Language barrier

There are many dual language (English and Irish) road signs in Northern Ireland, but they never cease to be controversial. Some of them go up only after angry protests from the locals.

I must say I don't see the point of Irish signs in a country where the everyday language is English and only a minority of the population speak Irish fluently. But if that's what some people want, it doesn't really bother me one way or the other.

People justify dual language signs on the basis that they promote linguistic diversity, they encourage people to learn Irish and they recognise our close ties to the Republic of Ireland.

But there are only 72,000 Irish speakers in Northern Ireland out of a population of two million, so I wouldn't have thought dual language signs were a high priority.

And why only road signs? What about all the other signs on public buildings? Shouldn't they also be dual language?

There's a big lobby to have dual language signs on the new Grand Central Station, and an equally big lobby not to. I await the outcome with interest.

Personally I have no desire to learn Irish, especially as it's a famously hard language to learn. Jenny has been learning Irish for some time despite all its oddities and its fiendish pronunciation. But fluency is still a long way off.

Watch your language!

There's heated controversy in Northern Ireland over bilingual signs, especially road signs. Quite a lot of signs are bilingual already (English and Irish, that is), but any proposal to add to them is always contentious.

People can apply for signs to be made bilingual, and in 2023 there were over 600 such requests. In the past road signs could only be changed if two thirds of the road's residents asked for it, but the threshold in Belfast has now been cut to 15 per cent.

There are two opposing views on bilingual signs. One says that because most people here speak English, adding Irish is unnecessary and costly, and is just a pointless political gesture by Irish language campaigners.

The other viewpoint is that the Irish language needs to be supported and promoted and used more widely as it's an important part of Irish culture, and those opposing bilingual signs are just being narrow-minded and obstinate.

I must say I tend to support the unnecessary-and-costly argument. If people want to learn and promote Irish, fine, it's a wonderful language, but why bilingual road signs? If most people speak English I don't see the need for them.

If we can find our way around quite adequately with an English road sign, why add Irish?

The bilingual road sign issue came to mind because a Welsh language campaigner is currently embroiled in a three year legal battle after refusing to pay a £70 car park penalty notice written only in English. Toni Schiavone will only pay the penalty notice if it's translated into Welsh, and he says he's being unfairly harassed.

I'm keeping well out of the language controversy. Or as an Irish speaker would say "Tá mé ag éirí go maith as".

Irish contradictions

Since many of you are Irish or claim an Irish identity, I thought I should say something about my own view of the Irish.

I must say I find the Irish very contradictory. On the one hand they praise the Irish culture and the Irish way of life and say they wouldn't want to live anywhere else, but then ten seconds later they'll be running the place down and saying Ireland's going to the dogs.

They'll lay into the transport system, the health service, the roads, the cost of housing, materialism, TV programmes, the Catholic church, Dublin Airport. Nothing seems to be safe from a storm of frustrated invective.

The tourist industry gets it in the neck too - the shamrocks, Oirish pubs, the ubiquitous emerald green, silly hats, paddy wagons, leprechauns - it's all a travesty of the real Ireland that only mindless trippers would swallow.

There doesn't seem to be much left that the residents actually enjoy unreservedly. Though if they're pushed to defend their homeland, they'll spend a few minutes waxing lyrical about the music, the literature, the art, traditional values, the craic, the scenery, the sense of community, the friendliness.

But you get the feeling that sometimes that's more a sales pitch than genuine enthusiasm, put on for the benefit of those arrogant Brits who've dismissed their perfect country for so long.

As soon as you're out of earshot, they'll be on again about that waste of space Mary Harney and how she's f**king up the health service. Or that bastard Bertie and his dodgy piles of unexplained cash. I really don't understand the mixed messages. Will the real Ireland please stand up?

Sources: Irish Times, Irish Labour Party, Irish TV (Prime Time, Questions & Answers, The Panel), Irish blogs.
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Update: Re the British government's plan to ban paid sex, a BBC poll found that 52% of respondents thought it should be banned and 65% thought buying sex exploits women. Among 18 to 24 year olds, 65% thought paid sex should be banned.