Belfast Irish signs: Popular park and gig venue at unionist area to be among those first in line for controversial language move
One of Belfast’s most popular parks, and located next to a staunchly unionist area, is to be among those first in line for controversial Irish language signs.
And 100-acre Ormeau Park, also a major gig venue for the city’s Belsonic festival, is to get them because a quarter of people living in a small handful of nearby streets say they have some ability in the language.
The park runs next to east Belfast’s deeply unionist Willowfield area; just a couple of minutes to the north of it is a working-class loyalist community, and there are Eleventh Night bonfire sites nearby.
Yet according to the language policy voted through by Belfast Council last week, it will be among the first on the list to have the Irish language blazed across it.
Although the council’s Irish move is likely to start in west Belfast’s Gaeltacht quarter and the city centre, the policy says any electoral wards in which more than 15% of residents told the last census they had some ability in the language will be a high priority for dual language signs.
According to census data, 26% of residents in the ward containing Ormeau Park can speak it to some degree – but that’s a tiny number of people.
Most of the ward is made up of the park plus a neighbouring golf club and a municipal recycling centre. The only residential section of it is a small number of well-to-do homes on three or four streets to the south of Ormeau Park, but under the language policy that’s enough to list it as a high priority.
Built over 150 years ago and the oldest park in Belfast, the facility is popular day-in day-out with residents of the unionist Willowfield area as well as people living around the upper Ormeau Road, none of whom will get a say in the Irish signs.
It also attracts tens of thousands of people every summer for Belsonic, features as the start and finish line of the annual Belfast City Half Marathon, hosts regular community festivals and is home to the council-run Belfast Indoor Tennis Centre and Ozone Complex – a leisure centre that, under the policy, will also have Irish language signs erected around it.
The first phase of the language blitz, which could include Ormeau Park, is to happen over two years, using a £1.9m underspend the council found in its coffers.
It also includes the city centre, the Gaeltacht quarter, and landmarks such as Belfast Castle and Belfast Zoo.
Eventual plans will roll Irish over every council-owned park, leisure centre, playground and sports pitch in the whole city, and the council’s logo will be junked to make way for one bearing the language.
Unionist councillors fear taxpayers will be left footing the bill after the initial cash pot runs out, while council staff who live or work in loyalist areas say they’re worried about their safety if the Irish-text logo is used on council vehicles and uniforms.