Sammy McNally of this Parish has come up with a sensible suggestion. A regular post highlighting, well, highlights from the web.
Sammy is kicking things off although he appears to be a more avid Newsletter reader than Carrickally!
It was a week dominated by the reaction to the (excellent) BBC program – which you could be forgiven for thinking was about Gerry Adams – but was actually about the Disappeared…
Unionists did however take some time off from demanding Gerry’s resignation to complain about being force fed Irish stationery – “I’ve no time for the Irish language when it’s being shoved down your throat.”
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/regional/bi-lingual-boycott-by-dup-councillor-1-5633618
and Unionists also had time to complain about the other Gerry (Kelly) signing his new book
“I am totally disgusted. We have good community relations in Antrim that we have all been trying to build, so to bring a convicted terrorist ”
In the comments section – before the Newsletter removed it – someone had suggested that rather than Antrim having good community relations – “It was a wee black hole”.
Back to Gerry (Adams) – having perhaps sated itself in the preceeding weeks on the charges against Gerry’s (Adams) brother – and why that also meant Gerry had to go – Slugger was somewhat more reserved than might have been expected (by its own enthusiastic standards for criticising the Adams family) with only 5 posts on the subject (by Friday evening).
At times like these both Gerrys’ can normally find some tinternet succour over on Jude Collins’s site – and the boul Jude didn’t disappoint – sticking rigidily to the requirement for ‘proof’ of Gerry’s involvement in the IRA.
http://judecollinsjournalist.blogspot.co.uk/
(Note to Jude: Asking whether Gerry (Adams) was ever in the IRA is bit like asking if Alex Ferguson ever played for Manchester United)
…and the week finsished with some good news with wee Davey Ford the Minister for Peace Walls assuring everyone that the new Peace wall through the grounds of St Matthews Church was not actually a Peace wall at all – because it could could be retracted – and was only there for those occasions when projectiles were in transit in either direction.
My own contributions would be the following two pieces (BD):
"We in coming days may be" 
Looking forward to this as a regular series of must-reads. Great idea.
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I was reading the 1911 Irish Census online the other day (rock’n’roll!) as I was interested in the old townlands of the area in which I currently live. Turns out there were Presbyterian farmers in County Down in 1911 who could only speak Irish. The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.
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RJC, that’s interesting but to my mind highly unlikely. Farmers in any of the eastern Irish counties needed to sell produce at the towns around their areas and that was as likely to happen without at least some grasp of English as it is for an Indian selling stuff at Nutts Corner.
I’m beginning to wonder was there either a differing definition of Irish in the minds of the people and the census enumerators at the time (ie, we live on Ireland, we speak Irish whereas those in England speak English) or was the language they spoke at home with its accent and dialect so different from the standard English that it was starting to be classified as Irish, distinctly from Irish Gaelic?
There seem to be relatively few contemporaneous sources stating that Irish (as in Gaelic) was widely spoken on the streets and in the fields of eastern Ulster but yet there are headline grabbers such as a couple of years ago when it was suggested that whole streets in East Belfast spoke Irish (Gaelic). Something doesn’t seem to add up, even though I do accept that the past is a foreign country and one we can’t look at solely through our early-21st (or late 17th, delete as appropriate) century eyes.
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You’re almost certainly right there. County Down Gaelic died out long long ago. The idea there were monoglot Gaelic speakers in the Rathfriland district in 1911 is an unlikely one. Instead it’s likely many people thought ‘I live in Ireland – ergo I speak Irish’.
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You’re probably both correct, although there is no way of really knowing. I was looking at a digitised census form written over one hundred years ago. I can only go off what was written on that form, as I have no other historical facts at my fingertips.
This is what I looked at http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai002278455/
If you look at the census forms for all of the other people in the nearby area here http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Down/Rathfryland/Drumarkin/ you see that nobody else has listed ‘Irish’ in the ‘Irish Language’ section.
Now of course its entirely possible (probable?) that an incorrect entry was made. Carrickally has put forward a good case for the argument that no Irish speakers were living in this part of Ulster at the time. Feir Feirsteach has backed him up on this (its always nice when you guys agree)
I would argue that it is possible that there may have been Presbyterian Irish speakers living in this part of Ulster at the time. Has Ulster always been so bitterly divided since the Plantation? I know people have spoken before of whether there can be any ‘true pure blooded’ descendants of those original colonists. By 1911, both ‘sides’ had been living alongside one another for over 300 years, surely some aspects of one side must have rubbed off on the other? Is it really beyond reason to suggest that there may have been Presbyterian Irish speakers living in rural South Down in the early 20th Century?
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@carrickally,
Would that be like people stating in the 2011 census that they are “Northern Irish” when they really meant “Irish”? 😛
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BTW, I’m not keen on the Bluesletter at all. The Minister of Justice, as an aside, has on his south Antrim constituency leaflet a bit at the bottom with the doj’s email address on it. I’m pretty sure that’s not the done thing on constituency newsletters, is there anyone here who would know if he’s put himself out on a limb with that?
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What no mention of the story about the chairwoman of the pro-union NI21 party who also happens to be the daughter of a republican/IRA bomber?? Surely one of the most interesting and unconventional stories from Northern Ireland for a while. Seems odd to ignore it.
Also, I know the attempted murder attempt of a retired policeman and his 12 year daughter by republicans in East Belfast last night happened after you posted this article, but does the sustained assault of dissident republican violence which is ocurring on an almost daily basis now, not worthy of more concern and scrutiny, from yourself as a republican commentator?? I think the ongoing impact of this reverberates through all that is going on in Northern Irish society, yet it seems to be glossed over and minimized from lots of quarters.
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alphie, I think the glossing over of dissident incidents (the firebomb in Belfast being the most obvious example) shows that there is an equivalent to the RUC’s public relations/black propaganda unit out there in these modern times. I’d hazard a guess that it originates in the NIO/MI5 but with the (at the very least) tacit support of DoJ, PSNI, the rest of the Executive and their media reps.
If anyone’s going to break ranks, I would expect it to be the Police Federation.
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alphiedale,
A quick reply but I agree deserving of more,
Firstly, regarding the ongoing “dissident” campaign. No hesitation in condemning it outright. Same mindset as the fleggers, same prospect of success in achieving their aims.
The Chair of NI21, fair play to her and why wouldn’t she choose whatever political path she chooses. Indeed the sister of Siobhan O’Hanlon, a senior aide to Gerry Adams (now deceased) is one of the most rabidly anti republican commentators for the Independent News Group in Dublin.
I’ll return to this though in more detail- BD
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It was pure good luck that man happened to look under his car ….or was it? False flag operations and dirty tricks continue…but to what end?
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And the son of the editor of the Unionist-supporting Newsletter is the leader of the Fianna Fáil cumann in Belfast. Normalisation?
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Is this correct, a Shéamais?
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I had an interesting conversation with a Ballymoney potato farmer a couple of nights ago but found it hard keeping up with him; he wasn’t speaking English and he wasn’t just speaking with an affected accent, it was at the very least a dialect, at the most I was listening to an Ulster-Scots speaker. As I said, hard to keep up but was doing my best by speaking the way I still do to my great-uncle and used to speak to my granny, before she died (obviously we’re no longer on in communication).
My chum who was with me, who grew up in Belfast and now lives in London, said to me at the end, “Did you have a clue about any of that!?”
Anyway, I wonder if because that man’s dialect was so strong (and with the lack of communications between country areas a century ago) was there a recognition that English wasn’t really being spoken but it wasn’t articulated into the Ulster Scots tag that exists now?
If anyone has listened to the German recordings of British POWs in WW1, you’ll understand what I mean by drawing attention to poor communications and strong dialects; it’s a fantastic audio record of how people in the UK spoke a century ago before the advent of radio, TV, rapid private transport and real standardised schooling changed vast swathes of England especially into mono-linguistic areas. The same processes also happened in Germany and I’m sure (although don’t know for certain) in France, with the divisions in accent being split into North and South as an overarching “grouping” in all three.
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Carrick,
In Britain, before the railways arrived people would find it hard to understand someone from the next valley. Pesumably it was the same here and elsewhere.
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You seem to be entering a different realm here. If I was being unfair, I would suggest that your post is merely an effort to promote the notion that Ulster-Scots is indeed a real language. It isn’t. You claim that this potato farmer you spoke to “wasn’t speaking English”. What language was he speaking? I suspect he was speaking English.
English, it goes without saying, is a beautiful language. The English you hear spoken in Alabama will be enormously different to the English you hear spoken in Sheffield. They are still the same language though.
Carrickally – I appreciate that we are coming from different sides here, and that there is a degree to which we will always attempt to promote the narrative that best suits our position, but I feel you are being disingenuous. I made a post suggesting that there may have been Presbyterian Irish speakers in Down 100 years ago, and you respond with a post promoting Ulster-Scots.
I think that there is a cultural war going on in Northern Ireland at present. Let’s just hope that nobody gets killed.
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RJC, far from being disingenious, I’m actually talking about my first ever experience of having a conversation with someone who I believe to be a natural Ulster Scots speaker. The closest I could get to it was adopting a version of parlour English that I use with elderly relatives and even then it still didn’t get close enough to a fluent dialogue. For example, I had to look up muckle when I got home.
Perhaps you looking at at the different dictums thousands of miles away from each other betrays the fact that his tongue and mine were perhaps thirty miles apart. Is it similar to the, er, difference between Flemish and southern Dutch or Punjabi and Hindi rather than the vagaries caused by distance?
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There’s no doubt Ulster-Scots exist but is it a dialect or a language? That you were able to understand the potato-farmer might suggest the former.
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Ah, the old Ulster-Scots debate. This may be a conversation for the ‘Language Please!’ thread https://bangordub.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/language-please/ although is the linguistic status of Ulster-Scots even worthy of debate? Hmmm…
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alphiedale,
re. “What no mention of the story about the chairwoman of the pro-union NI21 ”
Dind’t see that – when did that break – link?
carrickally,
‘BluesLetter’ – are you suggesting that Linfield not only have an unfair advantage in revenues from Windsor Park but also in the media support they get?
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sammy, it has always been thus with the paper peacock. I picked up a copy of the Irish News last week and was saddened to see how much of their football coverage was about mainland teams, with a small preview of the CAS SF between Cliftonville and the unmentionables.
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Is anyone aware of any loyalist-paramiltary remembrace events our favoured unionist political reps can get outraged about?
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@Fear Feirsteach,
Peter Armstrong, leader of FF in Belfast, is reported to be the son of Rankin Armstrong the editor of the Belfast Newsletter. I’m happy to be corrected if anyone knows different 🙂
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Bangordub – I can’t tell you how good it feels at my stage to be referred to as ‘the bould’…I take your point re GA and IRA membership. I’d assume it’s a bit like the witness in the dock being asked ‘How do you plead?’ and knowing that if he says ‘Guilty’ it’s all over. ‘Not guilty’ is short-hand for saying we’ll fight this case. More important than any of that, however, is – why does it matter? Is it that critics are shocked he might have told a porky-pie? He’s always been 100% that he supports the IRA. What’s the big difference? You sometimes get the feeling his critics will next go after him for not trimming his beard in a way acceptable to all right-thinking people…
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Riddle me this: Gerry Adams is attacked for denying his past, Gerry Kelly for talking about his. Which is right and which is wrong, what do they want, weak or strong?
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The boul (silent ‘d’) Jude,
re. “have told a porky-pie? He’s always been 100% that he supports the IRA. What’s the big difference?”
I think (as still a fan of Adams) that when you are a leader of party and a party like SF (with a revolutionary past) you need to choose your words carefully – as Gerry does – but those words should also be chosen wisely – which Gerry’s words are not.
For ‘legal reasons’ alone Gerry is wise to avoid going into details – but what he says should at least be plausible and certainly not be oounter-productive. Gerry’s words fail both these tests – giving your political opponents a stick to beat you with is not a good idea – myself (and yourself?) will probably remain unmoved by Gerry’s failure to sound plausible I(we) are not the person(people) Gerry needs to convince.
A simple statement by Gerry – repeated whenever asked about his relationship with the IRA could run as follows – “I played a leading role in the Republican struggle and will be delighted to discuss that role in a fair and open forum when the makers and implementers of British policy in Ireland join me – e.g. Tony Blair and David Cameron.”
Why he was not advised along those lines continues to puzzle me and no doubt delights his enemeies and adversaries – including yer-man in the picture beside you above.
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I agree, Sammy. Adams needs to take control and place the questions he is being asked in a context of his choosing.
Q: “Mr. Adams, were you in the IRA? The Irish people demand a simple yes or no answer.”
A: “The Irish people know my record as an active Republican. I have never shied away from that or from my personal role in the freedom struggle nor will I. The proper place for the records of all of those whose lives were touched by the conflict is within a Truth and Reconciliation Forum. It is time for all of us to make peace with our past so that we may forge a new future for our nation and I and Sinn Féin will not be found wanting in that enterprise. The onus is now upon others, the two governments and the leaders of the Unionist community, to join us.”
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Yes, thats a bit better.
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