I got an email from a friend asking to sign up for the following petition:

To: Dáil Éireann - Irish Parliament
Is é ár n-éileamh go ngairfear teanga oifigiúil oibre de chuid an Aontais Eorpaigh den Ghaeilge.

Le meas,

Muid, a chuir ár n-ainm le seo.

We demand that the Irish language be declared an official working language of the European Union.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

This makes great sense to me, so if you want to sign up :
http://www.petitiononline.com/gaedhilg/petition.html

Le meas,
Mare.

Hi, Mare. It has been put up here before thanks! We have all, Im sure, signed and passed it on!

Ceart go leor, Jessica ;-)
I searched the site with "petition" and only found a recent one and 2 archives not related to this one, so I ventured a post. I watched this petition grow by the hour over the weekend and it's great to see so many people speak up for their identity.
Le cion, (is that a gallicism ? I mean it as : with affection)
M.

I got a lot of people to sign it by just putting it out there. People are very willing to help when they are told about the situation. I only posted it on like three boards/forums, and I recieved a massive positive response.

Dia Dhuit,
when the petition is completed who or whom exactly is it going to be presented to? and what do they propose to do with it?
le meas,
Nick

Its being brought to the EU is it not? Or I'm sure the government. Bertie has a seat in the EU soon, so, I'm aware of a few organisations who are preparing to bombarde him. Probably then. It should say on the website.

I just recently I read something, I forget where, that the reason that Ireland was not promoting Irish in the EU 'official working language' (or something like that) was that they would have to write the entire 'rules' of the EU in the language and that being a daunting task, chose not to. Does anyone know anything about the truth/untruth of that (at least as far as I was able to remember it...)? I guess it made me wonder if the petition was about something no one really wanted..... Wish I'd written down where I saw it! Gabh mo leithscéal!

Hi Karen,

Firstly, most of the people signing this petition are signing because they have been deliberately led to believe that Irish is somehow being "dropped" or excluded from EU recognition.

This is not the case. Irish is an officially recognised European minority language and the accession of 10 extra EU member states doe nothing to change this.

Making Irish a working language of the EU is a ridiculous idea. There would be 100 translators and 40 interpreters employed fulltime in Brussels. For whom?

This is simply a cynical exercise by certain individuals to squeeze more money out of the EU gravy train. Thses kind of petitions are damaging to the image of the language and those enthusiasts who speak it.

I won't be signing it. The task of reviving Irish lies with the Irish in Ireland, not with bureaucrats in Brussels.

OCG,
Irish people would be at a major disadvantage VIS A VIS other EU citizens as two working languages are required to be employed by the EU therefore excluding a lot of Irish people and anyway Maltese doesn't have many speakers and will be included .Now if Maltese is included surely Irish with 200,000 fluent speakers (between say 45,000 native daily speakers the rest fluent speakers)north and south combined should also be included and Maltese people speak English as well.Why I wonder therefore is it ridiculous to make Irish a working language. Same old story denying their rich heritage and insulting us once more. You know anyone from the outside looking in would conclude that there has been an unofficial government policy since the foundation of the state to kill off Irish and make it more easier to just have a one language state.

I agree with Liam and would want to put some question to OCG since I find that post above consisting of a lot of unproven statements.

>is an officially recognised European minority
>language and the accession of 10 extra EU
>member states doe nothing to change this.

I agree.

>Making Irish a working language of the EU is a >ridiculous idea.

Why would it be ridiculous idea?

>There would be 100 translators and 40 >interpreters employed fulltime in Brussels.
>For whom?

For the Irish speakers, perhaps?

>This is simply a cynical exercise by certain
>individuals to squeeze more money out of the EU
>gravy train.

This petition was written and put on-line by a doctoral student (Panu Petteri Höglund) in the Finnish city of Turku. He is hardly going to "squeeze out" any money at all.

>Thses kind of petitions are damaging to the
>image of the language and those enthusiasts who >speak it.

Really? In what way?

>I won't be signing it. The task of reviving
>Irish lies with the Irish in Ireland, not with
>bureaucrats in Brussels.

I agree, but this is hardly a choice of either the one or the other, is it?