A former Presbyterian moderator has challenged the GAA to take a lead in attempting to de-politicise the Irish language.
The Rev Dr Norman Hamilton told more than 400 GAA members at the organisation’s Ulster conference on Saturday past that Irish street signs and bilingual letters paid for by taxpayers antagonised many unionists.
Speaking in Armagh City Hotel, where a week earlier the Ulster Unionist Party conference took place, Dr Hamilton told the audience that pressing for Irish street signs in an area could lead to them just taking over from flags as a means of marking out territory.
Dr Hamilton, who said that he had been asked by the GAA to deliver a “challenge” at the event, received a standing ovation after his speech.
The north Belfast minister said that, although not an Irish speaker himself, he had no opposition to the language and said he was aware that it was a “key expression of Irish culture, history and that Irish medium schools have a valued place in our educational system”.
Speaking to the News Letter, Dr Hamilton said that there was a need for wider nationalism and unionism to address their differences but “away from dialogue by megaphone or across airwaves or blogs”.
Asked whether he was conscious of the adverse reaction to the Rev Dr David Latimer’s speech to the Sinn Fein conference last month, Dr Hamilton stressed that the GAA was a sporting rather than a political body so there was no comparison.
On Saturday he told members that speaking Irish was compulsory for Presbyterian ministers in the 1830s in Ulster and added: “In today’s world, I would actually expect native Irish speakers to do business in Irish, to have everyday conversation in Irish, to have radio and TV programmes in Irish.
“This greatly enriches the cultural traditions of the island. I do not want to see the Irish language relegated to the back benches.
“However it is simply stating a fact to say that if it is used unwisely, it switches off and even antagonises very many – maybe even a majority of the unionist population here in the north.”
He added: “It is not always wise to use a right to its fullest extent if in doing so we increase resistance to that right…for example, to press for a second set of street signs in Irish is to stake an exclusivist claim for territory in a way that flags also do.
“Or again, when a government department sends me a bilingual letter in Irish as well as in English – as has happened – I ask myself: Why am I getting pages of written material, paid for by the taxpayer, that the sender knows I cannot read?”
He said that Northern Ireland could learn from Wales where the Welsh language has ceased to be a political issue and all parties compete for the votes of Welsh speakers – not just Plaid Cymru.
He said that one of the GAA’s strengths was its parish-level organisation which helped to engender a sense of community.
But he added that it was important for both the GAA and churches to reach beyond their community to those who were not like them.
The GAA’s head of public affairs, Ryan Feeney, said that the body was “up for the challenge of seeing how we can de-politicise the Irish language”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster’s Sunday Sequence programme: “Irish was the indigenous language of this island – it belongs to everyone. I completely understand the points that Norman makes and the idea out there that maybe the Irish language belongs to one section of the community, that’s taken as read; that challenge is noted."
“I think what we have to do now is ensure that the Irish language becomes something that’s shared.”
He added: “We want to de-politicise the Irish language, we want it to be shared by everyone – I think an Irish language act is the best way to do that, that’s something that the GAA has been calling for. People shouldn’t fear it, they should welcome it.”