UUP chief whip tells Queen’s young unionists why Irish Language Act would have been deeply divisive
Speaking to Young Unionists at Queens University on Monday night, Ulster Unionist Chief Whip and Strangford MLA David McNarry said the UUP was not against people wishing to speak or promote Irish but that an Irish Language Act would have been deeply divisive. In a speech to Young Unionists Mr McNarry set out the UUP position,
“I should say at the outset that, despite Republican efforts to paint us as bigots on the language issue, the Ulster Unionist Party respects cultural diversity. It creates a stable, peaceful, pluralist society. In a way tolerance, diversity and pluralism of views is the very essence of what it means to be British.
Modern Britain is a haven for different cultures, ideas, traditions and languages precisely because we do not seek to impose our will or project some kind of superiority or political connotation onto our language and culture.
That’s why we oppose this Act– this respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to linguistic diversity - and that we tried to enshrine into the Agreement before the DUP opened it all up again - would have been fundamentally undermined by the proposed Act.
Make no bones about it, the Irish Language Act would only further politicise Irish, place an undue and costly emphasis upon it and allow it to be used as a cultural weapon in an unarmed struggle. It is not enough for Republicans (and to a lesser degree nationalists in the SDLP) to have Irish language promoted normally, they demand a neon ultra-Irish shoved in the face of the majority of people in Northern Ireland.
Listening to those in the Pro-Act lobby and Irish lobby generally, you’d think that the use of Irish was widespread and was somehow being held back from a renaissance type explosion. Not so. The last census shows us that just a little over 75,000 people in Northern Ireland can speak, read and write in Irish. 75,000 people. That’s about 4% of our population here in Northern Ireland.
You will all be aware of the current pressures on public expenditure in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland must tighten its collective fiscal belt after the miracle financial package that the DUP made a pre-requesite to devolution, failed to materialise.
So, on a sound financial basis it doesn’t make any sense to spend that much money on such a small group. But it’s about more than money. Irish Language is used by Republicans not to be inclusive but to be exclusive. It is used as an expression of the aspirations of Irish Republicans.
As a result it has been turned from something that any pluralist British person can accept as a legitimate form of expression and a celebration of tradition, into something deeply political divisive. We don’t need an Irish Language Act and never will.”