The
Irish language (also known as Irish
Gaelic) is a minority language in
Northern
Ireland
. The dialect spoken there is known as
Ulster Irish.
According
to the 2001 census, 167,487 people (10.4% of the population) had
"some knowledge of Irish" with the highest concentrations of Irish
speakers found in Belfast
, Derry City
, Newry
/South Armagh, Central
Tyrone (between Dungannon
and Omagh
), and
southern Londonderry (near
Maghera
).
History
The last native speaker of Antrim Irish died in 1983. A wealth of
recordings and stories told by the man were recorded by researchers
from Queen's University in Belfast.
Status
Official administrative identity in
English, Irish and Ulster Scots
Irish received official recognition in Northern Ireland for the
first time in 1998 under the
Good
Friday Agreement.
A cross-border body known as Foras na Gaeilge was established to
promote the language in both Northern Ireland and the Republic
, taking over the functions of Bord na Gaeilge.
The
British government has
ratified the
European
Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in respect to Irish
in Northern Ireland.
The last speakers of
varieties
of Irish native to what is now Northern Ireland died in the
20th century.
Irish as spoken in Counties Down and Fermanagh were
the first to die out, but native speakers of varieties spoken in
the Glens of
Antrim
and the Sperrin
Mountains of County Tyrone and
County Londonderry survived into
the 1950s and 1970s respectively. Whilst the Armagh dialect
survived until the 1930s/40s.
Varieties of Irish indigenous to the
territory of Northern Ireland finally became extinct as spoken
languages when the last native speaker of Rathlin
Irish died
in 1985. Most Irish speakers in Northern Ireland today
speak the Donegal
dialect of
Ulster Irish.
Since
1921, the Irish language has been regarded with suspicion by
Unionists in Northern
Ireland, who have associated it with the Republic of
Ireland and more recently, with the republican movement in Northern Ireland
itself. Many republicans in Northern Ireland, including
Sinn Féin President
Gerry Adams, learned Irish while in prison. The
language was proscribed in state schools within a decade of
partition , and public signs in Irish were effectively banned under
laws by the
Parliament of
Northern Ireland, which stated that only
English could be used, although many
teachers in Catholic schools ignored this and hid it from
administrators. These were not formally lifted by the British
government until the early 1990s.
The
Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 states: "It
shall be the duty of the Department (of Education) to encourage and
facilitate the development of Irish-medium education."
It has
been claimed that Belfast now
represents the fastest growing centre of Irish language usage in
Ireland
- and the
Good Friday Agreement's provisions on "parity of esteem" have been used to give
the language an official status there.
The
ULTACH Trust
(
Iontaobhas ULTACH) was established in 1989 by Irish
language enthusiasts to attract funding from the British Government
for language projects and to broaden the appeal of the language on
a cross-community basis (among both
Protestants and
Catholics)
According to the 2001 Census, 167,487 people (10.4% of the
population) had "some knowledge of Irish" - of whom 154,622 were
Catholics and 10,987 were
Protestants and "other
Christians".
Knowledge of Irish by persons over the age of 3 (2001 Census):
- Speaks, reads, writes and understands Irish: 75,125
- Speaks and reads but does not write Irish: 7,183
- Speaks but does not read or write Irish: 24,536
- Understands spoken Irish but cannot read write or speak Irish:
36,479
- Has other combination of skills: 24,167
- No knowledge of Irish: 1,450,467
Education
Six
families in Belfast established a Gaeltacht area in Belfast in the late
1960s and opened Bunscoil Phobal Feirste in 1970 as the
first Irish-medium school in
Northern Ireland, and in 1984 was granted the status of a voluntary
maintained primary school. The first
Naíscoil
(Irish-medium nursery school) opened in 1978.
Comhairle na Gaelscolaiochta was established by the
Minister of Education in 2000 to develop Irish-medium education.
Irish
language pre-schools and primary schools are now thriving and there
are Irish language secondary schools known as
Méanscoileanna in Belfast, Armagh
, and
Derry.
In the academic year 2004-5, 3,713 children were enrolled in
Irish-medium education:
- 44 nurseries (Naíscoileanna) with 855 pupils
- 32 primary schools (Bunscoileanna) with 2,328
pupils
- 2 secondary schools and a post-primary unit with 530
pupils
The
British Council administers a
scheme to recruit Irish language assistants for English-medium
schools in Northern Ireland.
Examinations in Irish are gaining in popularity among school-age
and adult students. In 2004, there were 333 entries for
A-Level examinations in Irish and 2,630
for
GCSE.
Media
BBC Radio Ulster began broadcasting
a nightly half-hour programme, called
Blas ('taste'), in
Irish in the early 1980s, and there is now an Irish language
programme on the station every day.
BBC Northern Ireland broadcast its
first television programme in Irish in the early 1990s, SRL
('etc.'). Many areas of Northern Ireland can now tune into
TG4, the Irish-language television channel, which is
broadcast primarily from the
Conamara
Gaeltacht in the Republic. In March 2005, TG4 began broadcasting
from the Divis transmitter near Belfast, as a result of agreement
between the
Department of Foreign
Affairs and the
Northern
Ireland Office, although so far this is the only transmitter to
carry it.
RTÉ's Irish-language radio station,
RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta
which broadcasts in the Republic, is also available in most areas
via signal overspill.
Ofcom
have awarded
a broadcasting license to Raidió
Fáilte, a community radio station based in West Belfast.
The new service covers the Greater Belfast area and started
broadcasting from October 2006.
Raidió Failte 107.1fm a community Irish language station broadcasts
24 hours per day seven days per week in Belfast. They broadcast a
selection of programmes; music, chat, news, current affairs,
sports, arts, literature, environmental and community issues. They
are now also available worldwide on the internet at
RadióFáilte.com.
An Irish-language daily newspaper called
Lá Nua ("new day") has recently folded due
to lack of readership.
The
Northern Ireland
Film and Television Commission administers an Irish Language
Broadcast Fund (announced by the
Secretary of State for
Northern Ireland in April 2004) to foster and develop an
independent Irish language television production sector in Northern
Ireland.
The European Commission
authorised public funding for the fund in June 2005
considering that "since the aid aims to promote cultural
products and the Irish Language, it can be authorised under
EU Treaty rules that allow state aids
for the promotion of culture".
See also
References
External links
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