Leading figures add their names to open letter calling for immediate implementation of Irish language legislation

LEADING figures from sport, education, business and law in Northern Ireland have added their names to an open letter calling for the immediate implementation of Irish language legislation.

More than 1,000 people have signed the letter expressing their “deep concerns regarding the persisting failure” to introduce the Irish Language Act following decades of delay.

In the open letter published in The Irish News today, the signatories are calling on the British and Irish governments and political parties in the assembly “to recommit to supporting Irish language rights”.

It comes after the British government said it will not bring forward Irish language legislation at Westminster before May’s assembly election.

Secretary of State Brandon Lewis told MPs it would not be “right or proper to introduce it in the election period”. It was originally expected he would introduce the legislation before the end of the assembly mandate, which has just ended.

The legislation was to have been part of a cultural package that would also have included Ulster Scots and would give the language official status, allow the use of Irish in courts and see the appointment of commissioners for Irish and Ulster Scots.

In the letter addressed to the co-guarantors of the New Decade New Approach Agreement, British and Irish governments and all political parties in the assembly, more than 1,000 people are calling on them to “honour their agreements”.

The letter has been signed by a wide range of leading figures, from academia, sport, law, business, education, media and the community, including boxer Michael Conlan, GAA stars Neil McManus, Cathy Carey and Rory Grugan and singer Gráinne Holland.

The 2021 Turner Prize winners Emma Campbell and Stephen Millar from the Array Collective, community Irish language activist Linda Ervine and renowned academics Professor Alan Titley and Professor Phil Scraton have also added their signatures.

They say in the letter that the “ongoing failure to implement an Irish Language Act is ultimately a dereliction of duty to the thousands of families, friends, teachers, pupils and students, workers, youth clubs, sports clubs, businesses who require the support that only legislative action can bring”.

“Community confidence in the ability of the governments, and our devolved institutions, to deliver Irish language legislation is now incredibly low,” the letter states.

“Once again we are left with more high profile agreements and more empty promises.”

Conchúr Ó Muadaigh, spokesperson for the Irish language campaigning network An Dream Dearg, said: "Our community was promised a new era of equality in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

"That ‘resolute action’ for the Irish language has never been realised.

"Time and time again our rights have been denied, vetoed and obstructed by the DUP and others who have yet to accept Irish speakers as equal members of society.

"Today’s letter is a firm display of community support for our campaign for language rights. People have had enough of the empty promises and false dawns.

"It is entirely reasonable for people to expect governments to keep to their word and deliver on commitments, deadlines and obligations they have given.

“Our campaign is calling time on the continuous marginalisation of our language and our community.”

Mr Ó Muadaigh said the British government “must fulfill their own promises and commitments without any further delay”.

“Not only are they co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement and St Andrew’s, they, alongside the Irish government, are also co-authors of this Irish language legislation published as a cornerstone component of New Decade New Approach,” he added.

"This issue remains an urgent litmus test for the British government and our political institutions.

“Language rights originally promised in 2006 must finally be delivered, implemented and respected.”