Full article:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/pol-o-muiri/sinn-fein-irish -is-enough-to-make-you-sic-14189714.html

The headline reads:

quote:

Sinn Fein Irish is enough to make you sic

Except Sinn Féin is misspelled too.

They stumble at the second hurdle...

quote:

By Pol[sic] O[sic] Muiri[sic]

Unlike the Irish Times, the editor of the Telegraph clearly doesn't know or care about fadas. It's not Pól Ó Muirí's fault.

Anyway...the ARTICLE itself....is he being too critical or should Sinn Féin (who like to remind us that they are *THE* Irish language Party up North) pay more attention to the quality of their Irish brochures etc?

quote:

Sinn Féin, the richest party in Ireland and a party always boasting about its commitment to Irish, has obviously not invested in something as mundane as an Irish-language dictionary or the marvellous computer spellchecker, GaelSpell (www.gaelspell.com).

Party president Gerry Adams writes: “Tá eolais (sic) sa (sic) foilseacháin (sic) seo ar obair do chuid Airí?” and “tá am deacair eacnamaíochta, naisiúnta (sic) agus idirnaisiúnta (sic) romhain (sic).” While the piece from Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, talks of “sochaí cothrom (sic) a cruthú” (sic), “obair furasta” (sic) “ar fud an Tuasiceart” (sic) and “chun phobail (sic) níos sábhailte (sic) a cruthú (sic) ?”

Conor Murphy’s wee bit of Irish has mistakes in it as does Bairbre de Brún’s, Michelle Gildernew’s and Gerry Kelly’s.

Yes, there is enough bad spelling to make anyone sic! The party has declared war on feminine nouns, the genitive case and the síneadh fada (forward accents), all the things that make Irish the distinctive language it is.

At the beginning I was going to say that you can't blame him for not using the genitive (in form, if not function, at least...) but even that ran out of steam

How many of the mistakes are just straight typos though?

Tuasiceart,naisiúnta etc.

Even if they were, straight typos in published work shouldn't happen.

But there is more afoot here. The Telegraph is a Unionist newspaper. And Pól Ó Muirí is a long time critic of Sinn Féin and their involvement with Irish.

And long term Sinn Féin supporters are now beginning to turn on the Party for the ever more apparent way they instrumentalise the language without actually benefiting Irish speakers one jot.

It would seem so. I wonder how their two Irish language cumainn are doing. That generated a bit of discussion when they were opened about a year or so ago.

Supposedly Des Bishop now has better Irish than Gerry Adams?

Could this be true? :D

They cant be any worse speaking Irish than our so-called leaders down south.

I doubt it. Enda Kenny would have better Irish surely. Brian Cowen, Éamonn Gilmore...

According to a user on another forum, Adams said the following during a Hunger Striker commemoration:

Fuair Kevin Lynch bás an mháirt seo chughainn. Supposedly that translates literally as: "Kevin Lynch died next week"

I was at an IRA funeral years ago, where Adams spoke (can't recall how I ended up at it; or who it was, perhaps Mount Batten's killer), but anyway, he was speaking in Irish as well as English, if I recall. If what is going on above is correct, it seems as if he is just blabbering on, with little regard to content. He is obviously more like his southern political contemporaries than he likes to admit I see (tokenism wise).

I'll tell you another thing. Last weekend in a bar I met a couple from Belfast, you happened to have worked near me for a year, but we never met. It turned out later that they were Protestant and Unionist, and the lad mentioned (he being drunk and talking about politics...) about Adams and Irish. He said he thought it was like English, but 'just not quite' -I think that's what Adam's and company have done.

What would you expect from a man who sent men to their deaths, yet stopped his own son joining 'the cause'.

Hehe. How do you just end up at an IRA funeral?

Anyway...

Irish and tokenism go hand in hand far too often. Witness Martin McGuinness' excrutiating display in the Assembly a while back. I think someone just handed him a paper with phonetic renderings of Irish words and told him to start reading.

No language should be abused in such a manner.

How I ended up at it? I was a child, the man was a local, and since country people of past generations are addicted to misfortune, death, sickness etc going to a funeral is a perfect form of entertainment. If the corpse could die again for the procession, and a few more family members get cancer, their heads explode, their children lose their fingers in a motor, house burn down...etc etc etc even better! They would be people in the crowd shivering and dancing in ecstasy at the prospect.

I find funerals ridicules -they are only ever for the crowd, not the deceased. This was made clear when my uncle died and the way they spoke about him, reflected the interests of the people who organized the thing, not the person I knew, who had a wider life than they portrayed. It's why I think people cry for the loss of their own attachment, and loss of the functional properties that person provided, not the person themselves.

A New Orleans style funeral is the way to go.

Actually, for someone who learned his Irish in somewhat peculiar circumstances Adams does make a fair attempt to speak it, much more than what I would regard as tokenism, simple language as it usually is. The errors Ó Muirí points to are mainly misspellings, not really a hanging offence or few politicians would survive in any language. I haven't heard McGuinness speak.

Like Aonghus I too smell a rat. Either somebody at the Sinn Féin Party press office went off sic[k - sorry!] on the day and it wasn't properly vetted, or the statement was deliberately released without the normal polishing by the minders that surround all party leaders, to embarrass Adams and his supporters inside the party. They say if it comes down to a choice between a conspiracy and sheer incompetence, go for the latter, in which case someone at party HQ may be thankful that a kneecapping is not the punishment merited.

Seanfhear

If you look on the BBC micro site, Voices, and listen to some of the dialects spoken by older people, you will find just how different they can be. http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/

What is interesting, is how much the Englishes of Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset have influences Northern Hiberno English (and to a lesser degree, border Southern H E). I am repeatedly struck by the parallels even in how older people in the area I grew up speak or spoke. They show clear influence from west country Englishes, compared to say, how older people speak in Mayo etc

The reason I say this is that the UK apparently has 7 official languages, yet these dialects are real (tho disappearing) unlike Cornish or Ulster Scots. That's politics, I suppose.

Here is a video of Adams speaking in Irish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDOoDQfN6-8

I admit that he could brush up on his prononciation.

His grammar is bit dodgy ("beirt rialtais" mar shampla) and while I don't have a lot a time for his politics, at least he is making an honest effort in this clip to converse in the language.

Hasn't Eamon O Cuiv made the point that everyone should be encouraged to speak the language irrespctive of their fluency? (discussed in another thread)

quote:

His grammar is bit dodgy ("beirt rialtais" mar shampla)

Lughaidh will confirm, but as far as I know Ulster Irish uses beirt for more than just people.

Bhuel, rud nua le foghlaim gach lá anseo ;)

Dearfainn go bhfuil neart focail oiriúnaigh (-acha?) aige ar "situation". Caitheann sé a lán focail gan chiall cibé teanga a roghnaíonn sé.

Eamonn Gilmore,for God's sake,have you heard him,He just repeats himself over and over.

Go bhfóire Dia orainn go léir!

Complicated psychology involved here ... agus ní foláir dom a bheith cúramach ar eagla go mbainfí míthuiscint as a bhfuil le rá agam.

Having been out of Ireland for so long I don't know a lot of the trees any more but maybe I can see the wood a bit better for that. In my time I've seen a lot of white crosses in Verdun and places like that and I couldn't help thinking that if the cast of the Soloheadbeg incident had been lying under those crosses Soloheadbeg would never have happened - and a lot of that vociferous crowd would have no interest in their destinies, one way or the other.

When I read the article and the above comments my thoughts started to orbit around the following points:

1. Instrumentalisation of the language by a political party is a double-edged sword. Which edge wins out in the end?
2. Politizising the language alienates sections of the population. Would these people be indifferent anyway?
3. Politizising the language beyond the point of protecting it from extinction and helping it to survive would be a case of eventually missing the point and strangulation by tokenism.
4. Would the name "Pól Ó Muirí" ever have appeared on the byline of an article in the Belfast Telegraph if not for Sinn Féin agus araile?
5. Could it be considered discouraging for learners of the Irish language to have the grammatical mistakes of someone - who has probably a larger "quantity" of Irish than the average person - pilloried in public?
6. I quote - nicht Freud(e): "It is not unknown for certain Irish people to go to great lengths to try to prove to potential, and probably actual, denigrators that they are not the green-horned, priest-ridden muck savages that those same denigrators have always believed them to be and, most of all, that they themselves fear they might actually be." Nasty and true, or just nasty?

Scrúdaigí bhur gcoinsiasaí agus tugaigí tuairisc!



(Message edited by ormondo on February 17, 2009)

Trigger, thanks for that link to the Gerry Adams interview. I was surprised at the amateurish way it was produced. If the intention was to show Sinn Féin's commitment to the Irish language and An Act Teanga you'd have to say it was badly misconceived as the message tends to get lost in the delivery. Both men seem under-prepared for the interview, as if it were done 'on the corner of the desk' while other matters were temporarily held up. The very earnest young interviewer seems somewhat ill at ease, which can't help but communicate itself to the interviewee. A more professional approach would have been to give the interviewee a preview of the questions in order to marshall his thoughts. Both men's body language makes them look uncomfortable. Adams, as he admits quite candidly, is struggling to make his point in Irish and his performance is at best painfully honest. IMO, if Sinn Féin believes in the importance of everyday use of Irish wherever and whenever possible, it must realise that something more than this well-meaning 'off the cuff' attempt was required. There is a vital difference between the impromptu nature of a 'door stop' media encounter which is usually edited down to a 'sound grab' or two, and a set-up interview which implies some preparation on both sides. This all tends to support the contention that the original press release to the Belfast Telegraph was indeed a stuff-up rather than deliberate sabotage :-)

Interestingly enough, Adams is asked how he got his Irish and credits the Christian Brothers particularly a Brother Beusang[?], along with his visits to the Gaeltacht in his youth. He downplays, with just a passing reference, his Long Kesh days and the once-famous 'Gaolteacht'. I have confirmation for Aonghus' point about the local northern usage of 'beirt' for two things as well as for people, having just recently seen it in 'An Áit a n-Ólann an tUan an Bainne,' by John Ghráinne Ó Duibheannaigh, a native speaker from the Tír Chonaill Gaeltacht.

Seanfhear

quote:

1. Instrumentalisation of the language by a political party is a double-edged sword. Which edge wins out in the end?

Too early to say.

quote:

2. Politizising the language alienates sections of the population. Would these people be indifferent anyway?

Most would, I think. Indifference is better than hostility. Plenty of people were indifferent when it came to Irish in school but eventually came around.

quote:

3. Politizising the language beyond the point of protecting it from extinction and helping it to survive would be a case of eventually missing the point and strangulation by tokenism.

Yes.

quote:

4. Would the name "Pól Ó Muirí" ever have appeared on the byline of an article in the Belfast Telegraph if not for Sinn Féin agus araile?

Araile indeed. Did Sinn Féin or individual members of Sinn Féin have any involvement in establishing the following:

- Bóthar Seoighe
- Cultúrlann MacAdam-Ó Fiaich
- Forbairt Feirste
- Pobal
- Iontaobhas ULTACH / ULTACH Trust

I'd really like to know.

quote:

5. Could it be considered discouraging for learners of the Irish language to have the grammatical mistakes of someone - who has probably a larger "quantity" of Irish than the average person - pilloried in public?

But it wasn't about one person. It was about an Irish language brochure filled with all sorts of typos being distributed by a party which likes to portray itself as the only pro-Irish party in Northern Ireland. If it embarrasses Sinn Féin and gets them to get their act together, then good!

quote:

6. I quote - nicht Freud(e): "It is not unknown for certain Irish people to go to great lengths to try to prove to potential, and probably actual, denigrators that they are not the green-horned, priest-ridden muck savages that those same denigrators have always believed them to be and, most of all, that they themselves fear they might actually be." Nasty and true, or just nasty?

It's the complete opposite. Again with the example of Martin McGuinness trying to prove how Irish he is by speaking a language to the Assembly which is practically alien to him. Tokenism at its worst.

All things considered, it's reasonable to ask:

What has Sinn Féin done for Irish? What are the concrete results?

I think you must see this as part of a sickness that has infected nationalism -tokenism. It has always being around, but now that comfort is available to so many, battles are often symbolic, and Irish is one avenue to do this through.

As I have pointed out before, if people really believed in Irish, they would bring up their kids in it. Since no politician has done this, they have no credibility on the topic. Languages are community property, if you are not part of the franchise, how can you claim the rights of use?

Remember Sinn Féin and northern nationalists fully support the UK and the North as a political entity. If they did not, they would either leave it en masse, or withdraw from it (refusing to pay taxes, not lifting social welfare, not getting housing, going to college in the Republic etc). A complete withdrawal, tho hard to achieve, would undermine the state there without any direct confrontation. I don't know if it would lead to more war, but the point is that, we are seeing just another aspect of a people telling themselves lies. Sinn Féin are useless, arrogant, turncoat sellouts, centered around a cult of personality that believes that West Belfast is the centre of the North, Ireland, and the world. It's no wonder many have wondered if Adams and McGuinness work for the British.

Hopefully more and more nationalists will see through them over time and demand someone lose their jobs over things like the Lá Nua fiasco.

Irish nationalists have played a central role in the survival and utilisation of our language, no doubt about it.

But I dont have any time or meas for any movement up North to be honest. Twas ridiculous that Sinn Féin couldnt ensure the printed Irish was correct, but the manner and attitude of the journalist just shows again how he was writing fueled with bias.

They make mistakes, so what? Sinn Féin was in full force for every Acht na Gaeilge march up North, and their Youth Wing - Ógra Shinn Féin organises an annual trip to the gaeltacht, along with many taking lessons. In fact, SF seems to be the only party which offers support for Gaeilge in the 6 counties.

That piece is riddled with bias.

I'm not from Ireland, but I am now studying Gaeilge (with the help of all of you all and others). I think that ANY attempt at speaking Irish by anyone is an opportunity to keep it alive. When I was learning to speak Spanish, it was my humble attempt to speak (errors and all) and the patience of others that resulted in fluency. I would have never mastered the language without first stumbling and perhaps butchering it. I can now argue and write legal discourse in the language.

Many folks I've met that speak a few phrases of Irish seem embarrassed by their imperfect knowledge of the language (cases are wrong, fadas are wrong, wording is wrong, etc). When I try to say something they clam up and seem very embarrassed as they quickly revert to English. This seems to create a tremendous "chilling" effect on many attempts by folks to just engage in the normal interchanges that result in the learning process. If everyone would lighten up it would facilitate the act of learning.

So, I have no political dog in the argument concerning Gerry Adams, but it seems great that someone has the "cojones" (whether one might agree with his politics or not) to jump in there and give it a go.

Mis dos centavos (mo do cianoige)
Faber MacMhaolain

Is fearr gaeilge briste ná bearla cliste.

Ring a bell anyone?

I tend to agree with Seánobriain + Faberm about the purely linguistic aspect, so to speak. For the benefit of non-residents of Ireland, though, the quintessence of the above discussion has little to do with language, and a lot to do with forty-shades-of-green infighting and not wanting, as a Gaeilgeoir, to be automatically lumped in with one political party or another just because that party happens to champion the cause of the language.

Coincidentally, I happened upon a debate in Stormont on BBC Parliament this afternoon and I must admit I quite admire the pluck of the SDLP and SF members to use some Irish. OK, if in 20 years the standard (which is not bad at all in comparative terms) has remained stationary then some of the views upstring might have been born out.

(Message edited by ormondo on February 21, 2009)

I will remind all readers on this website that Ethel Brogan was an Irish immigrant to the United States, and she was very specific in her mission when she established the Daltaí na Gaeilge. The home page on this site says that it was founded with one and only one objective - "To promote and teach the Irish language".

From reading the posts it is evident that the "Gaeilge language" has been politicized and highjacked by religious factions in the past when many just want to learn it in the present as a language and cultural study. There are probably many forums in which political opinions can and may be expressed on what Ormondo calls the "Forty-shades-of -green infighting". I found this site a few short weeks ago and it has been a most helpful blessing and respite. I have gone on Youtube and been shocked by the rude politcal name calling on sites where Gaeilge is being used. It's a real turn off to some of us who have no dog in the fight and just want to learn the language of our ancestors.

I appreciate Mrs.Brogan's mission and I appreciate the scholarly bent I find on this website. Concerning the evolution of languages and the possible future dropping of cases, etc. (I read your earlier posts of a couple of years ago), it is interesting that about 1000 years ago English shed case endings other than personal pronouns which are retained. It may have given it the earlier edge against other European inflected languages. Thanks for all of your helpful comments. I am having a blast with the study. Soon I'll try to post in Irish. Right now it's all limited to "Is dliodoir maithe mé. Agus, tá an doctúir ag an dorus". a-h-aon, a-do, a trí, et cetera.

go raibh maith agat,
Faber MacMhaolain

Some of us may be missing the point here. The particular article which the Belfast Telegraph printed with the journalist's comments was a Sinn Féin own goal. In printing the item the Telegraph was fairly obviously enjoying Sinn Féin's discomfiture, but that doesn't absolve Sinn Féin as a political party from having to put out a competently prepared press release in whatever language[s] they choose. If the original document was an early draft, sent or leaked prematurely to the Telegraph, then Sinn Féin could just say so and move on, promising its supporters to be more careful in future.

As for Gerry Adams' interview as shown on YouTube, it was a painfully honest attempt by him to convey his thoughts in a language in which he admits he is as yet limited. It is great that Gerry Adams or any other politicians should make the attempt to speak Irish. If the intention was to show people that Adams is willing to have a go, fine, his Irish is probably better than 90% of his colleagues North and South. But if it was intended as a vehicle to convey Sinn Féin's official views then it was just embarrassingly amateurish.

Seanfhear

..... The home page on this site says that it was founded with one and only one objective - "To promote and teach the Irish language".
From reading the posts it is evident that the "Gaeilge language" has been politicized and highjacked by religious factions in the past ......

Níor spéis leat féin cur leis an líon ráiteas polaitiúil a Fhaber. Is binn béal!

Smac-muiri:

Since I'm at the most basic level and admit such, I can't understand your comment other than the last three words. Therefore, I don't know if I'm being agreed with or criticized or neither. I'm certainly not condemning folks on Daltai site, I'm just explaining that as a newcomer I'm a little surprised by the intricacies of the political tug-of-war concerning the language. It makes it even more of a wonder that gaeilge has survived as much as it has. The site I came upon on Youtube had a lot of "F" bombs between Ulster groups. I got there when I followed the thread on the Gerry Adams thing. It was just a bit surprising. That's all. A bit different than the other 3 languages I've learned.

I suppose I ought to have put in a smiley. All statements have some inkling of political content, despite ourselves.(I didn't follow the link myself.)
Hence the good seanfhocal for all of us, 'is binn béal ina thost' - little said, soonest mended.

Go n-éirí an Ghaeilg leat - good luck with Irish. Having Spanish under your belt, your progress may be quicker than most.

Don't worry, Faberm, the main thrust (>97,5%) of this site is language. Most of the rare excursions into the minefields of politics have to do with the regular waves of attempts by intellectually lazy entities (mostly in the South) trying to rationalize the Irish language out of existence under the pretext of lack of utility.

Go n-éirí leat.

Faberm I tend to agree with others that Irish has been politicised unlike Welsh and Scots Gaelic and this has been a bad thing. However ultimately everyone in Ireland irrespective of background whether unionist, nationalist,buddist, muslim ,christian, jewish, heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, traveller should all speak Irish as people living in Ireland it really is that simple. I would like to see the first Gaelscoil in a unionist area of say Belfast or the first Muslim gaelscoil etc. Sinn Féin are no more or less for the Irish language then any other party and the percentage of Irish speakers probably hovers at 3-4% which is the general population.

Irish has been politicised unlike Welsh and Scots Gaelic

If only! Peil pholaitiúil is ea gach teanga neamhfhorleathan.

This thread will be closed at 10:00 PM UTC.

Caoimhín

Whatever happened to Better broken Irish than Clever English ?

Thank GODS the admins have shown the common sense to shut this thread down....