Ulster-Scots is not getting equality of treatment

Bill Smith’s comment piece on ‘language rights’ (‘Irish language ‘rights’ in reality means legally-enforceable special privileges for Irish-speaking nationalists,’ June 11, see link below) deserves serious attention.

In regard to Ulster-Scots, it draws upon his salutary experience of chairing the advisory body tasked with progressing the implementation of a Westminster initiative of Michael Ancram for the establishment of a properly-resourced Ulster-Scots Academy.

Just like this advisory body’s previous incarnation, the Ulster-Scots Academy Implementation Group (USAIG), its work was sabotaged by the department, on this occasion by nominally transferring its remit to the Ulster-Scots Agency.

Bill Smith’s laconic comment, ‘where it sank without trace’, obscures the fact that the agency, whether by accident or design, has not the capacity to deliver the specialist provision necessary for an Ulster-Scots Academy or indeed an Ulster-Scots anything else.

Its financial support for ephemeral projects can never result in what Ulster-Scots would really need in order to avail of any supposed ‘benefit’ arising from the ‘new framework’: a properly planned infrastructure, backed by established research and commitment such as the Ulster-Scots Language Society brought to its Partnership Agreement with the USAIG.

As Bill Smith so cogently argues, the ‘new framework’ is divisive, its aim is political, and it does not deliver equality of treatment. He is right.

Anne Smyth, Chairman, Ulster-Scots Language Society

Bill Smith: Irish language ‘rights’ means legally-enforceable privileges for Irish-speaking nationalists

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