18 December 1997 Edition
A tongue which sounds so odd
Proinsias O Maolchalain admires the historical consistency of the London Times
Gerry Adams's meeting with Tony Blair was always going to provoke some excesses from the British media. But for sheer bigotry and, in fairness, historical consistency the editorial in the London Times on Friday was in a different league.
Titled ``Forked Tongues: Gerry Adams' Gaelic words send false signals,'' the Times complained that ``the climax for Mr Adams in a day of distasteful theatrical contrivance was his studied use of Irish on the Downing Street doorstep... Deliberately ignoring an inquiry in English, Mr Adams sought out a figure in the crowd who addressed the Sinn Féin leader in Gaelic. Mr Adams' choice of language will have been as carefully choreographed as...the stately procession down Whitehall. The ambassadorial overcoat, motorcade, bodyguards and, most of all, the tongue which sounds so odd to British ears are all designed to suggest that Mr Adams is the representative of a foreign people come to talk peace and negotiate colonial withdrawal.''
Sinn Féin, we are told, ``wished to be seen not as a political party representing a part of the United Kingdom's population trying to improve its government but a foreign delegation seeking an end to occupation.''
Well, at least something has sunk in. But the Times had even more to say on the subject of the odd sounding tongue: ``His use of Irish, like his use of violence, is another act of cynical calculation to advance his aim of denying Ulster's democratic majority its rights. When the commander of the IRA's Belfast brigade issued orders to kill he did not do so in the language of Cuchulain but the brutal urban English of a Leninist warlord.''
The British should realise by now that the days when an Irish national leader would refuse like Garrett Fitzgerald in Chequers, to answer a question in Irish, ``for fear of giving offence'', are long since over.
But you have to admire the consistency of the Times. In 1867 the paper condemned the Eisteddfod, a Welsh language festival similar to the Oireachtas in Ireland, as follows:
``The Welsh language is the curse of Wales. Its prevalence, and the ignorance of English have excluded, and even now exclude the Welsh people from the civilisation of their English neighbours. An Eisteddfod is one of the most mischievous and selfish pieces of sentimentalism which could possibly be perpetuated. It is simply a foolish interference with the natural progress of civilisation and prosperity. If it is desirable that the Welsh should talk English, it is monstrous folly to encourage them in a loving fondness for their old language. Not only the energy and power, but the intelligence and music of Europe have come mainly from Teutonic sources, and this glorification of everything Celtic, if it were not pedantry, would be sheer ignorance. The sooner all Welsh specialities disappear from the face of the earth the better.''
As Matthew Arnold, Professor of Poetry in Oxford remarked at the time, ``Behold England's difficulty in governing Ireland!''
Gerry Adams's meeting with Tony Blair was always going to provoke some excesses from the British media. But for sheer bigotry and, in fairness, historical consistency the editorial in the London Times on Friday was in a different league.
Titled ``Forked Tongues: Gerry Adams' Gaelic words send false signals,'' the Times complained that ``the climax for Mr Adams in a day of distasteful theatrical contrivance was his studied use of Irish on the Downing Street doorstep... Deliberately ignoring an inquiry in English, Mr Adams sought out a figure in the crowd who addressed the Sinn Féin leader in Gaelic. Mr Adams' choice of language will have been as carefully choreographed as...the stately procession down Whitehall. The ambassadorial overcoat, motorcade, bodyguards and, most of all, the tongue which sounds so odd to British ears are all designed to suggest that Mr Adams is the representative of a foreign people come to talk peace and negotiate colonial withdrawal.''
Sinn Féin, we are told, ``wished to be seen not as a political party representing a part of the United Kingdom's population trying to improve its government but a foreign delegation seeking an end to occupation.''
Well, at least something has sunk in. But the Times had even more to say on the subject of the odd sounding tongue: ``His use of Irish, like his use of violence, is another act of cynical calculation to advance his aim of denying Ulster's democratic majority its rights. When the commander of the IRA's Belfast brigade issued orders to kill he did not do so in the language of Cuchulain but the brutal urban English of a Leninist warlord.''
The British should realise by now that the days when an Irish national leader would refuse like Garrett Fitzgerald in Chequers, to answer a question in Irish, ``for fear of giving offence'', are long since over.
But you have to admire the consistency of the Times. In 1867 the paper condemned the Eisteddfod, a Welsh language festival similar to the Oireachtas in Ireland, as follows:
``The Welsh language is the curse of Wales. Its prevalence, and the ignorance of English have excluded, and even now exclude the Welsh people from the civilisation of their English neighbours. An Eisteddfod is one of the most mischievous and selfish pieces of sentimentalism which could possibly be perpetuated. It is simply a foolish interference with the natural progress of civilisation and prosperity. If it is desirable that the Welsh should talk English, it is monstrous folly to encourage them in a loving fondness for their old language. Not only the energy and power, but the intelligence and music of Europe have come mainly from Teutonic sources, and this glorification of everything Celtic, if it were not pedantry, would be sheer ignorance. The sooner all Welsh specialities disappear from the face of the earth the better.''
As Matthew Arnold, Professor of Poetry in Oxford remarked at the time, ``Behold England's difficulty in governing Ireland!''