BREAKING: Irish language activists stage rush-hour takeover of new Grand Central Station

IRISH language activists took over the concourse of the £350 million new Grand Central Station in Belfast city centre today in a rush-hour protest over the lack of dual language signage.

The first bus left the new station on Sunday morning, but news of the first journeys from the huge new state-of-the-art transport hub was overshadowed by an angry row over the exclusion of the Irish language from the station.

The single world ‘Fáilte’ is included in a small feature displaying the word for ‘Welcome’ in a number of global languages, but that’s being viewed as tokenistic and an insult.

A 70-foot red banner bearing the symbol of the Irish language lobby group An Dream Dearg was laid on the floor of the station while around 200 protesters of all ages chanted calls for the Irish language to be respected by Translink at Grand Central while singing the traditional Irish song Óró sé do bheatha abhaile

Commuters looked on as speeches were made and musicians played traditional music. Calls were made for Infrastructure Minister John O’Dowd to intervene and order Translink to erect bilingual signage. In April this year Belfast City Council passed a motion calling on Translink to erect dual language signage at the new transport hub, the largest in Ireland.

Eoghan Ó Gairmile, from An Dream Dearg, said: “We were bitterly disappointed to see the new Grand Central station launched on Monday without any dual language provision.

"The Irish language community has been engaging with Translink and the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) since 2022 to ensure dual-language signage was factored into the design phase as early as possible, to avoid any future retrospective costs of adding additional signage.

“Translink have continuously deflected and ignored their obligations in providing dual language provision. First of all they told us they couldn’t do anything without direction from a Minister, then when the Minister advised them to go ahead, they told us they couldn’t do so without an Irish language Commissioner. In addition to that Ministerial advice, we had Belfast City Council passing a motion in favour of bilingual signage.”

He added: “The Minister must now intervene and ensure this multi-million monolingual monolith is transformed into an all-island beacon of equality based on mutual respect for both the Irish language and the English language, side by side.”

Earlier this week, Minister O’Dowd said he is “confident” that the Irish language signage row at the new Grand Central Station “can be resolved”.