Trydar, Tweets or Giolcacha!

There is an interesting article in todays Guardian (Am I the only person who still thinks of it as the Manchester Guardian - like the Examiner I still think of it's original local affiliation?).

It is talking about an English speaking journalist who spent many years abroad serving the English press returning home and finding that his country has "reverted" to a truly respectful attitude to its own ancient heritage. There are some similarities perhaps to Ireland too.

I mostly follow the Irish language media, Raidío na Gaeltachta, TG4, Tuairisc, Meoin Eile and Nós and all too few print publications - no daily or weekly is published.

I do not follow the English Language media published in Ireland (The Irish media?) - though it is almost impossible to ignore it's smothering presence. Anyway back to the hillsides of Wales. The language there is respected. The Welsh Government tries to truly represent all the people. They even have two twitter accounts, @LlywodraethCym and @WelshGovernment.

Respect or?

What has Ireland got? 

@merrionstreet is an English Language presence with the odd tweet in Irish - mostly about Language issues though more recently some other topics have sneaked through. Even the President is @PresidentIRL and of late seems to have abandoned routine tweets in the National Language. The Taoiseach never tweets in Irish.

Even the Department with responsibility for the Gaeltacht - @DeptCulturelRL - is in English. Only one unlikely Government Department has the Irish name for its twitter handle - can you guess which?

Indeed the European Parliament with it's Irish twitter account seems to tweet more in this official language than the account of most if not all Government Departments or the Houses of the Oireachtas.

Only two State Bodies regularly publish bilingually on twitter (or at all), both based in the Gaeltacht - Udarás na Gaeltachta and the Coimisinéir Teanga. (Raidío na Gaeltachta and TG4 do mostly publish in Irish of course.) The only State Organisation that has both an Irish & English Language twitter account is The Central Statistic Office @POStaidrimh  and @CSOIreland. Who'll be next?

Even when a Government Department provides an Irish version of a release or policy or a consultation it rarely if ever publicises it. 

The article in the Guardian makes good and encouraging reading for those anxious to ensure the continuation (no not preservation!) of the original language of the Britons. It does however slip into some of the misconceptions people who speak Irish will recognise. It condescendingly describes Hew Edwards, long time anchor of BBC TV News, as an "evangelical Welsh speaker." We are used to this condescension in any obituaries or descriptions have we in Ireland seen, "Irish language enthusiast," "fluent Irish Speaker" "Inverterate Irish speaker" etc etc. I have heard Hew Edwards speak in Welsh on television once. It is his language. He is hardly an evangelist. Was Angela Merkel a language evangelist because she only spoke publicly in German?

A lot of people speak in Irish, my neighbours do, because it is the language of the place. It is their language. Few if any can be described as "evangelists" or even "enthusiasts." They speak Irish because it is their means of communication. Yet the state makes it virtually impossible for them to communicate indeed actually discourages it use. 

Recently I sense that Irish does seem to be more alive on line - like Welsh because of Raidío na Gaeltachta and TG4 but also I believe because of the influence of the Irish Speaking schools. There are other outlets too in radio, print and social media (and not all with State support).

It looks like there will be a long wait however for our Government to emulate the Welsh example. Maybe it's time for another commission or study group.