The ongoing struggle for #AchtAnois

An Dream Dearg #AchtAnois campaign is rooted in the ideals of language rights as human rights This campaign shone a light on the ongoing marginalisation of and inequality faced by the Irish language community in the north through an inspiring display of community activism at grassroots level; it calls for a stand-alone, comprehensive, rights-based Irish language act, something which was promised to the Irish language community in the north in the 2006 St. Andrew’s Agreement.

The absence of a legal framework or official status for Irish has been compounded by insults and attacks on the language, not from the margins, but from mainstream political parties. Without formal legal protection, Irish speakers in the north do not enjoy equal rights with Welsh speakers in Wales, Gaelic speakers in Scotland or other Gaeilgeoirí on this island. Yet despite the lack of progress on Irish language rights in the north, the language has survived and blossomed where its community-led revival draws national and international attention.

Decades of unfulfilled political commitments to the language became the catalyst for the foundation of the #AchtAnois campaign; the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) was to herald a new era of equality in the north. The GFA made the first positive commitments to the Irish language, but an 8 year delay in the fulfilment of the obligations outlined in the GFA led to the St. Andrew’s Agreement (SAA) of 2006.

The SAA gave rise to a new commitment to Irish, whereby the British Government promised to introduce an Irish language act which was to be based on the experience of Wales and the south of Ireland. Despite all of the above commitments, obstacles have consistently been placed in the way of any attempts to bring Irish ‘in from the cold’ and the Irish language community are still discriminated against.

The absence of bespoke legislation has meant that important decisions about Irish have been based on Ministerial preference, rather than a clear, legal framework. It has long provided those who oppose our rights with an excuse, albeit an unreasonable one, to continue to do so; because no law exists which officially recognises Irish, the denial of language rights has long been the norm.

2014 saw small, local campaigns taking centre stage and the first Lá Dearg (‘Red Day’) was organised, in which the Irish language community took centre stage in demanding rights, recognition and respect for the language. It is a clear indication that those in power have failed us when we must take to the streets to demand basic rights, but this protest was the first here to highlight the lack of equality and rights for the Irish language community.

From these seeds, activists reconvened in 2016 due to a frustration at the lack of progress that had been made in relation to Irish language rights. Despite our numerous attempts, 10 years of power sharing had failed to deliver the equality promised in most of our main peace agreements. It became clear that we needed a permanent solution to the way in which the state were dealing with Irish; organically, activists from across the north began coming together and An Dream Dearg’s #AchtAnois campaign was born.

Unsurprisingly, and in true DUP nature, we didn’t have long to wait until our campaign took centre stage; the Communities Minister at the time, Paul Givan, decided to remove a £50,000 grant from the Líofa bursary scheme which enabled children from the most disadvantaged areas to attend summer Gaeltacht colleges due to “efficiency savings”. Gaeltacht college boards were informed of this decision on the 23rd December, and the e-mail was signed off wishing them a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The removal of such a simple, small-scale grant by the DUP mirrored by the millions of pounds that same party squandered through a Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) demonstrated the crass nature in which the NI executive was facilitating the exclusion of Irish speakers in the era of ‘equality and rights’ promised under the GFA.

On 6th January 2017, we launched our campaign online, calling on people to show their support for our #AchtAnois (Act now) campaign. We had two short-term aims;

1. To have language rights viewed as human rights;
2. To give a voice to our community through the use of videos and social media.

Our first port of call under the community campaign banner of An Dream Dearg was to challenge Paul Givan’s decision to remove the Líofa bursary grant. We used our social media platform to promote our first protest at the Department for Communities (DfC) Headquarters in Belfast City Centre, which was scheduled for the 12th January 2017. The morning of our planned protest, almost as if by magic, Minister Givan ‘found’ the necessary funds to reinstate the bursary; however, as far as we were concerned, the damage was done.

We, along with hundreds of activists, staged our first protest outside the DfC to publicly challenge the initial decision to remove the bursary and to demonstrate that we were no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens in this state.The Líofa bursary proved a crucial turning point in our long-standing campaign for language rights, both politically and socially; not only did it contribute significantly to Stormont’s 3 year collapse in 2017 and catapulted Irish into the centre of the political discourse here, but it also highlighted the power of this inspiring, organised display of activism at grassroots level.

Since then, our campaign has been a vehicle for challenging the inequality (be it within local councils, in education, within the Irish-medium youth sector) that our community still faces. As a campaign, we have clearly set out our demands for a rights-based Irish Language Act in a manner which has encouraged participation and support from all those who wish to engage with Irish, irrespective of their background. Not only this, but whilst our campaign calls for rights, recognition and respect for the Irish language, we believe firmly in rights for all. We have consistently stood with others who are marginalised in their respective demands for equality.

Our campaign reached perhaps its most significant milestone to date in January 2020 with the publication of the New Decade, New Approach (NDNA) deal, which restored the NI Assembly. The Irish language legislation was a cornerstone commitment to that agreement and the basis for the institutions being re-established. This deal provided a good starting point for change because for the first time in a state which has historically discriminated against the Irish language community, the Irish language was recognised and would exist in law.

Be that as it may, it did fall far short of what was promised in the internationally binding SAA and in line with all previous political agreements, it has been subject to significant delays. All parties signed up to the NDNA agreement on the basis of its full implementation but following an impasse at Stormont, the Secretary of State, Brandon Lewis gave a public commitment in June to enact the Irish language legislation at Westminster by October 2021 if Stormont failed to do so before September 2021. Both deadlines have since passed. Almost 700 days on from the agreement, the Irish language community are still waiting to have their rights enshrined in law.

It is a source of much frustration that our rights are once again being held to ransom at the hands of those who stand in the way of forming a progressive, rights-based society. Yet in spite of the failings and delays, we take great pride in knowing that we have a vibrant, active community who will stand with us every step of the way in our continued fight for rights, recognition and respect for the Irish. The demand for an Irish language act comes from the understanding that there is a growing community of speakers who deserve to have their right to use and see their language protected by law. Any demand for equality, be it linguistically, socially, or culturally, is not excessive. A right delayed is a right denied and when the rights of the Irish language community have been denied for so long, simply affording them seems a fairly moderate request.