Man arrested in Derry under anti-terrorism legislation - for using Irish.

P. Breathnach

GaelMise wrote: »

Do go on, for the person that wants to conduct their business through Irish, what is the difference?

Well, I agreed with what you said, and now you want me to explain it!

It's quite simple really: a law that requires that courts operate through the English language is not one that targets Irish for special exclusion; every language other than English is excluded.

Jawgap

GaelMise wrote: »

So before 1737, when the majority of the population of the Island spoke Irish, not English, you believe Irish was never used in courts?

And a ban on all languages except English had nothing to do with the majority language of the population at the time (Irish)?

What language pray tell did the vast numbers of Irish speaking people with no English at the time use when they found themselves in court? Swahili?

I'm sure if it was you could point to a legal document in Irish.

No they used Latin or French.

As for the majority speaking Irish - even An Coimisinéir Teanga doesn't believe that.....

By the end of the 18th Century, less than 50% of the population was monolingual Irish-speaking

osarusan

GaelMise wrote: »

Still don't know the guy so I can say what his motivations were, the fact of the matter is I don't care if his only wish in life is to be arrested by the PSNI, arresting him for giving his name in Irish is still indefensible.

You can't say what his motivations were.

So how can you describe his arrest as indefensible, when it might have been his intention to behave in a way which made his arrest inevitable?

GaelMise wrote: »

If I was stopped and gave my name and address in Irish, which is what I always do, and was arrested for it, then yes, god forgive me, but it would occure to me that I was just arrested for giving my name and address in Irish.

If you gave you your house number (number 21, for example), in Irish, and the officer asked you to say the house number in English, what would you do?

anncoates

Isn't it strange that his quest to normalize Irish just happened to involve lipping off to the police. Or does he, say, walk into takeaways and insist on ordering in Irish or only talk to customer service representatives in Irish even if neither understand him?

GaelMise

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Well, I agreed with what you said, and now you want me to explain it!

Sorry, came accross as sarcasam. My bad.

It's quite simple really: a law that requires that courts operate through the English language is not one that targets Irish for special exclusion; every language other than English is excluded.

I have never claimed that Irish was singled out for special exclusion, just that the use of Irish is banned by law in the courts system in the North.
That the law is one that says only English can be used rather than saying that Irish cannot be used makes little difference to this point as far as I can see.

GaelMise

Jawgap wrote: »

As for the majority speaking Irish - even An Coimisinéir Teanga doesn't believe that.....

Since when is 'before 1737' at the 'end of the 18th century'?
By the end of the 18th century the majority still spoke Irish, but were not monolingual, however we are not talking about the end of the 18th century, we are talking about the begining of the 18th century.

Donkey Oaty

GaelMise wrote: »

however we are not talking about the end of the 18th century, we are talking about the begining of the 18th century.

I remember the old days in this thread when we were talking about an event in 2014.

I'm thinking of writing a mawkish song about it.

GaelMise

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

I remember the old days in this thread when we were talking about an event in 2014.

I'm thinking of writing a mawkish song about it.

Thats northern Ireland for you, the weight of history, etc. Still we can but hope that attitudes will move on from the 18th century and into the 20th over the comming decades.

tomwaterford

anncoates wrote: »

Isn't it strange that his quest to normalize Irish just happened to involve lipping off to the police. Or does he, say, walk into takeaways and insist on ordering in Irish or only talk to customer service representatives in Irish even if neither understand him?

isn't strange that the psni cant even take basic details in irish in this day and age
they handing out bad publicity with this kind of craic and there stopping youngsters for playing hurling regulary...this when their trying to build support and being sticklers for minor points

surly it would take away a lot of bad publicity if they could even manage basic functions like this....it appears to be a case of two pigheaded individuals coming together rilling each other up until the psni officer decided that instead that instead of contacting an irish speaking officer to up the ante arrest someone for speaking irish in Ireland:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

bumper234

GaelMise wrote: »

Thats northern Ireland for you, the weight of history, etc. Still we can but hope that attitudes will move on from the 18th century and into the 20th over the comming decades.

But it's the 21st century

bumper234

tomwaterford wrote: »

isn't strange that the psni cant even take basic details in irish in this day and age
they handing out bad publicity with this kind of craic and there stopping youngsters for playing hurling regulary...this when their trying to build support and being sticklers for minor points

surly it would take away a lot of bad publicity if they could even manage basic functions like this....it appears to be a case of two pigheaded individuals coming together rilling each other up until the psni officer decided that instead that instead of contacting an irish speaking officer to up the ante arrest someone for speaking irish in Ireland:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

This happened in the UK.

On the island of Ireland for sure but in the UK

Femme_Fatale

I fully support keeping the Irish language alive, but object to the speaking-Irish-for-the-sake-of-it-even-when-it's-not-understood approach. Why do it? To find discrimination? To be deliberately contrary?

tomwaterford

bumper234 wrote: »

This happened in the UK.

On the island of Ireland for sure but in the UK

Ya like I said people living in Ireland speaking irish:rolleyes:

its like this anyone with lowish level of irish training could have taken this mans details...how much bad publicity will the psni take before they will apply a basic level of irish (jesus even get the lad to spell it for them!!) into there training

such pointless arrest over nothing.

tomwaterford

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

I fully support keeping the Irish language alive, but object to the speaking-Irish-for-the-sake-of-it-even-when-it's-not-understood approach. Why do it? To find discrimination? To be deliberately contrary?

this appears to be the case....two stubborn people against one and other

GaelMise

bumper234 wrote: »

But it's the 21st century

It is, but moving to 21st centuary attitudes would be a little bit much to hope for, we still have idiots who think Protestants should not speak Irish because it is 'part of the republican adgenda', and other idiots who think that bombing the brits out is still a viable strategy.

GaelMise

bumper234 wrote: »

This happened in the UK.

On the island of Ireland for sure but in the UK

Irish is an officially recognised language in the UK, that it happened there does not make it any less idiotic.

bumper234

GaelMise wrote: »

It is, but moving to 21st centuary attitudes would be a little bit much to hope for, we still have idiots who think Protestants should not speak Irish because it is 'part of the republican adgenda', and other idiots who think that bombing the brits out is still a viable strategy.

Well one could hardly blame them when the treasurer for sinn fein pulls stunts like this!

bumper234

GaelMise wrote: »

Irish is an officially recognised language in the UK, that it happened there does not make it any less idiotic.

So is Hindi.

Should a Hindu who speaks perfectly good English be allowed to give his details in Hindi when stopped?

GaelMise

bumper234 wrote: »

So is Hindi.

Source?

tomwaterford

bumper234 wrote: »

Well one could hardly blame them when the treasurer for sinn fein pulls stunts like this!

it is backword thinking like that made gaa members targets in the troubles....sinn feiners involved with gaa therefore their all terrorists:rolleyes::rolleyes:

zCaoLan

This is an absolute disgrace. We are in 2014, for God's sake. I couldn't believe it whenever a friend of mine made a statement about it. It's a form of discrimination, and they obviously knew that the person would not be threatening them even though you could nearly understand Irish names in English anyway. I can speak fluent Irish and I think that this is an absolute disgrace and that this man gets a good slice of compensation for it. Any other business in the world would get an interpreter to translate what he said, but it isn't even that big of a deal? This just shows that PSNI members of a different background are absolute scum. They think that they are the big men out doing this to innocent people, and I think that this just shows us the immaturity in today's society.

bumper234

zCaoLan wrote: »

This is an absolute disgrace. We are in 2014, for God's sake. I couldn't believe it whenever a friend of mine made a statement about it. It's a form of discrimination, and they obviously knew that the person would not be threatening them even though you could nearly understand Irish names in English anyway. I can speak fluent Irish and I think that this is an absolute disgrace and that this man gets a good slice of compensation for it. Any other business in the world would get an interpreter to translate what he said, but it isn't even that big of a deal? This just shows that PSNI members of a different background are absolute scum. They think that they are the big men out doing this to innocent people, and I think that this just shows us the immaturity in today's society.

Or the guy could have been the mature one and answered the questions in English as he is well able to.

tomwaterford

bumper234 wrote: »

Or the guy could have been the mature one and answered the questions in English as he is well able to.

but is he not well entitled to speak irish in Ireland??

bumper234

tomwaterford wrote: »

but is he not well entitled to speak irish in Ireland??

He was on the island of Ireland but he was subject to the rules and laws of the UK as he was conducting his business in the UK who's national language is English, a language that he is more than able to speak but chose not to so he could get exactly this type of reaction.

tomwaterford

bumper234 wrote: »

He was on the island of Ireland but he was subject to the rules and laws of the UK as he was conducting his business in the UK who's national language is English, a language that he is more than able to speak but chose not to so he could get exactly this type of reaction.

would you not think its a bit stupid the psni stoping and searching people coming in and out of houses like that
and arresting people for speaking irish in Ireland...that is possibly the stupidest reason ive ever heard for arresting someone....in whose eyes is that acceptable

bumper234

tomwaterford wrote: »

would you not think its a bit stupid the psni stoping and searching people coming in and out of houses like that
and arresting people for speaking irish in Ireland...that is possibly the stupidest reason ive ever heard for arresting someone....in whose eyes is that acceptable

People get stopped and questioned by police/guards every day of the week. Again he was on the island of Ireland but in the UNITED KINGDOM where the official language is ENGLISH a language that he is MORE THAN ABLE to converse in. He chose not to converse in English so he could get the reaction that you are giving him.

Davidius

bumper234 wrote: »

So is Hindi.

I don't think that's true.

tomwaterford

bumper234 wrote: »

People get stopped and questioned by police/guards every day of the week. Again he was on the island of Ireland but in the UNITED KINGDOM where the official language is ENGLISH a language that he is MORE THAN ABLE to converse in. He chose not to converse in English so he could get the reaction that you are giving him.

where is issue with irish people speaking irish in Ireland...im struggling to see issue here??
unless you don't want people to speak irish...what is the problem...seems psni are going out of there way to curry favour with people after the flag debacale last year

just seems stupid to arrest someone for speaking irish

Skylinehead

tomwaterford wrote: »

just seems stupid to arrest someone for speaking irish

Seriously, read the thread. This. Is. Not. What. Happened.

bumper234

Davidius wrote: »

I don't think that's true.

My apologies i got my Hindi and Urdu mixed up and it's not an "official" language but is recognized as an immigrant language.

bumper234

tomwaterford wrote: »

where is issue with irish people speaking irish in Ireland...im struggling to see issue here??
unless you don't want people to speak irish...what is the problem...seems psni are going out of there way to curry favour with people after the flag debacale last year

just seems stupid to arrest someone for speaking irish

He was arrested for

charged with not giving his details to the best of his ability under the Justice and Security Act on March 6.

Smiles35

tomwaterford wrote: »

where is issue with irish people speaking irish in Ireland...im struggling to see issue here??
unless you don't want people to speak irish...what is the problem...seems psni are going out of there way to curry favour with people after the flag debacale last year

just seems stupid to arrest someone for speaking irish

It look's terribe, i agree with you. But if they let one get away with it, others will try and annoy the cops the same. ''I'll wait here for the Irish speaking officer..'' ect. ect.

GaelMise

bumper234 wrote: »

My apologies i got my Hindi and Urdu mixed up and it's not an "official" language but is recognized as an immigrant language.

Right, well Irish is not recognised as an immigrant language, it is officially recognised as a language native to the region under the European charter on regional or minority languages.

What i dont get is why you keep shouting UNITED KINGDOM. Why should it be acceptable for people to be arrested as a result of speaking Irish in the UK, weather they are British Citizens or Irish people who have traveled to the UK.
Its a disgrace if you ask me.

tomwaterford

Just seems a bit excessive to arrest someone...could you imagine a Walsh person arrested in wales on terrorism offenses for giving their name in Wwelsh

GaelMise

Noblong wrote: »

It look's terribe, i agree with you. But if they let one get away with it, others will try and annoy the cops the same. ''I'll wait here for the Irish speaking officer..'' ect. ect.

God forbid people actually start using Irish. :eek:
The Police should not be so easily annoyed, just identify officers in each area who have Irish and give their contact details to officers on the beat, if someone wants to use Irish, contact an Irish speaking officer on the phone to communicate with the person. Simples.
Countries all over the world manage to opperate bilingually and often multilingually just fine, it's not rocket science, all it takes is a small bit of planning and a bit of tolerence for good measure.

eireannBEAR

I have learned more german from WW2 films than irish through the educational system and thats a fact!!!

Mint Sauce

Okay, just to put this out there.

Isn't the use of Irish protected in NI, the same as Scot/Welsh Gaelic is in Scotland and Wales.

Now say if I was in Germany or Austria, and was asked in GERMAN by a police officer what my name was, where I lived, and my age. My limited GCSE German would allow me to understand the question, and respond. Obviously the best of my ability would be to respond in English, but to avoid being a pr!ck, I could answer the question in German, and finish with asking do they speak Englsih, either in German or English. Could they arrest me under a similar ruling or German/Austrian legislation that this man was arrested under.

GaelMise

Mint Sauce wrote: »

Okay, just to put this out there.

Isn't the use of Irish protected in NI, the same as Scot/Welsh Gaelic is in Scotland and Wales.

Nope

It should be, everyone agreed to it as part of the Good Friday agreement, and later as part of the St Andrews Agreement, and the Council of Europe have brought it up every time they publish a report on how the UK is living up to their committments under the Charter on regional and Minority Languages, but the Unionists are not the best at the whole fairness thing and as such have been obstructing a language act.

twowheelsgood

GaelMise wrote: »

God forbid people actually start using Irish

It is chaps like your hero here and not God who discourage people from using Irish.

GaelMise wrote: »

Countries all over the world manage to opperate bilingually and often multilingually just fine, it's not rocket science, all it takes is a small bit of planning and a bit of tolerence for good measure.

They do. But usually because it is necessary. In this case it was not.

There are times and places where people can reasonably expect to be facilitated if they wish to conduct their business in Irish. This was not one of them.

This was a time and place to act the gom, and undermine rather than advance efforts to promote the Irish language.

Smiles35

GaelMise wrote: »

God forbid people actually start using Irish. :eek:

It's a novel way to crowbar in it's use. I'll give you that.:)

bumper234

GaelMise wrote: »

Right, well Irish is not recognised as an immigrant language, it is officially recognised as a language native to the region under the European charter on regional or minority languages.

What i dont get is why you keep shouting UNITED KINGDOM. Why should it be acceptable for people to be arrested as a result of speaking Irish in the UK, weather they are British Citizens or Irish people who have traveled to the UK.
Its a disgrace if you ask me.

But that's not what he was arrested for was it?

Jawgap

It doesn't really work (Crow-barring in the language). My experience of working in the public sector is that we bend over backwards to do as much as possible through Irish and facilitate anyone who wants to do their business with us through Irish.

Which is fine. Most people respect the efforts we make and accept we don't get it right all the time. I can honestly say no one has ever been forced to work with us through English, although there have been delays in getting staff with the requisite language skills on to people.

But there are a hardcore of "activists" out there who seem hell bent on nitpicking and turning various molehills into mountains. Some of the complaints we've had to deal with in the last 12/18 months......

- out of office voicemail messages not in Irish
- email addresses not being in Irish (despite the fact that I don't use the Irish version of my name)
- visitor passes / badges not in Irish
- submissions made to the European Commission being made in English only
- our employment of two Spanish staff ( they did the interviews and got the job)
- a different typeface being used in the Irish language version of a report we issued

The funny thing is, no one has any problem filling the grant application forms out in English when we advise them that it helps expedite matters with Brussels......

orangesoda

bumper234 wrote: »

People get stopped and questioned by police/guards every day of the week. Again he was on the island of Ireland but in the UNITED KINGDOM where the official language is ENGLISH a language that he is MORE THAN ABLE to converse in. He chose not to converse in English so he could get the reaction that you are giving him.

Christ son, all this mentioning of the United Kingdom and also your union jack car display picture, anyone would think you're insecure with your identity

bumper234

orangesoda wrote: »

Christ son, all this mentioning of the United Kingdom and also your union jack car display picture, anyone would think you're insecure with your identity

Not in the least i am very secure with my identity. I am a British citizen and an ex member of the British armed forces. This is the part where people say i have an agenda blah blah blah when all i am doing is pointing out that

A: he was in the UK

And

B: He was not arrested for speaking Irish in Ireland.

Jawgap

bumper234 wrote: »

Not in the least i am very secure with my identity. I am a British citizen and an ex member of the British armed forces. This is the part where people say i have an agenda blah blah blah when all i am doing is pointing out that

A: he was in the UK

And

B: He was not arrested for speaking Irish in Ireland.

And in 5......4......3......2......1...............

bumper234

Jawgap wrote: »

And in 5......4......3......2......1...............

orangesoda

bumper234 wrote: »

Not in the least i am very secure with my identity. I am a British citizen and an ex member of the British armed forces. This is the part where people say i have an agenda blah blah blah when all i am doing is pointing out that

A: he was in the UK

And

B: He was not arrested for speaking Irish in Ireland.

what's your old job got to do with things? did you join to feel more culturally content or something?

Jawgap

orangesoda wrote: »

what's your old job got to do with things? did you join to feel more culturally content or something?

........and we're offffffffffffff...........

orangesoda

Jawgap wrote: »

........and we're offffffffffffff...........

what are you on about son?, sure I view myself as Irish-British myself, you're likely thinking i'm a 'shiner'

end of the road

bumper234 wrote: »

he was in the UK

no he wasn't, he was in ireland, northern ireland is irelands stolen territory

bumper234 wrote: »

He was not arrested for speaking Irish in Ireland.

yes he was, he gave his details, up to the RUC officer to understand what he was saying