Are our ‘shared’ spaces really ‘shared’?

I’m sure there are few people who hadn’t followed the toxic media narrative surrounding the proposal to erect bilingual signage at Olympia Leisure Centre in recent months. Newspaper and media headlines were dominated by misinformation [claims of ‘Irish language signage’, rather than shared, bilingual signage which would place Irish beside English] partnered with a narrow focus on the profile of a particular area of ‘local’ residents [despite no specific definition from the Council as to what exactly constitutes ‘local’].

‘Controversial Irish language sign proposal for Olympia Leisure Centre out for public consultation.’ - Belfast Telegraph

‘Sympathy for residents over Irish-language sign row.’ - The Newsletter

The BBC got in on the act by going out of their way to include numerous union jacks on lamposts, not directly outside the leisure centre mind you, on their segment on the story thus reinforcing what ‘area’ these pesky Irish speakers wanted their signs.

Olympia Leisure centre has been designated as a city-wide facility by Belfast City Council; it is a shared space, used by a broad range of people from across the city and beyond. It is located on Boucher Road, also a well recognised shared space. It should not and must not be viewed through the narrow, segregated prism of one section of local users, as “local” users come from right across the city.

One Irish-medium primary is just over a mile away and another regularly uses the facility. In this context and in an era where there is increasing political and societal support for the language, there is nothing controversial about shared, bilingual signage in a shared, public space.

The 14 week long public consultation finally concluded earlier this month and will soon be followed by a report which will make a series of recommendations, based on the findings, as to whether or not the Council should proceed with bilingual English/Irish signage or stick with a monolingual approach.

It’s worth noting that a previous consultation was conducted on the 4 city-wide leisure centres and it demonstrated significant demand and support (60%) for bilingual signage at Olympia Leisure Centre. Given this, we questioned the need for a further consultation and we may be forgiven for not being too optimistic about the report which will follow this most recent consultation; the previous consultation report also notes that there were no specific concerns or objections raised about bilingual signage at Olympia…

… Until a petition signed by 573 ‘local residents’ was received by the Council after the consultation had closed which strongly opposed bilingual signage. One would expect that the Council would disregard this baseless petition given that it was received after the consultation had already closed, they chose to prioritise and legitimise it; they ignored those who indicated their preference for bilingual signage and allowed the oppositional petition to dictate their policy.

It is on this basis that the current consultation is being conducted; a DUP call-in claimed that bilingual signage at Olympia Leisure could amount to an adverse impact on certain sections of the community. The solicitor providing the legal advice found this claim to have merit, suggesting that someone could be negatively impacted because they have to look at Irish alongside English, a provision which is in keeping with the recommendations of numerous international treaties, charters and agreements, not to mention Councils own commitment to ‘increase visibility of the language’.

It’s a tough pill to swallow that in an era of incoming Irish language legislation after a powerful community-led campaign, the Irish language community still find themselves having to legitimise their very existence to those who are deeply and bitterly opposed to the language.

This is our reality. Leading public institutions have fostered a culture of inaction and obstruction in the hope that with the passing of time, opposition to the language would lessen or that calls for proactive measures to support the language would dwindle. However, it has had the very opposite effect.

Inaction over decades hasn’t fostered increased tolerance of the language from those opposed to it. Furthermore, if it is not tolerable to see the language in Olympia are we safe to speak it? What does a shared space or shared society mean if there is no place for Irish?

It is time for a new approach.