Nationalist politicians revealed as behind failed Irish signs bid for Belfast street that Sinn Fein demands be run again
The only people filing failed applications for Irish signs on a prominent Belfast street that Sinn Fein has demanded be polled again have turned out to be nationalist politicians.
And newly published information has shown the nationalist party wasn’t accurate when it claimed “100% of respondents” on University Street backed Irish signs – in fact, a quarter of those who replied to surveys were either against the idea or had no preference either way.
Located in a student-heavy area near Queen’s University, in 2025 the residential road failed to make Belfast Council’s threshold of 15% of householders in favour of building dual language signs.
Last month Sinn Fein demanded surveys be reissued, claiming demographics there have changed in the less than a year and a half since the street was last polled.
Newly published information from the council shows two people have applied for Irish signs on University Street – both of them nationalist politicians.
SDLP councillor Gary McKeown filed an application in 2022, while Conor McKay of Sinn Fein submitted another one last year.
The council polled University Street in January and February 2025; issuing 126 surveys, more than 100 of them went unanswered.
In total, 18 surveys came back in favour of Irish signs, while three were against and three had no preference. That means around 14.3% of the street supported the move, falling below the 15% threshold.
With Sinn Fein having already called for University Street to be surveyed again to see if the result would change, last week the party’s Belfast group leader used the area as a platform to controversially demand councillors have the final say in all surveys that fail to make the 15% threshold.
He stated a 2014 judicial review of an old, stricter policy the council used to have concluded councillors “have discretion to go under” a much higher threshold that existed at the time.
“It’s a bit concerning why [streets that failed under the 15% rule] have not been brought to the committee to allow them to use discretion,” Mr Beattie said.
“That’s the reason we looked into it. University Street, 100% of respondents were supportive and yet that wasn’t going to come to committee for the committee to use discretion.”
Mr Beattie’s “100% supportive” claim isn’t borne out by the actual poll results, however; in fact, 12.5% of people who replied were opposed and 12.5% said they had no preference either way.
The information is due to be discussed at a council meeting tonight, which will also see officials defend their current system for setting up surveys.
Currently, a single resident or area councillor filing a bid for Irish signs on a street is enough to trigger a poll of people listed on the electoral register there. Politicians have queried whether the electoral register is the best system to use, arguing people have been missed in recent surveys.
But officials insist the electoral register is the “most robust way” of identifying who lives where, and is used in the dual language policies of several other councils.
Sending a single survey per household was ruled out as it would mean occupants have to come up with “a collective response”, while searching for more info on top of electoral register details was held to over-complicate the process.