The most widely accepted description of loyalism is Billy Mitchell’s The Principles of Loyalism. The Principles are material wellbeing, civil and religious freedom, equal citizenship within the United Kingdom and the use of armed resistance (you can find out more about loyalist feminism here).
The Principles were codified by Mitchell in 2001 but were in practice for many years prior and remain the ‘litmus test’ for loyalism. It is clear from he Principles that as loyalists we must support the protection and promotion of minority languages. Language is about communication and an inability to communicate effectively will preclude someone from equal citizenship and impact their civil freedom. Part of what language communicates is status and identity and therefore inadequate protections for minority languages have clear impacts on material wellbeing, civil freedom and equal citizenship. Our support for protecting and promoting minority languages should not come from a place of ideology and exclusion but should be based on inclusion and human rights.
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (The Charter) is a human rights based framework that together with the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities constitutes the Council of Europe’s commitment to the protection of national minorities. The European convention for the protection and promotion of languages used by traditional minorities was adopted in 1998. In a society as divided as ours where language is often used to exclude The Charter has the advantage of providing a standardised framework for the protection of all minority languages. The Charter’s monitoring mechanism was strengthened in 2018 and since July 2019 states have been required to present a report on languages covered by The Charter every 5 years. Issues with The Charter’s monitoring mechanisms remain and should be strengthened still further but it does meet the requirements for language protection laid out in the recent New Decade New Approach agreement.
Sign Languages
Currently the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages covers Irish/Gaeilge and Ulster Scots/Ullans but does not extend to British Sign Language (BSL) or Irish Sign Language (ISL). Both sign languages used in Northern Ireland were recognised by the Secretary of State as languages in 2004. However, legal recognition did not improve access to services or outcomes for sign language users. Deaf people have poorer overall health, poorer educational outcomes and experience higher rates of domestic violence. The aggregated discrimination against sign language users impacts their material wellbeing, access to their civil and religious freedom and hampers practice of their equal citizenship. Attempts have been made to address this, most notably the Sign Language Partnership Group (SLPG) led by the Department for Communities. Access to services and equality of outcomes for sign language users could be improved by the creation of a Commissioner for BSL and ISL (which could build on the existing work of the SLPG) and inclusion in The Charter as ‘non-territorial languages’.
Irish/Gaeilge
There are no Irish/Gaeilge monoglots in Northern Ireland and no evidence to suggest that Gaeilgeoirí (Irish/Gaeilge speakers) have poorer outcomes compared to the general population and so the human rights implications of not being able to access all services in the language are less severe than for sign language users. However the desire for an Irish Language Act (ILA) is understandable, speakers of the language want it to be given legal recognition in this way as they believe it will make it easier to access services in the language (and therefore live more of their life through the medium of Irish/Gaeilge) and that it will confer status on the language. Gaeilgeoirí motivation for campaigning for the Act was summed up by Séamus Ó Tuama, Principal of Bunscoil Phobal Feirste when he said that the Act would ‘be recognition psychologically for the Irish language community that they’re loved, that they’re protected, that they’re recognised’. However, I don’t think that the evidence supports the idea that legislation specific to the Irish Language will achieve these aims.
The Irish language is thriving in NI, the Belfast Gaeltacht is growing and demand for Irish medium education is increasing. This demand is increasing amongst the loyalist community as well. Attempts to set up an Irish medium nursery within Braniel PS had popular support in our community and classes in Turas are going from strength to strength. This has been the work of committed individuals and grassroots organisations rather than political parties or state support. The language is not as vibrant in the Republic of Ireland (RoI) despite long term state support and legislation.
Increasing the use of Irish and increasing the number of citizens who are bilingual remain ‘objectives of [RoI] government policy’ but this has not led to an increase in the amount of their life Gaeilgeoirí can live through the medium of Irish in practical terms. A report published in 2015 concluded that ‘Irish will no longer be the primary language in any Gaeltacht community’ in the RoI by 2025. In 2021 an Irish speaking couple were told to reapply for Irish Citizenship in English as the Irish Language version of the form had not been kept up to date by the state. In the RoI the impact of ideologically motivated state support for the language has been to reduce community use and confine it more and more to the moribund environment of the classroom.
Language survival depends on people using the language to communicate in their everyday lives, the evidence suggests that ideologically motivated state support achieves the opposite outcome. Minority languages need grass-roots responsive, human rights based support to thrive. This can best be achieved for all our minority languages by utilising the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages fully.
A separate legal framework for Irish/Gaeilge such as that envisioned in a standalone ILA has potentially exclusionary and discriminatory implications that can’t be ignored. Previous misuse of the language must be recognised and the impact it has had on access to the language for loyalists still needs to be reckoned with. In the 1980s Sinn Fein co-opted Irish/Gaeilge and weaponised our shared heritage with slogans like ‘every phrase you learn is another bullet’. Most working-class protestants first introduction to the language is having ‘Tiocfaidh ár lá’ shouted at us or seeing it over a mural to a hunger striker or other IRA man. There needs to be an understanding of how working-class protestants have experienced the language and that it has been used to mark territory and make us feel unsafe. Protecting and promoting Irish/Gaeilge using a shared framework for minority languages like The Charter will help make the language more autonomous from idealogues who use it as part of a package of exclusionary measures to disenfranchise loyalists (and unionists more generally) from Irishness.
Ulster-Scots/Ullans
The promotion and protection of Ulster-Scots/Ullans has been hampered by classism and neglect in state provision of educational services. Like the fate of Occitan in France, Ulster-Scots suffered greatly from state control of education. In the 1830s ‘the National School system enabled the Anglo-Irish establishment to frame a curriculum which privileged English language, literature and cultural values, and marginalised Ulster’s Scottish cultural heritage’. The language was associated with the rural working class and parents became reluctant to hand it down to their children for fear of discrimination. The famine and high rates of emigration further decimated Ulster-Scots/Ullans.
Community action saved Ulster-Scots/Ullans from extinction and in 1992 a society was established ‘to restore the status of the language after generations of neglect and disparagement’. As a result of the lobbying of community groups and individual activists Ulster-Scots/Ullans was recognised in the Belfast Agreement of 1998 and the United Kingdom government formally accepted Ulster-Scots/Ullans as a language in January 2000. Most recently the Ulster-Scots community was recognised as a national minority in the NDNA agreement.
The material wellbeing and equal citizenship of the Ulster-Scots/Ullans community requires changes to how the UK government reports to The Charter’s Monitoring Cycle and fuller development of the use of the language in education. This is a key demand of the community and is reflected in the 2015 Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure 20 year strategy for Ulster-Scots which includes the development of a GCSE in the language. Currently the UK government reports on Irish/Gaeilge and Ulster-Scots/Ullans to The Charter’s Monitoring Cycle under the same heading. In future Irish/Gaeilge and Ulster-Scots/Ullans should be reported under separate headings in the same manner as Scots and Scottish Gaelic. This will help reduce the harmful impression of these two minority languages as rivals.
Learn a Language to Save it
Northern Ireland is fortunate to be home to a vibrant and diverse linguistic heritage but minority languages around the world are under threat. By the end of the 21st century it is expected that half of the world’s languages will be dead. We can act now to save our linguistic diversity by focussing on human rights based, inclusive community development for minority languages. Ideologically motivated state support assists with national myth building but does little of practical use for minority language speakers. This can best be achieved for all our minority languages by utilising the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages fully.
I would encourage every loyalist to learn our minority languages. It is the ultimate contribution to saving them, it is enjoyable, and it makes life more accessible to everyone. Follow these links to begin your polyglot journey!
Sources
Member State Implementation of the Recommendations contained in the Committee of Experts’ fifth evaluation report on the UNITED KINGDOM, The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Council of Europe, 2021
FactCheck: Are there really more Polish speakers than Irish speakers in Northern Ireland?, The Journal.Ie, 2017
Ulster-Scots ‘forgotten in some ways’, Robbie Meredith, BBC News, 2017
Language Ecology, Philippa Law in BBC Voices, BBC, 2014
Protestant Learners of Irish in Northern Ireland, Gordon McCoy in The Irish Language in NORTHERN IRELAND, Aodán Mac Póilin, Ultach Trust, 1997
Ulster-Scots in the Northern Ireland Census, Centre for the Scots Leid
Sign Language, Department for Communities
A Wee Guide to the Ulster-Scots Language, The Ulster-Scots Agency
The Ulster-Scots Language Society
An introduction to the Ulster-Scots Language, The Ulster-Scots Agency
