At
Celtic Connections festival each year I hear the beautiful and very moving
Irish and Scottish Gaelic singers.
I was
shocked recently to hear former Northern Ireland politician David Trimble, Ulster
Unionist Party, (UUP) claim that the DUP feel the Republicans wish to use the Irish Gaelic language as a weapon!
Part of the
discussion over the power sharing at Stormont in Northern Ireland, is over the
legal use of the Irish language.By comparison Scots Gaelic and Welsh Gaelic
both have equal status for use in schools and on signs etc.
Why not Irish Gaelic?
I assume the
cracks run deeper – this is about the struggle between British imperialism and
the suppression of indigenous cultures. I’ve often wondered – why can’t the two
nations run side by side.
Part of the
problem is English entitlement and superiority and empire building attitudes. After the union of England and
Scotland in 1707 many Scots poets - Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns and others - while encouraged to write in English, they decided it was only in
their native tongue of Scots that they could really express themselves.
Then I read
the Wee Ginger Dug’s, Paul Kavanagh (wonderful
Scots writer who expresses so well the conflicts for Scotland today) his
article on Orange Hate. He had looked into the history behind it all. It
appears the first Scots settlers to Northern Ireland were early 17th
century, after the union of the crowns and they spoke Gaelic, oddly!
The Scots Presbyterians who settled in Northern Ireland during
the Plantations in the 17th century came predominantly from Galloway and
Ayrshire. At that time those parts of Scotland were mostly Gaelic speaking, and
they spoke a dialect of Scottish Gaelic which had more in common with Irish
than most of the surviving dialects of the language do. One of the first
Presbyterian ministers ordained in Ireland, a certain Jeremiah O'Quin from
Bushmills in the north of county Antrim, was a native Irish speaker who was
ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1647. Presbyterian services were
conducted in the medium of Irish throughout the next two centuries. One of the
first books for people who wished to teach themselves Irish was written and
published by a Presbyterian minister. The Rev. William Neilson of Kilmore in
County Down published An Introduction to the Irish Language in 1808.
It was based on the speech of his own parishoners. In the 19th century there
were Presbyterian schools in the Glens of Antrim and Tyrone and all across
Northern Ireland which taught Irish speaking Presbyterians to read and write
with the aid of the Irish language bible.
The Pope was also an ally
of William of Orange – in a battle against France! When William defeated James at the Battle of the Boyne, the Pope
ordered the bells of the Vatican to ring in celebration! Ah there’s a thing
then – what “side” exactly are Orange men on?!
The establsihments?
This appears to be a
battle between British imperialism and one culture dominating another – or Co-existence
and acceptance of differences and other cultures, and otherness.
What I don’t
understand is why different nations can’t live separately in todays inter
connected world and also live side by side…
