets a separate Irish language act.
Should it succeed in forcing the hand of unionists in this matter, it would ghettoise the language within the nationalist community and forever make it an object of loathing among its unionist fellow countrymen.
But there is a more menacing message in Sinn Féin’s insistence on a separate ‘Act na Gaeilge’.
Gerry Adams is reported as saying that unless it gets a separate act, this could “radicalise young nationalists”.
Today we know only too well what “radicalising” young people can mean.
We see it regularly on our TV screens when the latest outrage is committed by “radicalised” young people.
This connection is not far-fetched.
Sinn Féin has a history of “radicalising” young people to such a degree that they joined the IRA and pursued a reign of terror in Ireland, Britain and continental Europe for decades after an alternative route to equality in the North was open to it.
Seán Donlon, former Irish ambassador to the US and co-creator of the Good Friday Agreement, recently spoke directly to Sinn Féin, urging it, with a very interesting turn of phrase, to “stop weaponising the language”.
Mr Donlon’s choice of the word “weaponising” reveals his hard-won experience of how Sinn Féin can turn up the heat on any issue it chooses, instilling a sense of victimisation and mobilising street protests, attacks on the police and worse.
What does Mr Adams have in mind when he speaks of “radicalising young nationalists”?
Such is his influence within his own community, the very fact of his saying this will itself stir up hostile feelings among young nationalists, and he knows as well as anyone else what this can lead to.
If this is not what he envisages, let him explain what he does mean. His words matter.
Another question is how come Sinn Féin’s refusal to re-enter Stormont, which was initially because the DUP refused an enquiry into its role in the “cash for ash” scandal, has now switched to an ultimatum about an ‘Act na Gaeilge’?
Its swift, brusque rejection of Arlene Foster’s unprecedented conciliatory words about the Irish language suggests that the language issue is being abused as a pretext for not going back into government in the North.
There is a more menacing message in Sinn Féin’s insistence on a separate ‘Actna Gaeilge’
The real reason for stalling is unclear, but it may be a tactic aimed at exploiting the fluidity of the Brexit negotiations in order to accelerate progress towards a united Ireland.
Weaponising the language is to disrespect it.
Furthermore, the irony seems lost on Sinn Féin that the reason Irish is probably more widely spoken in Belfast than in some of the gaeltachts is precisely because it had been marginalised and denigrated by generations of British and unionist rule.
Heavy-handed imposition of job quotas for gaeilgeorí and similar demands will only alienate people who aspire to speak Irish for the loveofit.
Sinn Féin also continues to weaponise our national flag.
You can go to its shop online and buy a badge that depicts the tricolour with a green ‘I’, a white ‘R’ and an orange ‘A’.
Or you can get a green, white and orange ‘Irish Republican Army AK47’ badge, with an Armalite rifle embossed on our national flag for your lapel.
There is tons of this stuff available, all powerful instruments of radicalisation.
At Sinn Féin’s recent ‘think-in’, it said it is now willing to enter coalition government in this republic.
A prerequisite is surely a change in its attitude to the rule of law, like supporting the investigation into the brutal murder of Tom Oliver in the Cooley peninsula and, not least, to stop weaponising the Irish language and our national flag.
The job of decommissioning is incomplete.