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LAST UPDATE | 24 Feb 2023
INSIDE THE NEWSROOM, our monthly newsletter from the editorial team at The Journal, goes behind the headlines and looks at how our team of reporters and editors source and report on the big stories of the day.
As the world marks a grim anniversary, this month’s edition takes a look at how our coverage of the War in Ukraine has developed over the last 12 months.
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It was probably a little too much to ask that Arlene and the DUP would consider the Irish indigenous population as equal to unionists.
@Tweety McTweeter: totally agree. Even if they want nothing to do with the Irish language you’d think they could at least acknowledge that it is part of the shared history and heritage of northern Ireland. Reacting like this is just showing their true colours. Racist, ignorant, bigoted and stubborn to top it off. Just like the original “British” colonists that see the Irish “natives” as lesser. Sickens me a little.
@Tweety McTweeter: She is insufferable, its all so childish.
@Sam Alexander: Maybe advisable to read the Good Friday Agreement and St Andrews Accord which was endorsed by votes and referendum on both sides of the Border before commenting?
Your display of ignorance to what was democratically agreed and underwritten by International Agreement between two sovereign states is quite worrying, although it is quite indicative as to why this has been twisting in the wind for the past twenty years!
@Sam Alexander: It’d be a mark of cultural respect, albeit symbolic to a large extent. So actually I think a broader comprise that includes Ulster Scots and other aspects of culture is in the works. It’ll one way or another have to work both ways.
@Tweety McTweeter: They should call her bluff and say if she cannot agree to form an assembly then joint rule from London and Dublin is the only solution. Bet the Dupers would be running to take their seats.
Irish language was here long before Scottish bigots
Now now, don’t insult the Scottish. The ones across the sea that is. The ones that don’t feel half as British as the DUP.
@Gerard Burke: I wouldnt mind but a lot of their ancestors were native fluent Irish speakers. They’re not all planters from Britain.. You’ll find a lot were just soupers who dropped the language at the same time the dropped Catholicism.
@Niallers: soupers! Classic
@Niallers: Majority of Dupers are Presbyterians descended from Scotland most soupers who turned on their religion went over to C of I who had the wealth at that time.
@Niallers: Foster’s maiden name is Kelly..
myself and quite a lot of what I would describe as proud Irish and nationalist fair minded in the south think that the notion of expecting unionists to introduce ‘compulsory irish’ into Northern Ireland is a bit of a stretch and not something that is worth holding up having a functioning working government in the north
@Dave Hammond: compulsory Irish was never in the proposal.
@Dave Hammond: Sadly, as an apparently “Irish and nationalist” man, you are more concerned with not wanting to upset unionism than with seeing your fellow Irish nationalists in the six counties afforded the sort of basic language rights they are asking for.
@Tír Eoghain Gael: Fully agree with you. Your people spoke Irish long before plantation and have same right to it as us in South
@Gerard Burke: Anyone can learn and speak Irish or any other language in NI . It’s call free speech .
@Gerard Burke: Fair play to you Gerard. There is a mentality throughout the country (and it’s been heavily implied in the media in the north in recent days as they reported on rumours of a language act) that any move towards equal rights for nationalists in the six counties is somehow an attack on unionism. The rumoured deal on Monday was a compromise for both sides, yet the media coverage since then in the six counties has been exlusively focused on how unionists have been reacting to the news of a rumoured compromise from their side. Very telling.
@Tír Eoghain Gael: I know exactly how the media have treated this and all issues in the north for too long. Ian Paisley Jr did only spoke well of Martin Mcguinness after his death and we have prominent men in media like Ryan Tubbirdy questioning his past. Good man Ryan. I know who I’d want in the front line beside me in battle if I had to chose between you and the late Martin Mcguinness.
@Dave Hammond: No one proposing Irish Language Act in north has proposed compulsory Irish in schools so its clear that Foster is throwing this in as a red herring to try and muddy the waters further
The DUP the progressive Wing of the Luddites!
This is the sort of backward introspective insular sectarian culture Nationalists have had to endure for a hundred years!
The irony is their foundation stone and icon is Dublin born Carson!
@Jarlath Murphy:
It doesn’t have to be compulsory though, a fair compromise might be a legal recognition of the language and an option for the indigenous Irish people to learn and speak it
@Tweety McTweeter: Ehh I think you’ll find it is the legal recognition of it they are regaling against!
You don’t really think they were planning on learning it it were you?
@Tweety McTweeter: As far as I know that was what was being asked for. Compulsory Irish was never part of the equation
It’s a shame we don’t all speak our native tongue to each other on a daily basis, the Brits really did a good job on us.
@Stephen Winterson: Yeah but our education system has let us down also, most of us spent 14 years in school learning Irish and most of us still can’t speak it.
@Stephen Winterson: Thankfully we don’t speak Irish or we would have only a tiny percentage of the inward foreign investment we do have. Our use of English as our main language, whatever the official line may be, has been a huge selling point.
@Richard Keogh: I’m sure the fact we sold the next three generations of our children into debtitude to pay off an odious illegal debt foisted on us by corrupt Banksters wont go unnoticed!
@Richard Keogh: All hail the foreign investment
@Richard Keogh: who needs a culture when you can have facebook over here paying no tax.
@Duff Beer: and they still won’t change the way it’s taught in school .Teach it the same way as any other language in school and pupils will learn more .
@Duff Beer: Very true Duff. I wasn’t even taught the national anthem in school. Learnt more irish from tg4 then i ever learned in school.
@Richard Keogh: Speaking Irish doesn’t mean not speaking English. There is something called bilingualism.
@Richard Keogh: FDI wouldn’t care if we were speaking double Dutch as long as they got their corporate tax rate.
@Stephen Winterson: Get off your arse and learn the language. !!!
Arlene Foster does not want a peaceful solution to the devolved government crisis.She and her DUP colleagues are bigots who want to keep the nationalist minority down.With an attitude like that and Brexit threatening to restore border controls the seeds are being sewn for the north to sink back into dangerous violence
@Live at Oriel: the next border will be a EU border. No British Troops. No fixed Bayonets. Just German and French ruled border. Now do what your new Masters tell you and lay off your own kind.
With a major shift in the demographics spurting forward every year – in the not too distance future the DUP will have to accept more than playing fiddle to the Irish language – they will be a minority in their own plantation and will have to accept a United Ireland as the inevitable outcome of the ever decreasing Unionist population.
“Ulster says no” again. Pathetic
The DUP should agree to the Irish language act and learn new ways to say no to everything,it would freshen things up eg. Q.Arlene would yo like an Irish Sea border? A.Nil
What has made that woman so bitter?
@Gisbert Bayertz:
Not bitter just pragmatic.
@Gisbert Bayertz: maybe her father being shot in front of her and the IRA trying to murder her as a teenager. Maybe that’s what has her bitter
@Sam Alexander: she’s as pragmatic as a bikini in Antarctica
@Gisbert Bayertz: Hate, if she followed the Bible and was a true Christian then she would lover her enemies and try to cause peace as blessed are the peace makers?
This is why it is not going to work.The DUP is entrenched in their absolute hatred for anything Irish ok.This is actually quite disturbing with Foster and co. Dictating how they want things run.The only way it’s ever going to move forward is a referendum on a united Ireland.
This power sharing thing is dead in the water.
They just will not work with Sinn Fein.
What about impinging on the rights of the majority of people in the north who decided to stay in the E.U
What a tw-t speaks out both sides of her
The DUP think they live in the UK so of course they hate the Irish language. They hate everything Irish yet when they go to London they are asked what part of Ireland are they from. These years are perfect for the DUP to gain respect and act in the best interests of all but they are wasting it away and in years to come when they are in the minority I hope they look back with regret as everyone wants peace and equal status but the spiteful DUP under Foster cannot see it.
Arlene is on the loose again. Somebody lock her up before she goes spouting more tripe
Irish and British governments have not addressed the issues that brought the assembly down in the first place. Same politics in place in the 26 county government. The F.F.party that facilitated the banks in the economic destruction of a country now keep in power the F.G. party that endorsed the gangsterism of the banks. Yet both of these parties condem S.F. on the stance they took on bringing down the assembly.
It’s Kindergarten time again. What a bunch of time wasters – this also refers to SF. Why do they expect so much outside facilitation to have their political differences addressed? It is time that the DUP and SF grew up. Both are great at telling others how to govern. Now it is time that they practice what they preach and self govern again.
@Irish big fellow: The old ‘one side as bad as eachother’ chestnut, big fellow? Such grossly simplistic nonsense. Take a look at why the assembly collapsed amd ask whether both sides are as bad as eachother. Only one side is refusing to allow equal marriage. Only one side is blocking implementation of the Bill of Rights as agreed in the GFA. Only one side is refusing to enact minortiy language legislation that it committed to at St Andrews. Only one side is blocking funding for legacy inquests. Only one side had a party leader who refused to step down after overseeing a botched energy scheme costing the taxpayer c. £500,000,000.
If Arlene and her ilk were to return to Scotland where many of their ancestors came from they would have to accept a gaelic language law. What is different in the northern statelet. They are incapable of accepting the rights of the native population it seems.
@Jeremy DeChad: they wouldn’t want them back
She’s so hot
Fáil réidh leo anois díreach
@Séan Ó Nuanáin:
An é sin gaeilgeóirí?
The leader of sinn fein says nothing insurmountable…..the DUP were always going to fix that.
The DUP’s fixation on blocking an Irish Language Bill smells of bigotry at this stage. Why is it of such a disproportionately massive concern for the DUP to block such an innocuous language proposal (but a proposal which, for understandable reasons, is culturally important to the nationalist community in Northern Ireland)? Is it because the DUP are so insecure in their British-ness that they want to suppress any Irish culture? Haven’t we seen this attitude before in the days of British rule on the island of Ireland, when adherents of British rule sought through the power of the state to make Irish people forget their Irish identity and uniqueness.
@John Reid: Most people from other countries arrive in Ireland just blend in after a while and in some ways the old ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’ is still on the go with the English once trying to institute laws to prevent this -
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Kilkenny
I think Irish culture itself adapts and changes as all individuals do so whatever is inbuilt in the Unionist make-up, it acts like a barrier to the island and how they deal with it. I think what others see as patient diplomacy by the Unionists is a fear of change and therefore clinging to a mediocre view doesn’t do their electorate any favours.
But will let Convicted Drug Dealers join their party
@Con:
And diesel launders.
@Sam Alexander: yeah what about 9/11
Arlene is right on this one, DUP or not DUP. Look at the waste that promoting the Irish language has been in this country. The language has long since become just a political tool. Meanwhile, it dies.
The Unionist.s were right with their slogan – Home rule is Rome rule. Arlene Foster was again right when she said “If you feed a crocodile it will keep coming back for more”.
@Sam Alexander: I think we can finally see what the Nationalists have had to endure for the last 100 years!
@Sam Alexander: When dealing with history there are often huge compromises to be made yet a more expansive history does no harm including the known fact that Rome supported the side of William of Orange in a wider argument where the Irish were caught in the middle -
http://struggle.ws/talks/king_billy.html
The damage was done over 80 years earlier with the flight of the Earls and the loss of Brehon laws to English Common law where Irish people became subjugated under the guise of protection of King James I . It is this that the Unionists should be celebrating rather than a battle in a field outside Drogheda but then again that wouldn’t be convenient.
Sinn Fein should provide some costings to the Irish Language Act.
If it is only £75 to £150 million, sure why not give it a shot.
@alphanautica: if I was a citizen of northern Ireland, nationalist or unionist, I could think of far better things to do with that money – health, education – than be spent on a language only a miniscule percentage of even nationalists speak.
@Richard Keogh: Yeah who cares about trying to protect and revive our own native language, eh?
@alphanautica: Still pretty cheap in comparison to the Wood Pellets Scandal!
@Tír Eoghain Gael: Very very few Irish people are interested in the propagation of the Irish language. I speak Irish as do many of my friends. It was pushed on me at school but I learned it independently. Lets be clear the language in Ireland is English and there is no going back on that.
@Bull Spite: So there is only room for 1 language here in ireland?? Can we not be like the rest of the europeans who all seem to be fluent in at least 3 languages.
@alphanautica: I don’t think anybody is actually calling for that amount of money to be spent in the North. But incidentally Wales, a county much smaller and much much poorer than Ireland spends about £150 million on Welsh whereas we may only spend about €50 million. I’m not too sure how accurate either of those figures are. Neither of them include the cost of teaching the language which would probably be the same considering they’re both compulsory.
@Bull Spite: Actually, a very large number of Irish people have an interest in Irish. To suggest otberwise is a seriously impressive bit of mental gymnastics. Just because you have a chip on your shoulder because you found the language too difficult in school doesn’t mean everyone has a chip on their shoulder when it comes to such a central part of our national identity. We have one of the oldest languages in Europe that is intrinsically our own. Any right minded person would be proud of that. So t fact that you take issue with the very notion that we take steps to protect it says an awful lot about the sort of embarrasing little quisling you are.
@Anto Whelan: How many in Europe converse in Irish??
@Tír Eoghain Gael: Says a lot about you when you call someone who disagrees with you “a quisling”. Can you clarify why I’m “a quisling” – ie “a traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country” ?
Or is this your method of dealing with questions that you are unable or incapable of answering?
@Bull Spite: Not many…because “Irish” like you would rather the language die out rather than have it grow.
@Tír Eoghain Gael: Why do I call you a quisling? Perhaps because a colonialist force occupied our country and almost succeeded in destroying our native language and in doing so replaced it with English; and you are overtly hostile to any suggestion that we should actively work to protect our own language and are apparently adament that there can only be room for the English language here. Hence, you are a quisling.
@Tír Eoghain Gael: Shows what you are when you have such a narrow view of the views of others. Your reply is so narrow as to be laughable. I am a proud Irishman and a republican (not in the narrow definition used by SF/IRA) but in your mind I’m a quisling. You and your views are laughable.
@Powerabbey: So suggesting that we protect the Irish language rather than scorn it and allow it to die, makes me narrow minded? Gotcha.
What Arlene needs, is a good kick in the box.
These people lack the ability to govern so it is up to the Northern electorate to actually make them take responsibility by taking to the streets otherwise they become almost Stateless or mere dependencies. Learning to deal with impatience is a human attribute but this is a type of mediocrity serves nobody even if it looks like patient diplomacy.
Arlene is hot.
@yelkcub: shes a babe
@Tommy Whelan: nonsense British cultural supremacy already rules in the north, Irish speakers shouldn’t have to be confined to Gaeltacht reservations, their rights should be protected by law like native speakers in Scotland and Wales.
@Tommy Whelan: How did insisting the Germans all speak only english go during your contribution to the British Army On the Rhine???
@Jarlath Murphy: as I have already said any body in NI can learn and speak Irish . It’s call free speech .
@Tommy Whelan: They can also choose not to, so why would recognition of the Irish language be so abhorrent?
@Jarlath Murphy: but it’s not. the nationalist community have a right to learn and speak Irish . How many times do I have to say it . The shimmers attempting to play the oppressed card .as usual . Why have nationalist not bother learning the language that they are making a fuss about .
@Tommy Whelan: Can they transact business with a government department in Irish, the way Welsh people can in Welsh in Wales and Scottish people can in Scots Gaelic in Scotland?
Or is this a bit of the dreaded ‘regulatory divergence’?
@Padraic Courtney: maybe you haven’t notice but Catholics and Protestants in wales and Scotland are capable of living together in a civilised way unlike those in NI where people spent 26 yrs murdering one another over identity . Your Irish language act is just another identity tool to divide people .
@Tommy Whelan: And retain the right not to learn if they so choose, but they don’t get to Cherrypick sections of an International agreement!
They have studiously ignored Strand 2 of the Agreement, the north south bodies?
What is they fear so much? Progress?
@Tommy Whelan: Maybe you haven’t noticed Protestant and Catholics get on perfectly well in the south?
@Tommy Whelan: Try answering the question instead of giving a little pious lecture. You call them ‘Catholics’ everyone else calls them Irish people with a distinctive culture including music, folklore, sports and yes language. If they are not allowed exercise their language rights (even if they’re not very good at the language) in NI then they will campaign to exercise those language rights in a united Ireland. Why can every other minority language speaker in the UK exercise their language rights except Irish speakers in NI?
By the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, SF are chasing after their electorate on this one.
The settlers say that the indigenous people can’t protect the use of their native language. “Mason Boyne”. She speaketh with forked tongue. In a very few years republicans will outnumber Unionists. When a referendum for reunification takes place and the Democratic will of the people is for a return to a thirty-two county Republic,what will they do then? Enjoy your wee bit of power while you can. You will live to regret your intransigence.
Irish has been here longer than any forgein invaders .its the most aceint language in the world .and just like its counterparts in Scotland and Wales it needs to be protected in law .itwas agreed in the good friday agreement which was ratified by all parties in the north including the dup and the people north and south .so what’s the real reason for the dups refusal
I have read through all these comments and I can say that Sam Alexander’s posts have disappeared just like the cash for ash debate.
Sure what’s the rush, aren’t they all still getting full pay…… Disgraceful behaviour and no respect for the voters in northern Ireland.
What do you think would happen?,If the British government said tomorrow there ye go Ireland.The six counties are yours to rule..We have a government who can barely rule us.And we want that melting pot of sectarian bigoted ignorant “people”to be citizens of the republic.The only answer would be a civil war.Because the Unionists would rather die that leave the union.Now just to clarify,I’m Irish I long for a United Ireland.But if they up there cant live together how could they live with the rest of us.
Sinn Fein should walk away from these talks.
Joint sovereignty of the 6 counties Is needed.
DUP/ UDA are too bigoted to to have an Irish Language Act. This dinosaur party what to relive the past.But NI is on longer a Protestant land for Protestant people. Thank God dinosaurs have a history of die ing out.
If the British government leave thee is no union. How hard is that for you to understand?
Are they going to have a ‘take us back’ bombing campaign in London?
Are they going to fight for an independent six county state where they’re already a minority?
Or are they going to fight for an independent two and a half county NI with East Belfast as its capital city?
A lot of national school teachers can’t even speak the language. Have to do revision courses to pass the test…
Is ugly Arlene to stupid to understand what power sharing means the problem here is the Unionist have had so much power for so long in the North of Ireland that they are blinded by the words POWER SHARING.
For once I agree with Arlene. To make irish language compulsory for schools on northern Ireland is idiotic.
@Graeme Murphy: But nobody is looking for that. It’s an “Aunt Sally” for Arlene to “defeat” when she finally climbs down and agrees an Irish Language Act. In other words, this is all an act of political theatre.
have your say