Opinion

Newton Emerson: DUP has failed to de-dramatise Irish language debate

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

Arlene Foster, pictured at her party's annual conference last month has done nothing to prepare the DUP grassroots for a shift towards accepting Irish language legislation. Picture by Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press
Arlene Foster, pictured at her party's annual conference last month has done nothing to prepare the DUP grassroots for a shift towards accepting Irish language legislation. Picture by Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press Arlene Foster, pictured at her party's annual conference last month has done nothing to prepare the DUP grassroots for a shift towards accepting Irish language legislation. Picture by Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press

THE lack of an Irish language act is not why Stormont collapsed, nor is such legislation considered sufficient to put devolution back together again.

However, it has become such a totemic obstacle to restoring Stormont that if the DUP was able to move on it, Sinn Féin would be expected to follow.

It should be a relief in these complex times to have a problem so straightforward to solve.

One well-understood issue holds the key to unlocking all the deadlocks in Northern Ireland politics.

Even Brexit would be simpler to address - or at least discuss - with a functioning assembly, executive and North-South Ministerial Council.

Minds are already turning to the restoration timetable set out in last month's Executive Formation Act, which creates a window for talks from January to March, with allowance for a one-off extension to August, followed if all else fails by an election.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern believes the January to March schedule has an outside possibility of success.

He may be the only person in Ireland to think so but his experience of DUP-Sinn Féin deals deserves some respect.

Secretary of state Karen Bradley emphasised the five-month extension during a grilling last week by sceptical members of the public.

Realistically, this odd feature of the Act can only have been included with the expectation of needing it.

However, specific emphasis must remain on the Irish language issue, otherwise no amount of time will be enough.

DUP leader Arlene Foster, in her party conference speech two weeks ago, referred to the need for "a new cultural deal for everyone in Northern Ireland that respects difference and fosters understanding".

This remark must be seen as a decidedly mixed blessing.

A 'cultures act' combining Irish, Ulster-Scots and other issues - possibly parading - is the only idea the DUP leader has ever had to sell Irish language legislation to unionists.

She began preparing DUP supporters for this approach after the shock 2017 assembly election, when Sinn Féin came within 1,000 votes of surpassing her party.

Trading Ulster-Scots for Irish was a hard sell - most unionists have little respect for the hamely tongue.

An absurd dispute blew up over whether new language laws should be packaged together or standalone - a dispute driven purely by pride on both sides.

Then the 2017 Westminster election restored the DUP's cockiness, distracted its attention and fresh thinking on the problem lost momentum.

The DUP and Sinn Féin managed to fudge the standalone question in this February's draft Stormont deal, as well as addressing legitimate concerns about compulsion and job discrimination, only for the DUP to pull out at the last moment when it realised it still had not done enough to sell it to its base.

In fact, it had done virtually nothing and there is no evidence it has laid any groundwork since.

So for Foster to slap exactly the same idea back in front of party members, minus even February's fudge, is a counsel of despair.

Two days before the conference, Peter Robinson once again made some pointed remarks about the leadership of the DUP, then insisted those remarks were not pointed at the leader of the DUP.

Even in political retirement, straight talking has its limits.

He referred to Irish as a "such a small issue" compared to the policing and justice dispute that last blocked Stormont, requiring the 2006 St Andrews and 2010 Hillsborough Castle agreements to resolve.

Not everyone will share this perspective - cultural questions have arguably become more emotive than policing was a decade ago.

However, de-dramatising Irish language legislation is a badly-needed addition to the unionist conversation and it is lamentable the DUP itself has not pursued it with any conviction.

Robinson also said: "I couldn't care less about the Irish language. Let them speak it until they are green, white and orange in the face, as long as it doesn't encroach on me."

This dramatically rude de-dramatisation might not sound like a positive contribution but it was a necessary correction to the only idea wider society has ever had to sell unionists the Irish language - namely, that it is part of our shared heritage and we should all learn to love it.

Pleasant though that thought may be in theory, it is never going to work in practice.

Irish is a nationalist project and the vast majority of unionists will always see it that way. Getting them to see it as no skin off their nose is the DUP's challenge.

newton@irishnews.com