IT was pathetic but not surprising to see the DUP launch yet another attack on the Irish language at Stormont this week.
A week after loyalist paramilitaries threatened an arson campaign against bilingual signage, the DUP brought a cynical motion against Belfast City Council’s new dual-language policy.
The Irish language community is a central part of our city. Thousands of young people attend Irish-medium schools. Parents throughout the city, like me, are raising their children through the medium of Irish. It is right and just that the Irish language should be visible in Belfast. It is right and just that it be used by the council and by the state.
When People Before Profit spoke out against the DUP’s bigoted proposal, we pointed out that their approach to the Irish language is not only despicable but is part of a familiar tactic: When unionism is in crisis, it seeks to sectarianise things.
Working class communities are hurting, and the DUP knows it. As members of the Executive they are hands-on contributors to Stormont’s destruction of the health service, education, and housing systems. In that context, the DUP is only too happy to join loyalist paramilitaries in holding the Irish language as a bogeyman to the communities they claim to represent.
The DUP’s attacks on the Irish language are designed to keep working class people angry at the wrong things. This is classic distraction politics, but the facts tell us that the majority should see through it this time.
Across 536 streets in Belfast where there is approved bilingual street signage, only three percent of residents opposed the use of Irish.
Despite the facts, the DUP will continue to beat the sectarian drum, particularly when it comes to appeasing paramilitaries who have threatened to burn public buildings bearing Irish to the ground. A back-and-forth argument between the DUP and TUV in the chamber shows that competition for the hardline loyalist vote still figures in discussions on the Irish language.
But the entire charade lets the whole of the Stormont establishment off the hook for its failings.
Firstly, it distracts the public from Stormont’s litany of failings including the decimation of public services and the economic hardships felt across the North. These problems are felt by the working class Gaeilgeoirí as much as anyone else.
Secondly, it distracts from the fact that Executive parties – unionist, nationalist, and other – have overseen years of cuts to Irish language services.
And thirdly, Stormont continues to oversee the scandal which sees a majority of young Gaeilgeoirí educated in schools which are not fit for purpose, with meagre Irish language learning resources. This includes Coláiste Feirste where overworked and underpaid workers manage to educate over 1,000 pupils in a school built for 600.
We must reject the DUP's sectarianism. The rights of Irish speakers should be respected and resourced, but it is clear Stormont has not served the needs of working-class Gaeilgeoirí in Belfast or anywhere else. Certainly, the failure to appoint an Irish Language Commissioner or to adopt an Irish language strategy has shown us where the Executive’s wrangling has got us in recent years.
The rights and material needs of the Irish language community require urgent attention – they have waited for action and have been scapegoated for too long. But we cannot allow the political establishment to set the terms of the debate. As forces like the DUP continue their “war on wokeness” – on Gaeilgeoirí, ethnic minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community – we need to look beyond such distractions and demand better from those in power.
Gerry Carroll is a People Before Profit MLA for West
