TUV slams Irish language project
TUV leader Jim Allister has accused culture minister Caral Ni Chuilin of pushing a “political agenda” by launching a high-profile Irish language promotion campaign next week.
It emerged yesterday that the Sinn Fein MLA is to ask high-profile figures, as well as members of the public, to agree to try to become fluent in Irish by 2015.
A wide variety of people –including representatives from the police and various sporting bodies – are being encouraged to take part in the project.
PSNI deputy chief constable Judith Gillespie will be among the dignitaries at the launch of ‘Liofa 2015’ at Stormont on Monday.
Ms Ni Chuilin said she hoped the initiative – which aims to create an extra 1,000 Irish speakers – would attract people from across the political divide and said the gaelic language should be seen as belonging to all communities.
However, unionists have lambasted the move.
Questioning Ms Ni Chuilin’s motivations, Mr Allister insisted he would be seeking answers from the department for culture, arts and leisure regarding the cost of the campaign and if the proposal was “equality proofed”.
“Unlike their timid counterparts in government, Sinn Fein takes every opportunity to peddle their own political agenda,” he said.
“From the moment they politicised Irish as a cultural weapon of war – by describing every word spoken as a bullet in the freedom struggle – they have set about ramming it down our throats.”
Mr Allister claimed Sinn Fein’s “divisive anti-British vendetta” is to use departmental office, money and facilities to promote their language agenda.
He added: “In historical culture Irish has its place, but as a living and working language it is a non-starter in the 21st century, whether it be the Long Kesh variety that the minister speaks or the real thing which she and her Sinn Fein colleagues emasculate every time they fumble and mumble through the mantra they have adopted as the introduction to everything they say.”
DUP MLA David Hilditch, who sits on the culture committee at Stormont, also expressed his scepticism at the initiative.
He said: “If you try to shoehorn people into [Irish] there is obviously something wrong when it doesn’t naturally happen itself.
“If people have an interest in that culture they will do it voluntarily – they do not need to be pushed towards it.”
Ms Ni Chuilin claimed members of the Irish language community were keen to advance their culture without it becoming a “divisive political issue”.
The minister said: “We want learning Irish to be a natural and normal thing that people do without any comment.
“I was conscious of the fact that the language seems to be viewed by some as the preserve of the nationalist and republican community, and that’s not the case. The Irish language belongs to everyone.”
Shortly after taking up her post earlier this year, Ms Ni Chuilin indicated her willingness to revive the scuppered Irish Language Act.
It has been consistently opposed by unionists.
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Weather for Belfast
Tuesday 29 May 2012
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