Kicked out of a Taxi for speaking Irish.

jimgoose

Fratton Fred wrote: »

In what sense?

In the sense of a "Black Presbyterian", i.e. the Back Preceptory, the black sash of the higher ranks of the Orange order, etc. Come on Fred, you know that!

Fratton Fred

jimgoose wrote: »

In the sense of a "Black Presbyterian", i.e. the Back Preceptory, the black sash of the higher ranks of the Orange order, etc. Come on Fred, you know that!

I know very little about the Orange order.

Maybe the people he threw out were dissident republicans planning a bomb attack. Maybe they were aliens.

Maybe people should stop jumping to baseless conclusions.

jimgoose

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I know very little about the Orange order.

Maybe the people he threw out were dissident republicans planning a bomb attack. Maybe they were aliens.

Maybe people should stop jumping to baseless conclusions.

Maybe they should. :cool:

Gambas

dundalkfc10 wrote: »

People he have no idea how Irish emigrants etc are treated in Scotland, its wide spread and ive got more abuse for being a catholic from Dundalk in Glasgow than in any part of the North

How did anyone in Glasgow know you are a Catholic?

Fratton Fred

Gambas wrote: »

How did anyone in Glasgow know you are a Catholic?

He was giving mass at the time.

iDave

chucky our law

Femme_Fatale

Way too much taking this story as gospel.

I have no tolerance for anti Irishness/sectarianism/sneering at the Irish language and likening support of it to being a ra-head, but this is the kind of story where the other side deserves a hearing.

They could have been acting the bollocks, then speaking in Irish to wind up the taxi-driver and indicate to him that they were talking about him, etc, causing him to lose his patience.

I don't see any point in jumping to believe this story is completely accurate. Lots of stories' truth is embellished for a bit of scandal.

TheBuilder

dundalkfc10 wrote: »

People he have no idea how Irish emigrants etc are treated in Scotland, its wide spread and ive got more abuse for being a catholic from Dundalk in Glasgow than in any part of the North

There are intolerant people in all walks of society you know but I sure as hell don't tar all Irish people as sectarian/racist/bigots/insert other buzzword here for the abuse I received from a minority growing up as a Scottish Rangers fan in Ireland.

And how do people in Glasgow know you're a Catholic?

It was 2am in Glasgow, the driver was elderly and may well have been intimidated and is probably well within his rights to refuse the fare.

A Hampden Cabs spokesman said the driver said he had been subjected to "sectarian abuse".

He said: "There are two sides to every story. The driver is very elderly and he was getting sectarian abuse. He was left very shaken.".

dpofloinn

Thats something I never thought I'd see Glasgow and biggotry linked in the same article

RDM_83 again

Coming from the North I have no doubt it could have been a sectarian motive.

But don't most people that speak Irish abroad do it to talk about other people behind their backs*, something that would probably piss of most people who are aware of it , and the taxi driver would have been aware of it since they would have ordered the taxi and conversed with him in fluent English then switched to Irish, not saying he's not a bollocks but taxi drivers that are bollocks aren;t exactly in short supply.

* Its a pretty stupid assumption sometime as well, one of my friends is married to a French girl, queuing up for a flight one time he was chatting away to the wife in French, behind him two Irish girls started nattering away in Irish about the other people in the queue, he let them go on for a few minutes before turning around and laying into them in fluent Irish

GaelMise

Racism Probe

Anthony Blair (20) and his brother Joe (22) were visiting their grandmother in Glasgow when a cabbie ordered them to stop speaking Irish. Student teacher Anthony said he had assured the driver he wasn’t talking about him. Glasgow council are now investigating the taxi company after a race discrimination complaint by a cousin — Kathleen McAleer — who was also in the cab at the time. “I was sitting with my back to the driver, in the back of the taxi, and I was just chatting to Joe,” said Anthony, who is a student at St Patrick’s College in Dublin and a native Irish speaker from Gweedore, Co Donegal.

Iwasfrozen

GaelMise wrote: »

Racism Probe

I'd be very surprised if that goes anywhere. It's simply not racist to kick a person out of your car for speaking any language. A dick thing to do yes and possibly xenophobic but it's not racist. That may seem like a petty difference but the law in question tdv quoted earlier explicitly defined a hate crime as racial.

Paz-CCFC

Just re the discussion of this being a crime/racist, the UK Equality Act does not allow discrimination in the providing of services based on several grounds, one of which is race. Race includes ethnic and national origins. Ireland has a similar law, known as the Equal Status Act, where language falls under race. I'd think it'd be the same in the UK. I the taxi driver did kick them out of the taxi for speaking Irish, then I think they're well entitled to make a complaint.

inforfun wrote: »

Somehow i think i would have been thrown out of that taxi if i had been in there with 2 friends speaking Dutch.....
Have been told to speak English here in Ireland when speaking Dutch. Choose to just ignore it in stead of running to a newspaper though.

Shenshen wrote: »

Had they been speaking German or Hindi it wouldn't even have made the news.

I've been told off before on a bus in Dublin for chatting to my friend in German.

Are ye actually happy to put up with this kind of stuff? Imo, it's not on. Some intolerant, insecure gobsh*te shouldn't be able to dictate what language people speak.

Why is it such a big thing just because it's Irish in this case?

Maybe because this is an Irish forum where most people are Irish, and, behind English, Irish speakers likely make up the next biggest language group on the forum? If it happened to a speaker of any other language, the issue would be just as big, it just wouldn't be as relevant to an Irish forum.

Iwasfrozen

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

Just re the discussion of this being a crime/racist, the UK Equality Act does not allow discrimination in the providing of services based on several grounds, one of which is race. Race includes ethnic and national origins. Ireland has a similar law, known as the Equal Status Act, where language falls under race. I'd think it'd be the same in the UK. I the taxi driver did kick them out of the taxi for speaking Irish, then I think they're well entitled to make a complaint.

Are ye actually happy to put up with this kind of stuff? Imo, it's not on. Some intolerant, insecure gobsh*te shouldn't be able to dictate what language people speak.

Are you sure about that? Does the act explicitly mention language? Has there been any precedent case on this issue?

I think it would be very hard to make the case that your language defines your race. Especially in such an open and diverse country as the UK.

Paz-CCFC

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Are you sure about that? Does the act explicitly mention language? Has there been any precedent case on this issue?

The act doesn't explicitly state it, but the Irish Labour Court have ruled that it falls within the definition of race. Campbell Catering v Rasaq is an example of such a case.

I can't say for sure about what the UK courts have said on the matter, but when you have Irish and UK legislation that are very close in wording and purpose, the two court systems tend to make similar rulings.

I think it would be very hard to make the case that your language defines your race. Especially in such an open and diverse country as the UK.

I'd think that the huge diversity within the UK is a reason to be more sensitive about matters.

Iwasfrozen

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

The act doesn't explicitly state it, but the Irish Labour Court have ruled that it falls within the definition of race. Campbell Catering v Rasaq is an example of such a case.

I can't say for sure about what the UK courts have said on the matter, but when you have Irish and UK legislation that are very close in wording and purpose, the two court systems tend to make similar rulings.

I looked up the case it seems the woman was awarded compensation because she lost her job under the false accusation of stealing five bananas. Not because she spoke Yoruba, although it is noted the employer forbid the speaking of any language other than English in the workplace that's not why she was let go.

I'd also be careful about applying Irish precedents to the UK, while our legal system is similar it's not identical.

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

I'd think that the huge diversity within the UK is a reason to be more sensitive about matters.

Britain is a open and diverse land home to many races, they have a huge multi ethnic sub-population who would all consider themselves British and speak English as their native language. Language isn't tied with race for them.

inforfun

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

Are ye actually happy to put up with this kind of stuff? Imo, it's not on. Some intolerant, insecure gobsh*te shouldn't be able to dictate what language people speak.

I dont really care. Usually tell them what i think of them and that is the end of it. Might help i that i am considered a big ****er (6'3") here. Ends discussions pretty fast most of the times.

Paz-CCFC

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I looked up the case it seems the woman was awarded compensation because she lost her job under the false accusation of stealing five bananas. Not because she spoke Yoruba, although it is noted the employer forbid the speaking of any language other than English in the workplace that's not why she was let go.

The court ruled that the employer used the alleged theft (which they found did not occur) as an excuse to dismiss her based on racial discrimination. They said that the case was a matter of discrimination based on race and not a matter of unfair dismissal.

I'd also be careful about applying Irish precedents to the UK, while our legal system is similar it's not identical.

It's not at all uncommon to use decisions from other jurisdictions in deciding a case. Both the Irish and UK legislation for equality are based heavily on EU law, as well. It'd be very likely, imo, that a UK court could naturally come to the same conclusion as the Irish labour court, without any references to our law, for this reason.

Of course, any case would be depend very much on the particular facts, and the burden of proof is originally on the claimant. The passengers of the taxi would have to give evidence and the court would have to decide whether that evidence, on the face of it, was discriminatory

Britain is a open and diverse land home to many races, they have a huge multi ethnic sub-population who would all consider themselves British and speak English as their native language. Language isn't tied with race for them.

But language is, in my opinion, one of the characteristics that define race. We're maybe getting a bit technical, but it's described as "a group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc. " in the Oxford Dictionaries.

inforfun wrote: »

I dont really care. Usually tell them what i think of them and that is the end of it. Might help i that i am considered a big ****er (6'3") here. Ends discussions pretty fast most of the times.

And you're dead right. It's not on that anyone should even give out to you about something like this, because it's none of their business. Likely, if what the Irish people in the article claim is accurate, it was none of the taxi driver's business.

grenache

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Are the Irish and Scots different races?

I don't see how that is relevant?

But to answer your question, they are the same race, and effectively two sides of the same group of people. Since the first Scottish were indeed Irish.